We have a roomy front porch. It’s semicircular, set under a roof. It is about 25 feet from the street. We have a couple of Adirondack chairs out there, and like to sit in them after lunch and drink coffee, and again late in the afternoon when the sun is slinking off over the mountains.

People amble by, walking their dogs mostly. We wave and say hi and so forth. We also get a front row seat to people driving by. Pretty much every driver has lost their minds at this point. It’s really rare to see any form of human driving by with both hands on the steering wheel while looking through the windshield. Yesterday, a woman drove by, eating fast food with one hand, and typing with her phone with the other. She was more or less using her elbows to steer. To add piquancy to her behavior, she was speeding as well. We could only see the back of her head as she passed by, because her head wasn’t facing forward. Of course we can only see drivers from the shoulders up. She may have also been performing other feats that we couldn’t see, like playing a Casio keyboard with her toes. She seemed quite talented, if that’s the right word, so while it wasn’t likely, the chances weren’t zero.

It got me to thinking. If you’ve ever been on a boat, especially the sailing type, there’s a saying that goes something like this: One hand for yourself, and one for the boat. 

Like most traditional sayings, it’s right on the money, and covers more ground than is immediately obvious. It’s especially useful advice on a boat, because boats do unpredictable things all the time, and you don’t always have time to react quickly enough to avoid an impromptu swimming lesson, or worse. Honestly, the only predictable things on a boat are marina bills and leaks.

I basically never needed that advice about boating because I’ve spent my whole life working off of ladders. I’ve actually instructed people working for me to keep one hand for the ladder and one hand for the paintbrush at all times. It wasn’t theoretical advice on my part. I’ve been four stories up on a house, working on a rake board, and had a very angry bat come out of the seam in it and hit me square in the face. I held on to that ladder, though every fiber of my being told me to freak out instead. Luckily for me, I’ve never paid much attention to my fibers.

I posted a picture of my Rube Goldberg scaffolding for roofing my house the other day. It might seem a tad dangerous, but it allowed me to keep one hand for myself, and one for the boat, er, house, almost continuously.

If you put the wisdom of one for the boat, one for yourself in the kettle and boiled it down, you’d end up with its true essence: You should spend about half your effort staying safe, and half working. You’ll actually get more work done if you’re working safe. You can be more efficient if you’re not in a precarious position.

There’s more to it than that. There is an implicit obligation to others not to put yourself in unnecessary danger, on a boat, and everywhere else, too. If you’re injured or killed while hanging your arse in the breeze, your troubles might be over, but you’re just starting trouble for others. Accidents happen, but you’re supposed to expend effort to avoid them if you can. Insurance isn’t a magic money tree. If everyone collects on it, it becomes prohibitively expensive, and then no one can afford it. A boat has to turn around and look for you if you go over the side. Well, they will if they like you more than they like me.

So I’m not sure who came up with the alternate advice: no hands for the steering wheel. no eye for the road, two hands for anything else, up to and including playing ping pong with someone in the back seat, but I don’t approve. And I look both ways before crossing a one-way street at this point. And straight up.