Whose Boat is it?

Nancy Adams
Jul 20, 2017 · 4 min read

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a little remote controlled speed boat for an upcoming birthday just before all the grandchildren got here. I missed the recommended age, though. I thought it said 4 and up, but the directions said 14 and up. With some toys that is a big difference. Remote control speed boats, for instance, or sailboat kits.

Lots of years ago, before the cabin addition, while boys were little, not tall muscular broad shouldered bearded men, I got the kit for the birthday boy. He was the boy that had worked side by side with Merv, little wheel barrow carrying a weight of gravel or dirt, next to the big wheel barrow carrying a weight of gravel or dirt, load by load. He was a careful precise worker and the boat seemed the perfect gift. Until the little birthday boy opened the box. Thousands of pieces of balsa wood the size of a match stick or smaller. A respectable book of directions. Complex rigging charts. String. All to scale. What was I thinking?

Merv’s childhood room on the 3rd floor of his house in Bethlehem was painted sky blue, ceilings, walls trim. It was the perfect color, because hanging from the ceiling on fish line that could not be seen were planes. Hundreds and hundreds of planes, all carefully assembled from kits, World War I planes, World War II planes. The movable parts moved. The stable parts stable, the glue invisible.

Our boy’s toys were trucks and blocks and speedy bikes and wrestling and sandboxes. He took 1 look at the opened box of thin balsa wood, smiled thank you and left it. He had a friend to meet, a teepee to build, a fort to weaponize. Merv picked up the box, scolded me for the choice of presents and put it down. Then he picked up the directions and he began to read them. He pulled out his pocket knife. He took the tweezers out of the kit bag. He got needles and newspapers. He got brushes. He got hooked.

The next 4 days were ruled by an alarm clock. The clock marked the drying time of glue and of varnish. 3:00 in the morning. The children are asleep in the convertible bed, the one Merv made, on wheels, rolled together and latched. He slid open the striped red curtains of the cupboard bed. He let himself down quietly. He pulled on his jeans an old blue sweatshirt. He lit the kerosene lamp, not the Coleman lamp that hissed and smelled and might wake up the kids. He lit the Aladdin Lamp with its fragile mantle and tall elegant chimney. He glued the next piece together. He set the alarm for 7:15.

At 7:15 we were already up, drinking coffee over the table covered with boat parts. 11:30 was easy, just before lunch. Glue it, let it dry, varnish it. Glue the next thing. Let it dry. Varnish it. No small hands here. “Don’t touch it! Stay away from the glue. No you can’t use the paint brush. Don’t play with the parts.” One of us was absorbed, consumed, hooked, obsessed, oblivious to a world outside the directions and the boat. The rest of us tiptoed around the edges, trying to fix a meal or eat it, or get a drink. Or play a game. The 1 room of the cabin was never so small.

Finally the sails were rigged, the rudder set. A gentle wind blew on the pond. We all assembled. The birthday boy carrying it. “Be careful. Don’t trip. Don’t drop it. Push it slowly. NOT LIKE THAT. Give it to me. GIVE IT TO ME!” The boat, the perfect sailboat went out into the pond. The wind changed. The sail boat went into the reeds. The sailboat got fished out of the reeds. It got pushed gently in to the pond by a grownup. Out it went. The wind changed. The sailboat glided into the mud. The same wind that teased a kite, that took it up just 20 feet and then swirled it around to tangle in a tree or a bush, the wind that blew east, west, north and south in one long sustained vortex of air, that wind teased the boat. No matter how the sail was set, no matter how the rudder was turned, back into the reeds or the mud, or just the sails luffing.

The sailboat came out of the water and went on a high shelf, something that looks like a toy but isn’t. It came out carried by small arms a couple of years later, unnoticed by guardian adults. The sailboat teased its way right back into the grasses at the edge of the pond. The play moved on. The boat marooned, then water logged, then sunk. A Davy Jones locker in a pond in Arkwright. Little blue varnished pieces would sometimes be found. The rest of the boat, lost forever.

It turns out young hands can manage the dials of a speed boat remote control fine. The motor is strong enough to protect the boat from playful gusts of wind. The boat stops on a dime, inches from the pond grass. We have lots of batteries, lots of people to reach down, to pick it up, to put it in a safe place.

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