when i was a kid, i lived near lilly pond, massachusetts. and lilly pond had a dam like this. and in that dam, they had these little middle things sticking up like this that annoyed us kids. they were pieces of barrel like this. here is one, like one couple here and a couple here and a couple here. and what we wanted to do is we wanted to ride our bikes across the top of the dam, you know? and--and that kind of thing. but these darn things here prevented us from doing it. and we knew it was a conspiracy between the old folks and us, right? and it turns out these little things here had a purpose. and we found out that purpose on a winter-- a spring, really, where we had a lot of snow that winter. there's a lot of water coming down from the hills and filled up that pond. the pond is getting deeper and deeper and the city workmen come out and they stuck some boards, like shelving boards, just pine lumber, one-inch pine lumber. it turns out right on those slots. and that's what they were. they were slots to hold some boards for when the dam got extra deep. and son of a gun, if tha