Arthur and I went out on the boat, seeking fish. We met no fish.
But we met this barge going up the inlet.
It turned out the barge was heading to our slightly antisocial neighbor’s house, where he has been hoping to install a dock. We knew at least this much, because we received a notification from the Army Corps of Engineers about the intention to do so, which is, I guess, a legal requirement that neighbors of such projects be notified.
They spent the day trying to pound metal poles into the beach with giant hydraulic hammers.
And then the barge guys left, and the neighbor remained dockless. We didn’t actually talk to the neighbor (because of aforementioned antisociality), but Arthur speculated that his beach was too rocky, and that the effort to install a dock had failed.
I felt alarm and a substantial empathy. It can’t possibly have been cheap for the neighbor to hire the barge people to come out and work at his beach. Did it really fail? Wouldn’t the neighbor feel anger and resentment over this failure – looking over Arthur, with his pleasant dock just a hundred meters down the shore…. did this story really have this ending?
I guess we will find out more, later. But I feel badly.