January 2026
Remembering Wright Finney
David “Rick” Upson, Vice Commodore (last day)
December 31, 2025
Shell Point Sailboard Club Festivus Report
Hello SPSC members, for those of you who could not make Festivus, Sunday, December 21, 2025, here is my recollection of how Festivus in general, and the Feats of Strength in particular, played out.
The Weather was perfect for Festivus, unseasonably warm until the sun went down. Nice sunset. Lots of good potluck and beverages consumed. Some Fire Jumping by Will Harms and others was observed. No fire related injuries to report.
Before Feats of Strength began, I told Ted (our current Commodore) that my wife, Liz suggested that I intentionally lose the Feats of Strength, so Ted would have to be Commodore for one more year. Ted didn’t find that amusing. I guess the stress of the High Office of Commodore had taken it’s toll. Ted clearly didn’t want a second term. That got me thinking that maybe the job of SPSC Commodore is harder that it appeared. But considering Ted, who has a full-time job as a lawyer working for the State of Florida, Husband, Father of Thomas, our SPSC Tech Support guy, and part time job as Stone Crab fisherman, and SPSC Commodore, Ted may have had a little too much on his plate. On the other hand, I am the self-employed owner and only employee of Rick’s Small Sailboats LLC, so I can choose the hours I work. Note to those who were not at Festivus for whatever reason: Ted generously contributed some good size Stone Crab Claws to the potluck, and you missed an epic battle (Feats of Strength).
Many thanks to Dave “Digger” Denmark who provided plenty of wood, started the fire and kept it going.
The fire came in handy for the feats of Strength. A 4 X 4 was set up over the fire, with the ends of the 4 X 4 supported by concrete blocks. Ted and I would have to keep our balance on the 4 X 4 as we pummeled each other with the pugil sticks. This added an element of danger to the competition, in that Ted or I might lose our balance and fall into the fire. If one of us caught fire, we could always put ourselves out by running into the nearby Gulf of Mexico. Ted appeared to loose an arm during our vicious battle, but it turned out to be a false limb. We intended to have the best 2 out of 3, loser being the first to step off or fall off the 4 X 4. We both fell off at the same time during one of the bouts, so we had to do the best of 4 bouts to determine the winner of the Feats of Strength. Very early in the 4th bout Ted appeared to deliberately step off the 4 X 4, handing the victory to me. I was disappointed but not surprised by this outcome. Afterwards I noticed that my left leg was bleeding from a fall onto some shells during the competition. The Feats of Strength was now a blood sport.
After Action Report – DEFEAT!
It is with my good eye and my only remaining hand that I am finally able to scribble out this account, scratched out on a mullet skin in my own life’s blood using a bone splinter from my ulna as I lay in shame in the dim cobweb-festooned space underneath the training trailer, following my defeat to the overwhelming juggernaut known as the Great Commodore of 2026 Rick Upson. I feel I owe a duty to history to recount the details of that fateful encounter so that hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years from now, those who may walk across the quiet sands of Shell Point Beach may know of the desperate titanic struggle that once took place here. Perhaps someone will find the mullet skin which I will attach to a seagull with a strand of my own sinew in hopes that someone may find it and transcribe it into a format that may be electronically transmitted ….
The day started bright and clear, my nostrils filled with the intoxicating scent of adrenaline and confidence. “It is a good day for victory!” I shouted to the sky as I affixed my helmet and prepared to step onto the sand-strewn grey asphalt that would lead me to the arena where I would face my challenger.
I slowly marched on the long journey alone with my thoughts towards the arena behind the training trailer. As I turned the corner, my easy stride stuttered as to my shock the fighting stage wasn’t simply a 4x4 suspended over sand by cinder blocks, but rather it was suspended high above a raging fire. At this very moment I heard a sinister snickering coming from behind the darkness of a bower of palms, and at once saw its source—the grinning visage of the nefarious Vaughan Williams, legendary master designer of specialized dueling weaponry and fighting arenas, his face twisted with mischievous mirth as he saw my expression when I realized what I would soon face. I scowled and looked forward again and resumed my steady approach to the fiery battle zone, the acrid smoke now burning my eyes.
Stopping at the threshold of the blackened sand that surrounded the burning pit, I looked round. Suddenly, through the haze of the smoke and drifting ash, there he stood—my challenger, Rick! Taller than I had expected, lean, battle-scarred, long hair flowing in the wind as the gaze from his steely eyes pierced through the warm salty air and straight into my soul. I knew at once this would be no child’s play like when I handily dispatched Kristin one year earlier without so much as breaking a sweat.
A crowd of timid onlookers began to gather, sensing that something epic and of historic dimensions was about to unfold yet knowing not just what.
Vaughan, now with grave face and somber demeanor quickly stepped forth and handed the challengers the cold, impersonal and deadly pugil sticks and immediately cried, “challengers, mount up!” There was no time to think, no time to reflect. Only animal instinct could guide the challengers from this point on.
Rick and I climbed onto the dizzying gnarled beam, nearly choking from the thick yellowish smoke made more deadly by the chemicals burning from the smoldering treated lumber the beam was made of, fighting first with ourselves merely trying to keep our balances without plunging into the white-hot spitting coals below.
Then, the shout came. “CHALLENGERS, BEGIN!”
It is difficult to clearly recollect just what happened from this point on. It is as though time stopped, had no meaning. Mostly only fragments and flashes of memory and emotion remain.
Blows exchanged … a repeated hammering on my head and face … my left eye being traumatically ejected from its socket … a strike on Rick’s left lower leg causing dark blood to gush forth from it … a horrific blow to my right arm, smashing bones and tearing flesh and sinew … the nauseating realization that my arm was completely severed and was only held in place by my jacket sleeve ….
In order to jettison unneeded weight I grabbed the now-useless hand of my severed arm with my good hand, yanked it out of the jacket sleeve, and threw it clear. Ignoring the pulsing spurts of crimson arterial blood rhythmically jetting from my stump I continued on. I had no choice but to continue the battle, balancing on the narrow oak beam suspended high over the raging fire below, trying to make sense of the disorienting kaleidoscope-like images I was experiencing as my dislodged eyeball danced around on the end of its still-connected optic nerve going up into my bloody eye-socket and rooted to my frontal lobe and sending images into my visual cortex.
While my good eye remained fixed on my adversary, the other swung wildly around, still working; sometimes panning across the fire and my blood-soaked boots precariously perched over the hungry coals of the fire; sometimes sweeping over the gasping expressions on the alabaster faces of the horrified spectators.
It was too much. I dropped my guard for a split second, and received a final blow, and was knocked off the beam, the world spinning, until my broken body hit the hard desolate unforgiving sand of the beach.
As I lay bloodied broken and twisted on the beach I heard, piercing through the plaintive lamentation of women and cries of victory by Rick, someone in the crowd say, as though from a great distance, “And to think that fate chose us, at this time in history, to be so honored as to have witnessed this event.”
I concede the title of Commodore to Rick, who earned it with honor. May he reign long!
Ted Avellone
Past Commodore
Shell Point Sailboard Club