I was fooling around with
my johnboat, Stumpknocker, this morning till the weather ran me in and it
started me to thinking about various boats that have owned me over the
years.
Mikie and I had decided to pool part of our meager savings at the age of
fourteen to make our first boat purchase, a hand crafted canoe. The Blue
Turtle was a first boat purchase rather than first boat, because there were
prior attempts at hand-crafted water vessels whenever unattended tools and
distracted parents allowed. Some of these are setting on the bottom of
various local waters waiting for the required time to pass for them to be
considered archeological relics. Others were left in dry dock due to
logistical/design problems such as excessive weight, excessive drainage
holes and excessive parents who were more fond of the family sedan’s paint
job than our delicate adolescent psyches.
We had slaved away, starting our twelfth year doing yard work, bagging
groceries, working with various construction crews as go’fers, any thing at
all to turn a buck to pay for our entertainment. Our parents were not the
type to buy things just because we kids whined . The more common refrains
were “you’re old enough for your wants not to hurt you”, “get a job” and
“where‘s my belt“.
Getting a real job is something that 2 has been telling me, near 40 years
now, even though I find that jobs, real or otherwise, tend to interfere with
fishing, hunting, blogging and general all around loafing. It’s a shame, but
most of my “learning experiences” that “build character” are generally
unavailable for young people today, mostly because of do-good laws,
immigrant labor, marshmallow parents, lawyers, and politicians.
We arrived at the seller’s home in Mikie’s parents sedan driven by his older
sister. The kindly old gent quickly assessed the situation and told us the
home-made canoe had just been sold, but he had a sturdy hand-crafted two man
canoe he would let go of for only $50 dollars more.
Ohhh! Handcrafted.
Plus $35 more for the portable car toppers. A bargain since we hadn’t
thought that far ahead in our plan. Did we need some rope? You can never
have too much good rope. Another bargain at only 10 cent a foot.
“Just try to lift that front end,” he told us. “Feel the quality? They just
don’t put as much quality material in things anymore.”
I have to tell you it had lots of quality.
Well, at least it floated.
Upright.
Most of the time.
Mikie and I were sixteen when, we were finally liberated from having to
hassle our parents to put the car toppers on and take “The Blue Turtle” to
most any nearby pool of water that would float it. She was named for both
her color and low profile on the water.
We now had our license but we didn’t have the wheels, so we often borrowed
2’s cargo van. 2 being my father. Unfortunately our canoe was 12 feet and
the van bed was only 10. That meant we had to tie the canoe into the back of
the van and tie the doors as closed as they would get. A very insightful
individual, Patrick McManus, once said “There ain’t no such thing as to much
rope”. That was a very wise statement, particularly as it applied to
partially dry rotted clothes line that was knotted together at the weak
points.
I gave the old van some gas as we started up the final steep grade on
Suicide Hill during a late summer afternoon thunderstorm. Suicide Hill was a
steep decline that flattened out for a brief block or so before terminating
rather abruptly in the kudzu covered river bank of the Chattahoochee River.
The suicide part usually came when the chain came off your bike.
Eat a tree or try to land in Columbus on the other side of the river.
There was the sharp twanging snap as a overloaded line snapped. The Blue
Turtle shuddered as we heard the rapid snap, twice more. Mikie bounced out
of the front passenger seat into the rear of the canoe, trying to hold the
door shut as overloaded line after line snapped. Slowly, the Blue Turtle
with our fishing gear started to slide out the rear where it teetered,
seeking a balance on the edge of the open doors. I reached around and
grabbed hold of the bow as my foot slipped off the clutch and the van
stalled and jerked as it topped the hill. Stumbling into the back, I stepped
into the canoe to hold onto the front seat as a sad lonely last line snapped
. We slid out the back of the van like a torpedo being launched from a old
PT boat.
I should have gone with my first instinct and abandoned ship, instead of
turning around and picking up a paddle to join Mikie in dragging them on the
pea graveled wet asphalt street in a vain attempt to slow us down. But, as
they say, a captain goes down with his ship. Sliding, ever faster, down the
steep wet hill, we soon reached speeds that had the Blue Turtle going
airborne as it crossed side streets like a car chase scene set in San
Francisco with fishing lines crackling behind us
Crossing one intersection, I decided it was time to drop the stern anchor in
a bid to slow us down. As I heaved the concrete block over the side, I
looked to see Officer Grubby Jackson, my next door neighbor and legal
advisor, turning his patrol car to come up the hill. We could see Grubby’s
perennial chaw of tobacco as his jaw dropped open when the Blue Turtle
approached with Mikie seemingly paddling the two of us down the hill. The
concrete block tied to a piece of parachute cord shattered into fragments
that were still rattling off the side of the patrol car as we flashed
through the next intersection.
The situation became one of good news/bad news. The good news was that the
road down Suicide Hill terminated shortly at the Alabama side of the
Chattahoochee River and we were in a canoe. The bad news is that the bottom
of the canoe was getting awfully thin as the thick layer of quality wore
away. In desperation, Mikie dropped the bow anchor, a pair of lead window
sashes that bounced in the gutter before dropping into a storm drain.
As the slack came out of the bow anchor line, the canoe whipped around in a
move reminiscent of the childhood game of crack the whip and we were
propelled into a net of kudzu that covered the brush growing under the thick
mat of vines on the Alabama bank of the Chattahoochee River. The line
snapped and our last view of the near bottomless Blue Turtle was as it hit
the water with a splash. It didn’t even bob to the surface. It just
disappeared in the rapidly moving current.
Grubby looked at the first tickets he had written and shook his saggy jowls.
I don’t think the judge is going to believe this ticket for reckless driving
a canoe or this one for doing fifty in a twenty mph zone either. “Shoot, I
can’t even give you a ticket for littering unless your fishing gear washes
up on the Alabama side.“
He snapped his ticket book shut and strode to the cruiser. ”Besides, I think
that you boys will have enough trouble with 2 about his van” and he pointed
up the hill to where a white dot rested against the base of a pine tree.
As Grubby drove off and we started the long walk up the hill, Mikie said
"The least he could have done was give us a ride."
“No it’s better this way.” I replied, “Otherwise, he might remember he
loaned us his rods and tackle box yesterday.”
©2003 LCM3
Monday, March 31, 2003
rimfire at idlehourwebs dot com
Boat Plans for sail and power boats. Kits: fiberglass and epoxy resin, pre-cut plywood, sails and spars. Books about yacht design and boat building. Free plans and links to technical boat building information. All for the amateur or small boat yard.
© LCM3
Rimfire at Idlehourwebs dot com
