We welcome your opinions and letters — with name and address. We will edit when necessary. Include your name, address and phone number for verification. Mail them to Bay Weekly, P.O. Box 358, Deale, MD 20751 • E-mail them to us at [email protected].

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Sailor Maureen Miller Wrote Truly

Dear Bay Weekly:
I offer a “Well Done” to sailor Maureen Miller for her excellent article, “Sailing For the Finish Line” in the July 22-28 Bay Weekly [Vol. XII, No. 30]. The article was informative, exciting and well researched.

As one who drives from North Beach to Solomons to sail a Pearson 32, Lickety Split, on Wednesday nights, I enjoyed every word of the quotes from Skip Zahnizer and Clarke McKinney, SMSA’s race governor. It was interesting to learn about other clubs racing on Wednesday nights.

The shenanigans of which Skip Zahnizer speaks are not over entirely. The Wednesday night race immediately following the three-day Screwpile Lighthouse Challenge event is always a fun race, without serious scoring. Glen Scott, usually at the helm of Scott-Free, a Wilderness 30, sets up this race year after year. One year Glen’s committee handed out paddles to crews, who had to paddle their boats across the start line with sails on deck. The paddles had to be handed to Race Committee after the finish or the boat would not be scored. There are fun trophies for the three boats that acquire the most number of non-serious points.

Last Wednesday, the Fun Race night, one leg of the race was run under power and another leg allowed as many sails as the crew could raise. Lickety Split stuck with a main and a spinnaker. For additional points, boats could do a 360-degree turn in view of the race committee and a man-overboard drill, which didn’t require that crew swim back to their own boat. Of course the race committee is always bribed with beer that will be consumed after the boats are back at the docks, but a score is kept with some beers ranking higher than others, RC’s choice. This year, extra points were earned by protesting other boats with made-up rules. Lickety Split’s crew protested their own skipper for giving away all the beer to Race Committee.

Wednesday Night racing and weekend racing is a part of my life from April into September, when our last Wednesday night, No. 20, is September 8.

—Kendra Palmer, North Beach

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Burton’s Off on Evil

Dear Bay Weekly:
Money is not the root of all evil. Money is just a thing we use to measure value. It’s the love of money, wrote Paul and Timothy to the people of Philippi. Evil springs from emotions and not from stuff (unless the stuff is rotten). And love is an emotion.

My 1955 Bartlett’s has this. Maybe Bill Burton [Vol. XII, No. 29: July 15] is using a newer edition? Shaw was right, too, though. Just piggybacking on 2000 years.

—Margaret Swathmey, Harwood

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Dear Bay Weekly:
George Bernard Shaw may very well have said that lack of money is the root of all evil, but he was paraphrasing Scripture. “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil”: 1 Timothy 6:10.

—Heather C.A. Mackey, Richmond, VA

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