A Boating History

In the 1960s, sometime around his 50th birthday, my dad bought a boat. A halfcentury later, I still don’t know why. We were not boating people.

But I was a teenager and a speedy little boat with a big outboard motor and a pair of water skis seemed like a great idea to me. After all, the families of many of our friends in the South Carolina Upstate were buying boats in those days so they could take them out onto Lake Hartwell in futile attempts to beat the summer heat.

My family made a discovery during our boating years. No matter how much we enjoyed our time on the water, we didn’t mix well with boats. We had a hard time keeping them afloat.

That first boat Dad brought home was about 14 feet long, made of wood and could easily tow skiers. There was only one problem: we had nowhere to store it and its shiny new trailer. There wasn’t space to park it in front of our house and it wouldn’t fit in our steep driveway without the risk of an unexpected downhill dash into the woods.

So, my father cut a deal to board our boat in the carport at my uncle’s house. In return, my uncle and our teenaged cousins could use the boat when they wanted. That meant that just about every time we went boating, my teenaged cousins came along.

The first time we went out on a small local lake for a test run, things went swimmingly. We had a fine day: beer was consumed by the adults, the teenagers managed to avoid breaking any bones and everybody got a nice bright sunburn.

But things quickly took a turn. A few Saturdays later, when we hauled boat and trailer back to the lake, we got our first taste of boating trouble.

These Days

end of a much larger boat. I have a vivid memory of my cousins and brother diving from our boat as my father and I wrestled over the steering wheel, each of us thinking we could somehow convince our boat not to hit the much fancier one it was aiming for. We failed. The bigger boat – a beautiful wooden Chris-Craft in my memory – sustained no noticeable damage. Our boat sank.

Joe Earle is editor-at-large and has lived in metro Atlanta for over 30 years. He can be reached at joeearle@ reporternewspapers.net

Everything worked fine at first. We launched the craft from the trailer and everyone walked out a long floating dock and climbed aboard. Dad was driving, or whatever you call it when you’re at the steering wheel of a boat. I was in the front passenger’s seat. My cousins and brother were arrayed in seats behind us.

When Dad gave the engine some gas, instead of heading toward open water, the boat veered toward the wooden dock, which we managed to hit as we picked up speed. We cut a nice gash into the side of the boat.

That was disconcerting, but when we examined the hole, we determined that it was well above the waterline, so we figured no real harm had been done. After spending hours towing the boat to the lake and getting it into the water, we weren’t about to give up that easily, so we decided to go ahead and ski and have repairs made later.

This time, when Dad gave the engine some gas, our little boat took off in a hurry. And it veered again – this time, right into the back

So we got another boat.

Boat Number Two was a step up. It was longer than our first boat by a foot or two. It was made from Fiberglas. It came with a bigger outboard engine. And it had fins, like a ’56 or ’57 Chevy. It was built to move at high speed across the water.

We teenagers loved it, of course. We went skiing every chance we could. We took to the lake on Saturdays, Sundays, any weekday we could take off school or, in the summers, work. We now were old enough (say 16 or 17) that our parents trusted us to take the boat out without adult supervision.

That worked fine until one hot afternoon when, after a long day of skiing, we loaded the boat onto the trailer for the hot, tiresome drive back to my cousins’ house. There were four of us and we had made loading and unloading the boat a four-boy job. One of us backed the car to position the trailer in the water and on the loading ramp. Another cranked the metal cable that pulled the boat from the water onto to the trail. The other two tied the boat down, attaching the straps that held boat to trailer.

On this Saturday, someone forgot to tie the boat down. That was no problem until we hit the highway back to town. As we turned from a side road onto the highway, the boat slipped off its trailer. Both boat and trailer remained attached to our car, so as the car moved up to highway speed, boat and trailer bounced along behind.

When we realized what was happening and stopped to examine the boat, we saw the fiberglass bottom had been scraped away. What had been the boat’s watertight hull was now little more than a collection of holes. We could look straight through them to the asphalt below.

So we got another boat.

Our third boat was even fancier than the second. It was again longer by a foot or two, wider by a foot or two and had a sunken seating area molded into the bow so passengers could ride there a get a better view. It came with an even bigger outboard engine than the others and was designed for skiing. We teenagers thought it was the classiest thing we’d ever seen. We skied all over Lake Hartwell in that boat.

But, as they say, all things must pass. So, too, did our boat. And like our second boat, the third boat met its maker on land. We were driving through the Clemson University campus when we noticed a boat passing us on the right.

“That looks just like our boat,” I said.

Everyone looked over.

“It is our boat,” someone replied.

“And it’s moving faster than we are,” I said.

It was passing us on the right. In other words, while we were on the road, it was not. The trailer had somehow become detached from the car and had rolled onto the shoulder of the road. Now it was speeding along by itself. As we slowed to watch, it passed us, heading rapidly towards a small, cinder-block box the university had built for use as temporary housing.

All I could think was that at the speed our boat was moving, it would take out that little house and all inside. Luckily, at the last second, it hit a bump and was diverted back onto the road so that it was now racing along in front of us. Now we just had to worry about it hitting other cars. After a couple of minutes, it rolled through a stop sign, somehow dodging traffic as it went, and smashed head-on into a telephone pole.

So we got another boat.

