Boats

Today is the third anniversary of my dad’s death; as is tradition, here’s a memory of Daniel John:

My dad loved to fish, but he never got a boat until I was in college. It was a little red fishing boat, nothing extravagant. During the summer, my family (including the dogs) would climb aboard and we’d motor around the Chain O’Lakes.

We wouldn’t fish. My dad took me fishing when I was little, but it was never my cup of tea—or rather, my styrofoam cup of wriggling worms. Instead, we simply lounged, or jumped in the green, weedy water and swam around (including the dogs). I always brought a book.

Getting the boat into and out of the lake was always tough, as my dad was the only one of us who knew what he was doing. There was a lot of cussing, a lot of fiberglass scraping against wooden piers.

Eventually, he sold that boat—but he bought another one when he and my mom started snowbirding in Florida. This was a slightly bigger fishing boat, white, suitable for the larger and choppier waters of Charlotte Harbor. And they had a slip right in the back of their condo, so there was no need for clumsy wives or daughters to help him launch and dock the vessel.

Since Florida also isn’t my cup of tea, I only made a few trips on this second boat. He constantly regaled me with stories of the dolphins and manatees and alligators he saw when he was out on the water, but I never saw a single one. He thought it was funny to make me take the wheel and watch me panic. In retrospect, I think it was funny, too.

Whenever I asked him to go faster, he obliged. I liked the feeling in my stomach when we skipped over waves in the wrong direction.