One Second

As children develop a sense of humor along and along, many will get around to playing the following gambit. A few years ago, a young neighbor called me over and I responded, "Give me a second". Before I could turn my head, I heard the count begin. "One Mississippi...."

Ah, the clever little comic literalist.

I guess most of us still toss off a "give me a second" or "give me a minute" even in this age of milliseconds, or rather nanoseconds. Not sure anyone is calling out "give me a few nanoseconds". Maybe the phrase works for physicists, maybe even as a punchline.

How I got a second on the brain came the other day in the kitchen. Nope, I wasn't watching a countdown on the microwave. By the way, apropos of nothing, I usually wait for the bell to sound. Yes, very nearly always.

No, I was looking at a row of 16-ounce glasses lined up like soldiers across the top of my cabinets. These dust-collectors are trophies for weekly summer evening sailboat races in Charleston. And I fixed on the second one from the left for a second place finish our first race on my Pearson 26OD  Lun'R'Sea.

Of course, I didn't choose that name, but I was--am--superstious enough to keep a boat's name unless she is christened something lewd or complete nonsense.

I might have preferred LunaSea. But only a little.

Now about that second place finish--it was by one second on corrected time.

I'll spare the vast percentage of the disinterested the vagaries of a sailboat handicapping system relative to on the water realities. Suffice to say, our finish computed to a second place by one second. 

One second. After around 6 miles of sailing, at least as the gull flies. And here's the juicy little morsel to still set my teeth on edge. The winning boat was a boat I raced on for 8 years. Same skipper, same core crew. More than 150 races together.

Yep, we came within--well the list is long for the finish. I lost that race to my former mates with a conservative start. I lost that race every time I lost my focus on driving the boat. I lost that race every time I stood up to look around the headsail just to make sure of the input I was getting. 

We lost that race each time a crew member stepped across the boat or went forward of the mast. We lost that race on every wind shift, no matter how great or minimal. We lost that race on how the bow sliced through a wave. We lost that race on every mark rounding. We lost that race on every tack. We lost that race on our tactics. 

We lost that second over and over and over and over and over again.

One second. One Mississippi--