Life skills from my Dad, Part 2.

Never smoke with fireworks in your pocket.

It's very hard to tip a sailboat but it can in fact be done. Especially with a seasick daughter aboard.

Dig a small hole, put a can in the bottom, spread a plastic bag on top- held down by rocks, with a pebble weighting it over the hole. Water in the wilderness.

Make friends with people who make music.

Devote several hours every weekend to playing catch with your daughter, even though it's obvious to both of you that we're not exactly dealing with a softball prodigy here.

Aft, Bow, Port, Starboard, and most importantly, Tacking.

Be a good friend- that way when you need to pour a slab, you'll have 15 volunteers with cement mixers.

Take the stack of palm fronds and pick two - weave one up and over, then under the other. Make a basket, or a shelter, or a silly hat.

After you till, wait a week and let the weeds come up - pull them out by the roots.

You can get an extra year out of a broken starter by hitting your starter solenoid with a metal pole when it won't start. This will make your daughter an object of bemused interest in her high school parking lot.

Don't care about what the kids in your high school parking lot think of you.

Be a peacemaker.    

Don't get drunk and try to lift a truck. You'll lift it- but you'll tear your achilles tendon.

You can know a whole lot, and be helpful to a whole lot of people, without being a know it all.

There's a sandwich in every can.

Grab the dog by the jaw and squeeze their lips over their teeth until they drop the tennis ball.

Give a dog a boar's hair brush to carry around to teach a soft grip for duck hunting.

River bottoms shift over time - watch out for drop offs and currents.

Put a cheeto between your toes and you'll get a minnow pedicure.

Wash your coveralls in a separate load.

You never know what you'll find in a seine.  But jellyfish are a good bet, if you're in the gulf.

Keep an extra paddle around for digging earthworks in sandbars, trenches around tents, spraying sleeping canoe passengers with water, and of course, stirring a giant pot of gumbo.

You might be the smartest guy in the room but it's better to be the kindest.