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GREENSBORO — “Hi, I’m the pedal boat girl.’’

That’s Stacie Kelly. She tells that to almost everybody.

She tends the pedal boats at Country Park. It’s the only spot in our city where you can rent these contraptions, tool around the lake and feel summer inches from your fingers.

That’s the lake water, where bass, carp and catfish swim. It’s 14 feet deep in places, with wooden skeletons of a high-dive and low-dive in the middle, reminders of a time long passed at Greensboro’s oldest city park.

People remember. Lots of people. Country Park has been around since 1934. And the crowds still come, every Friday through Sunday, the only days the boats are available, to find a memory or create a new one.

Girls and boys. Families and couples. Retirees and the 30-something guy just off work.

“This’ll be a blessing,’’ he tells Kelly the other day, sighing as he steps into a boat.

“I take it your day isn’t going well, huh?’’ she responds.

Kelly gets it.

She’s 39, a recently divorced mother of five. Her kids run from 7 to 20. So, she’s no stranger to a loud house. But since April 2007 at Country Park, she’s worked three days a week in a quiet place where walls will never exist.

She looks across the water and sees a bank of trees. She looks left or right and sees a few ducks and lots of geese. And sometimes, she looks down and sees the tiny turtle, the size of a half-dollar, crouching like a bulldog on a rock.

Yes, Kelly has a sweet office.

She used to work construction in Arizona. She did everything from laying tile to hanging drywall. And every work day, she wore steel-toed boots.

Today, she wears flip-flops. And the purple toenail polish she took a shine to when she was 16.

She’s become a dockside sociologist. She knows men fall in the water more than women. They’re stubborn. And she knows girls are better behaved than boys. Girls just want to get a tan; boys want to be pirates.

So, this summer, she’s had to yell across the lake. And teenage boys? Forget it.

“Sit down and get back in the boat!’’ she yells. “Don’t get off the boat!’’

But they do.

“The boys are the crazy ones,’’ she says, laughing.

She’s also the calm deckhand. She has to reassure some boaters, especially when they look at the boxy craft and ask, “Are these boats going to sink?’’

The pedal boats don’t look like … boats. They’re more like bicycles. Or maybe bumper cars. They’re square and chunky, made of Styrofoam and plastic, and scoot along at Granny speed.

But mostly, Kelly is the one with the grin. She helps pedal boat passengers like Emma Pilkenton, a 2-year-old in pink Crocs, with her life jacket and says: “If you can put up your arms, act like an airplane.’’

It’s Emma’s first pedal-boat ride.

“I grew up three blocks from here, and I fished, rode bikes and spent a lot of time by the lake,’’ says Matt Pilkenton, Emma’s 30-year-old father. “So, I wanted to take her out in a boat for the first time, because anything she experiences we want to experience, too. You know what I mean?’’

Kelly hears that a lot. At least through Labor Day. Then, she’ll dry-dock the 11 pedal boats until next spring, and she expects she’ll start another job at Country Park.

But right now, she’s the pedal boat girl. And for her, that’s a good gig.

“This is summer to me,’’ she says the other day from her usual spot on the dock. “I have friends who tell me, 'You can’t do this forever,’ and I tell them, 'Watch me.’’’

Contact Jeri Rowe at 373-7374 or jeri.rowe@news-record.com