She had sat in the back water slip for years it seemed, tethered to some derelict barge, or tied off to a bollard further away. She sat, her engines long since silenced, her decks untrodden and her wheelhouse & cabins absent of the humans that made her sing, dance & work up and down the waterways of the Great Lakes. In her day she had hauled the big ships about the harbors, her mighty engines churning the bottom up making the waters murky a she went about her daily routine. Some days it was hauling a string of barges either empty to laden to some distant port, other days it may have been taking a scrap tow to her final destination. In harbor life there was always a variety of things to do. But then came the change, be it economical, or industrial, she was stricken from the roster and towed here to this back water slip. Perhaps she had been replaced by newer version of her self, who knew, all she knew that she had now been relegated as surplus and would either be sold off as scrap or at the next best option sold to a new owner. So she sat there, gently bobbing up and down with the what remained of the swells that made their way the slip where she sat year in, year out, waiting. They came for her one day a smaller tug one she had known and seen about over the years, came and cast a tow line on her and untied her from the slip and towed her far away from here to a strange place, one she had not seen before. Here they hauled her from her element and examined her thoroughly so, drew lines on her hull, humans trod her decks again and went into her cabins and once more breathed life into her. She stayed here in this strange place wondering what her fate would be, wondering about the humans who came on board and measured, and talked in hushed tones about engines, cabins, space, weight, rudders & props and a host of other things related to her and her very fiber. Then they left her sit, on land out of her element alone, closed up awaiting further orders and ideas, left her there to ponder her fate until one day they all returned, the humans and began her transformation into something to her very unexpected, and very unlike her, yet strangely the same..................thanks for the peek