| It all
began one dark and rainy night…… Well, actually it began as I was nearing my
discharge date from the US Navy. I decided I was going to buy one of the surplus personnel
boats that I had been become so familiar with the last two years of my tour. Refit it to
be a comfortable live-aboard, motor it up the Mississippi, and live happily ever after.
Well, at least it was a dream!
I will get to the real "project" stuff
in a minute but I want to share a little background first:
I first realized my intense love for boating when
I was about four years old and our family vacationed at Lake St. Mary's in northwest Ohio.
It was a beautiful, clear lake nestled in the rolling hills that are a little unusual for
that area of the state. Dad mentioned that we would be getting a boat with a motor while
we were there. It would be mainly for fishing but he was sure we could do some exploring
as well. That was his first mistake.
Non-stop questioning about "How soon we
would get it?", "How fast it would go?", and "Could I drive it?"
haunted him for the 4 hour drive from home to the cabin. Finally the hour arrived and we
walked out of the office door to the dock where "das boat" lay tied up. Man, it
was a beauty! Twelve feet of green panited aluminum and a 6hp monster engine, I was not
disappointed. Life was perfect that two weeks but way too short for this little four year
old.
The first time the wind blew the hair back on
this little tow headed boy I was hooked. The wind, sun, water, it was too much to resist.
I was hooked and hooked bad, I would never be the same. I never wanted to be, life now had
meaning.
As I look back through old pictures I see me as a
little person with the captain's hat one year, sailing outfit another, and a growing love
for boats. When I watched TV I looked for McHale's Navy, Gilligan's Island, and any WWII
navy movie I could find on that black and white tube. Ray, one of the neighborhood
buddies, had a great place to go out in the country, his family's gravel pit. They had a
couple good sized ponds that we sailed our makeshift rafts on. Every possible design that
floated and a few that didn't.
My summers were filled with adventure and fishing
outings with my dad. Lots of red worms and dad's patience taught me how to fish for cappie
and blue gill from a boat at night. Those moon filled summer nights on Westerville Lake
were so far away from the real world, peaceful, quiet, and oh so enjoyable. The days spent
not fishing with my Dad lent to lots of day dreaming that opened my horizons for the
future through the mind of a pre-teen boy with big ideas and wishes.
Then came a couple bad years that were
financially not-so-good for my family, I found myself picking strawberries and carrying
golf clubs for spending money. Gone were the care-free summer days reeling in fish and
listening to Dad's story's around the camp's fire. Then a tragedy struck my life in our
little corner of Ohio, divorce. I never did completely understand that concept, still
don't even though it has been part of my adult life as well.
Then realization that the country was stuck in
its own tragedy called Vietnam. I would watch TV as our friends, neighbors, and relatives
fought and died for our country and freedom. Yes, I was naïve, but in a John Wayne sort
of way, I love our country and the freedoms it stood for. It did not matter that I was
clueless about where Vietnam was or that fact we were losing, or we were being mislead
about the whole thing. Hey, it was America's war against dreaded communism, it was my
calling.
My family has always been very loyal, patriotic,
and responsive to America's wartime needs. My father, uncles, grandfathers,
great-grandfathers, well, you get the picture. So I entered military school in 1968 to
prepare for the war. I would be the next generation to represent our family since the
Revolutionary War. Well, things did not quite go as planned, I washed out in two years. I
did manage to graduate high school although influenced amid the expanding drug,
rock-an-roll culture. Influenced, but not detracted (I never inhaled, yeah, right!), I
maintained my patriotism and devotion to all things American. At 17 I enlisted.
Not just enlisted, but enlisted for four years in
the United States Navy ! !
Man, did my eyes get opened. I volunteered for
river boat duty in Vietnam, I wanted to go. Orders showed up 5 days later, they had
assigned me to a destroyer that was heading to a six month tour in the Mediterranean.
Maybe, just maybe, someone knew better. It sure wasn't me.
Four years later I was being honorably discharged
having driven a 26' motor whaleboat up to a 426' long destroyer. But my favorite was the
40' officer boats. They had a beautiful Detroit diesel and with the high speed (although
not allowed) prop we could make that baby fly.
Its been 22 years since my discharge and I can
count on one hand the number of times that I have been boating. But there has been 3
states, 5 homes, 4 jobs, 3 beautiful children, and a couple of wives during that same
time. Not to mention 6 years of fighting fires through our local volunteer fire
department. A busy and full life but one dream that is unfulfilled, my boat.
All that has now changed. I am now the proud
owner of a 27' sailboat that is named "Character" but informally known as
"the money pit". How did that come about????
It all began one dark and rainy night……
(next chapter) |
