Hal, age 84, thinks the thrill of letting little kids use his remote control to sail the Marilu is well worth the risk to his thousand-dollar boat.

As a youngster, I used to try to build model airplanes, but they were so delicate, if any one of them hit the ground, it smashed into a hundred pieces. So I thought maybe I'd change that hobby from airplanes to boats, which are more substantial and last longer.

I started with building power boats; I have a couple of boats at home and a tugboat, that I worked on for over two years; it's quite an elaborate production. It's all radio-controlled, and then some!

I like two things, mainly, about sailing boats here at the pond. One is seeing little children who are salivating, who are just anxious to get their hands on the controls and sail the boat, and watching them sail it, when I give them the remote control. I know it's a thousand dollar boat, but what the heck, that's just money, right?

And the second thing is, it's just incredible, the number of people I meet here. When you get older, I'm 84 going towards 85, (I often tell people I'm 42, but that's on each leg...well, I lie a lot, and that's the truth), so this is better than trying to meet people socially at home, which is very difficult. The older you get, the fewer friends you have; some are in nursing homes, some pass on and some move, so by the time you're my age, you have few, if any. So this is a way to meet people, to socialize, to enjoy the weather, and also enjoy sailing. But in particular, getting to watch the youngsters get a real charge out of getting to sail the Marilu.