Dad and Dave were vying for the affections and hand in marriage of Mable, who, although she fancied Dave the most, still couldn't make up her mind as to who would be the lucky suitor...
While Dave was young, handsome and strapping, with a good sense of humour and how to treat a woman, Dad was still rather fit, healthy and active for his age, and he also had a good sense of humour, fair play and how to treat a lady...
Now Mable was a fair-minded woman and decided that the best way to decide which of them to marry was to run a series of contests, and the overall winner would be the one she'd marry.
Well, they were evenly matched in most of the contests - Dave would narrowly win one race, Dad would narrowly win the next, and so on - so Mable was still none the wiser and becoming rather confused as to who she would eventually marry, though inwardly she did rather fancy Dave the most....
"OK then," says Mable: "We'll now go down to
Deep Deep Water Creek for the swimming contest... I will go across to the other side, you will both swim across to meet me, and the first one to reach the bank on the other side will be my bridegroom."
Well, as first thought, Dave took a commanding lead and was about 10 feet away from the bank when Mable thought she's give him a quickie before their nuptials, at which point Dave slowed to almost stopped and Dad won the race by 9 feet...
Although Mable was a little disappointed that Dave didn't win, Dad wasn't such a bad catch after all, and she would marry him as agreed because of her sense of fair play... so the next day Dad and Mable were married, and Dave was the best man...
During the reception, Mable had a quiet moment and approached Dave to ask why he had lost the swimming contest when he was so close to winning...
"Well it's like this, Mable... when you took off all your clothes, my rudder got stuck in the mud."