To the Editor: I read with interest last week’s letter from my neighbor across the bay, who feels the boat parade suffers for want of judging, and who would like ribbons, categories, and a clipboard. I write to say, as gently as the subject permits, that she is mistaken, and that some of us have been judged, and did not care for it.

The writer argues that we judge everything else — pies, quilts, livestock, pumpkins — and asks why not boats. I would remind her that judging pumpkins is precisely how we all learned what judging does. It produces a winner, a runner-up, and, on at least one occasion in recent memory, an appeal. The scale, I am told, has since been recertified. I make no further comment, except to say that some of us won on the scale, fairly, by nine pounds, and were gracious about it, and did not write letters.

The boat parade works because no one loses it. You decorate your pontoon, you make your slow lap, your grandchildren wave, and you go home having competed against no one and lost to no one. This is not a flaw the parade should correct. It is the rarest thing in this or any town: an event that gives everyone the same prize, which is a nice afternoon, and takes nothing back.

If my neighbor wants to be judged, the fair is three weeks out, the entry is two dollars, and the pumpkin category, I can assure her, remains open. I will see her there. I will bring a tarp. I would suggest she bring a bigger one than last year, but I have promised my family I would be gracious, and so I will only say: good luck, and mind the scale.