The green skif

The green skiff

It was only a skiff, just a green skiff  no more than an inland bay runner with a thirty five horse power Evinrude motor  and one too many coats of paint, but it was freedom, it was dads old boat. That had been sitting up since I was fifteen. I had often thought that if I were that boat, I would never feel the salt spray of the sea again. It had been setting on that X frame covered by a kindred green canvas tarp, the kind with brass eyelets and lashed down with cotton rope. So it was that I debated whether to go ahead and uncover it or not, finally deciding that the knowing was better than not.

As I cut the rope, the canvas flapped in the gentle sea breeze perhaps that was the first such sign of life that it had experienced in those fifteen odd years. You know a funny thing about those memories of my father; they came flooding back with each slice of the knife. He was the last to touch this securing rope, the last to touch the belly of his green skiff that I was about to set free. As the knife cut through the last confining rope I could have sworn that I heard a low grown or perhaps a sign of relief. 

Trying to lift the canvas was harder that I thought it was heavy, very heavy it was as if the weight of all those years was pressing down on it. My thirty year old muscles strained, my face turned a bright red as I held my breath and expending every ounce of my energy to the task at hand. Somehow it was as if the boat didn’t wish to be set free, as if it was fighting me with equal veracity. At long last triumphantly I hurled the green carcass to the ground, standing over it in mock victory, I gasp for any renewing life giving air that happen to pass within mouths reach. Bending at the waist with hands on knees, my thumps pointing down I struck the classic gladiatorial pose.  Until at last my frame could support my weight again. Squaring my shoulders I turned around to view the fifteen year old time capsule, it was much as I remembered. My father had built this sturdy craft in his spare time. You see dad was a master boat builder which was unusual in itself, seeing that he was born in Iowa which is about as far from the ocean as you can get, but he had spent the first eighteen years of his life building barns and such, guess that had taught him how to use a square and to cut a straight line, that is something that his lineage forgot to pass to this humble son. 

Dad arrived here in Lords’ Point, Connecticut just to spend a couple of weeks with his uncle Harvard Linstrum,       my Great uncle on my grandmother’s side. The salt, the sea, even the difference sounds changed him and of course there was a seventeen year old girl by the name of Ruth, who to hear her tell it had him hitting his thumb with a hammer and bending way to many nails for comfort. So two years later she married him for no other reason than to straighten him out and to save Harvard’s boat building from going bankrupt, mom must have repeated that story a hundred times and dad would always laugh, then give one of his mucking stern looks he would say “Ruth you know very well it wasn’t me, it was those damn cheap Connecticut nails, the head was always on the wrong end. “ Well they honey-mooned in Boston then settled into life here in Lords Point. Mom worked as a book keeper at the shipyard, dad worked there as well. After Harvard passed he left the company to dad. Four years later my brother Will came along, two years after that Sally my sister made her grand appearance, then it was my turn an amazing ten years afterwards, I guess I’m just a late bloomer. My brother Will was a builder and an architect, give him a pen and paper and just a scrap of an idea and he would give you back your dreams, I suppose that’s why he moved to New York, too follow his dreams, Sally was a born actress, after a while she followed suit, gravitating to New York and stayed with Will, soon she was off Broadway, on Broadway then off to Hollywood.

Mom was the glue that bound us all together, she was of medium height, fair complexioned, brown hair and eyes and very beautiful, I do miss her so. Dad was tall over six foot of tall, handsome, quick witted and sharp tongued which could cut both ways and often did on more than one occasion .He was a master boat builder and a proud man, Will his first born was his favorite ,then Sally ,. I didn’t do too bad I did finish third.

After mom passed it was just him and me ,a twelve year old kid who thought he know it all and a proud old man, most evenings you could find him ,alone out on the bay in his Green skiff ,either crabbing or fishing , But moreover chasing his own dreams and remembrances I reckon  . My father and I never had a heart to heart talk or even a man to man for that matter ,However we did share Macaroni and cheese .Every winter I would help him haul his Green skiff ashore where we would store it on the X frames. Dad passed away that winter when I was fifteen, they said it was his heart and I believe it’s true; he just didn’t have the heart to go on. The house, land and Shipyard were paid for so I stayed on. Some evening when the sun is setting and casing its warm glow I imagine that I see him in his green skiff down on the calm water of the bay. I did find a letter tucked away in that skiff, it was addressed to me, written on that last winter’s day fifteen years ago before we covered his dreams for another long winter. Perhaps it was forgotten or maybe not. At any rate it was written with love. Dad and I finely had our heart to heart.