By then, my cousins and I were moving on to summer jobs and distant colleges that kept us too busy or too far from home to use the boat very often. It was left to gather dust in my uncle’s carport. Eventually, one of my cousins sold it.

Our boating days were done.

No doubt about it, CBD is a hot commodity.

The compound shows up more and more in products sold at pharmacies and health-food stores and in a variety of forms. CBD shops are popping up along streets, in malls and online. It’s touted as a way to cure, or at least help with, everything from pain or depression to high blood pressure and acne.

“There are hundreds and hundreds of companies that have come out of the woodwork—in the last six months, even the last year—with all kinds of CBD products,” said Little Five Points pharmacist Ira Katz.

“You can find everything from tinctures to gummies to topical balms and roll-ons. It’s all over the board,” he said, adding that he’s “worried about what we don’t know,” when it comes to CBD.

What is CBD?

Health journalists, researchers and pharmacists admit confusion about its efficacy and misunderstood name, making today’s CBD conversations livelier than ever. According to the National Library of Medicine, CBD’s ‘real’ (or generic) name is cannabidiol. It is a member of the anticonvulsant drug class—one of many chemicals found in the Cannabis sativa plant.

CBD is an essential component of medical marijuana, but only when it’s above 0.3% in potency. Although industrial hemp and marijuana are both varieties of cannabis, they have been bred for different uses and can be distinguished by their chemical and genetic compositions. The addictive part of marijuana is a different chemical compound called THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, according experts.

“What many people don’t realize,” say several University of Washington (UW) researchers in a recent opinion article, “is that a CBD concentration of higher than 0.3% is labeled as cannabis”— [and] “those that produce less than that are labeled as hemp.”

Benefits of CBD

There are a lot of claims about what CBD can do for people. The main benefit is pain relief. Marijuana has been used for to relieve pain for centuries, and CBD is the component responsible for its pain-relieving effects. It’s known to help reduce anxiety and depression and to alleviate high blood pressure and cancer-related symptoms, such as nausea and vomiting.

CBD has also been studied in the treatment of neurological orders, like epilepsy, and mental disorders, including schizophrenia, as well as substance abuse. There are some indications that it can prevent diabetes and the spread of cancerous tumors, and even reduce acne.

This all sounds great, but there’s no question that more research is needed to substantiate all these claims.

The advice “buyer beware,” can be heard from credible medical and pharmaceutical experts around Georgia. Magazines, newspapers and all types of media are promoting CBD products with little or no data revealing their ingredients. At the same time, increased questions about CBD products abound. Concerns focus on three items: Is it safe? Is it addictive? Is it legal?

Is CBD safe?

Does CBD mix well with other pills or ointments? This is especially important for older

Continued on page 14 adults, who may be taking certain prescribed medications.

The best advice is to ask your primary care provider before adding anything to the mix of medications you may be taking. Check with your pharmacist, too. At the moment, it looks like the “Wild, Wild West” out there.

Keep in mind that while CBD is considered to be safe, and is generally well tolerated by most people, there are some side effects. Study subjects have experienced diarrhea, fatigue and changes in their weight and appetites.

It can also interact with other medications, so…again…be sure to talk with your physician before using CBD oil.

Is CBD addictive?

CBD is not “known” to be addictive, said Dr. Peter Ginspoon, a Harvard Health Blog contributing editor. “While CBD is a component of marijuana (one of hundreds), by itself it does not cause a ‘high’.”

According to a 2018 World Health Organization Critical Review Report, “In humans, CBD exhibits no effects indicative of any abuse or dependence potential.”

But, it’s likely not a cure-all either, according to many U.S. experts. “Public education on the topic has been absent to date (along with) the safety of the CBD products people are buying,” state the UW researchers in their ‘op’ article.

The main thing to remember is CBD and TCH are chemically NOT the same thing.

Is CBD legal?

First of all, is hemp legal? Short answer is “yes,” in Georgia, “sort of” or maybe? But, don’t plan on growing it in your back yard. Only growers licensed by the Georgia Department of Agriculture (GDA) are permitted to grow and process hemp in Georgia.

Period.

The GDA is working on how licensing will take place. As of this writing, no licenses have been issued. In a 2019 Public Broadcasting interview with “On Second Thought,” Allen Peake, former Georgia State Representative, who pioneered much of the legislation regarding hemp and CBD, was asked about this newer hemp legislation.

“The fact that now that hemp oil or CBD oil is now a potential food additive ... scares me a little bit, because you don’t know exactly what you’re getting,” Peake said.

Peake cautioned older folks to “make sure you know what’s in that product [before purchasing it]. Be very careful.”

In testing CBD compounds, many products were found to not contain the levels of CBD they claimed to contain, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Over the past several years, FDA has issued several warning letters to firms that market unapproved new drugs that allegedly contain CBD ... It is important to note that the FDA does not approve these products for the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of any disease.

Consumers should beware.

Talk to your pharmacist

Katz explained that there are many companies on the internet— hundreds, maybe thousands—that are offering CBD, with not much (or any) regulations. “I’m leery of that,” he said. “These companies are manufacturing products without any regulation or control. I recognized the value of CBD early on, but it should be from a qualified company that does the assays, the testing and one that’s regulated.”

He emphasized that people should talk to their pharmacists. “There are some companies doing a great job,” Katz said. “Those are the companies to seek out.”