Saturday, May 14, 2022
My father, Melvin Nielson and Jerry were business associates and friends. So much so that since we lived on Lake Margrethe in Grayling and Jerry had a nice speed boat, my dad offered that he could moor his boat at our dock. Jerry said fine and of course we could use his boat whenever to return the favor.
At the time I was dating a beauty queen and had the idea that it would be fun to spend the day out on the water. We took Jerry's boat and anchored across the lake from Danish Landing by the sand hill. When it came time to head in I decided to impress my date so I powered up the boat to full throttle to speed home. Suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw something shooting up out of the water to my right. Apparently I had been so distracted by her beauty that I had forgotten to pull up the anchor! It rose like a ballistic missile and when it reached the end of the anchor rope, way overhead, it started coming down at us. Yelling "DUCK" was the only thing I could think of to do. The flying anchor came slamming down and stuck into the hull of Jerry's boat!
Thankfully no one was hurt (my ego was bruised) but my date was so worried that we were going to get into big trouble. I did have to tolerate all the kidding from both my dad and from Jerry, who was actually very nice about the whole thing.
And the end of the story? Believe it or not, my date agreed to marry me!!!
Sincere condolences, Dale and Barbara Nielson
