Only one more week until Memorial Day! The kids will be out of school and Summer will be in full swing. Memorial Day weekend is traditionally spent on the lake in our family. Of course, this involves ensuring that the boat is running properly. Our boat is a vintage 1980 bowrider, and like humans, it needs more maintenance in its old age. Last year was exhausting trying to figure out why it wasn’t running. It turned out to be the spark plug wires that needed replacing. After that, it was running great all season. So, when I started this season’s preparations, I expected it to still be running well. Nope. It started up relatively easy and ran somewhat ok at first. It wasn’t as fast as normal, though. I’d lost about 6-7 mph in speed. It was stalling here and there as well. At first, I thought it might just be some bad fuel. So, I put in some fuel stabilizer in the tank hoping that would help. Nope. Didn’t do a darn thing. Then, a patient, and fellow boater, suggested it may be the algae and sludge on the bottom of the boat from leaving it in the water all winter. He thought it may be weighing the boat down. So I trailered the boat, power washed it and put it back in the water. Now it won’t even start! What the hell? I was sitting there frustrated trying to start it when a gentleman approached me. He said he owned a marine repair shop and based on what he heard, it sounded like my fuel pump. So I trailered the boat and order the part. The part finally came yesterday and I went up and installed it. Then put the boat back in the water. I crossed my fingers and turned over the engine.
Nope. Still doing the exact same thing. Now I’m really aggravated. I’m sitting there trying to start it when another gentleman, who also owns another marine repair shop, offered some assistance. I told him what was happening and he had me turn over the engine while he toyed around with my carburetor. Within a matter of a minute or two, all of a sudden, the boat started right up and was running even better than last year! It turned out to be a little butterfly valve on the carb was stuck. That was it! After all that work, it was something so simple. It got me thinking. It’s kind of how our bodies are as well. When things aren’t working right, we tend to do all sorts of things to get our bodies running better. We will even add chemicals to our body hoping it will help. We will exercise to lose weight in order to work better. When we accept that we can’t fix things on our own, then we will look for help from others.
We go see a guy who fixes people. He listens to our symptoms for a minute and recommends having parts replaced surgically in hopes of improving the symptoms. When that fails, we begin to lose hope. Then another gentleman, like myself, comes along and offers his help. He listens to your symptoms and goes right to where he believes the source of the problem is. He makes a slight adjustment to a stuck part and, all of a sudden, the engine is running better than it has in years, that’s Kindspine Chiropractic Center!
You see, there are life lessons everywhere I look! We tend to make things more complicated than they have to be. Sometimes the answers are a lot more simple than we think. Sometimes, all it takes is a little adjustment. I hope y’all enjoyed that little story.
Keep in mind, because of the holiday, I will only be open Monday through Wednesday this week and I won’t reopen until Tuesday next week. I will only be in the office on Tuesday and Wednesday next week as well. I will be leaving for Asheville on Wednesday night and I won’t be back in the office until Monday. So if you’re trying to get in to see me over the next couple of weeks you better call quickly or click here, because my schedule is already almost full. I hope everybody has a wonderful weekend.
Don’t forget…Be Kind to your spine!
Dr. Kris