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Poppy Festival PART2 – DERPALOPALUS


I don't care for boats, or being on the water and despite that I've spent all day helping my wife do the booth for the UnitedStates Power Squadrons. An organization that I always felt was very uncool. Yup! I said it. It's a bunch of old men playing like they are military people... okay so that's not fair but it boils down the the following: I never liked fraternal organizations, not one bit.

But really, what does being cool have to do with anything? This is a serious group. That's great, but good luck getting new members from the younger generation. Without the newer generation it has no future or at least a very bleak one.

Yet, despite all that... but it does some really good work out there.

It's primary mission is 'Safe Boating through Education'. Which again, I take with a gain of salt because I don't care about boats or boating. But as my wife explained it to newbies whom don't own boats but are looking to get one, 'It's like Drivers Ed for your boat.' this concept REALLY CLICKED with the people who don't already know about boats! You could see their eyes light up as they gained understanding from those simple words.

I later started expanding on that to help her pitch, 'You take drivers ed before you start driving a car. Why don't you take safe boating class before you get a boat in the water?'

There's no good answer to that, especially when said people wreck their boat and/or injure innocent boaters who do know that they are doing.

That was the pitch, and it worked several times. Day 1 of 2, we brought in more than one would expect to find at a Boat Show. In fact, it over-performed.

The expectations were that this place had no boating.

Guess what?

It does.

Another expectation... everyone's into power-boating, no one cares about sailing anymore.

Guess what?

No one asked about power boating, EVERY DAMN PERSON WANTED A SAILING CLASS.
That's right, Antelope Valley is full of people who want to take classes on SAIL BOATS and these people have for the most part been ignored until now. Well, I can't name names or give out exact numbers, but we over-performed and no less than ten people wanted to look at the USPS.org website.
In short, DERP.