Jon Crispin's Notebook

Last Saturday at the Amherst Farmer’s Market Cris bought a raffle ticket for the 4th Annual Fort River Celebration Day Rubber Ducky Derby. It was in support of the Hitchcock Center and the Rushing Rivers Institute.   Hey, $5.00; goes to a good cause.  On our way to the event today she couldn’t find the stub from the form, but she thought our number was 426.  When we got to Goff park, we checked the list and we were actually #258 which is a favorite number of ours.  I was kind of impatient for the off,  and as usual making rude comments to Cris.  The organizers were telling all the kids to make lots of noise during the race so once the ducks hit the water, I started yelling 258  258 258 258…….Cris got as far away from me as she could.

We hadn’t seen our entry before the race and from a distance they all looked the same anyway.  Once the winners were collected and brought to the shore, the organizers (with great fanfare) announced the winners.  #251 came in first,  then second and third were announced.  The prizes were things we didn’t care much about, but 4th prize was a free canoe or kayak rental from Adventure Outfitters.  Then they read the number and it was……258!  We yelled like we had just won the lottery and as we were the only winners present, got a huge round of cheers.

So here’s the winner.  They gave it to us to bring home.  Some of the paint has worn off, so I am guessing this isn’t its first race.  I like the Islands motif.  We went to the ABC after and each had a Guinness to celebrate.