About "History" (The Light Side)
(1) Back In The Day
50 years ago there was nothing in the little cove, no houses, marinas, docks - just the cove and to the Northwest, the Woodrow Wilson bridge. The water was smooth - perfect for water skiing. From the Sampson's cockpit we could see the bridge, Alexandria and the city beyond.
We weren't looking upriver though, we were looking at that water. It looked like industrial waste, Draino - a sort of oily, iridescent lime green.
"Ít's OK, just don't drink it" my father said. In we went. That water did not taste good. I mark that day as the beginning of a lifelong infection.
The Sampson was a lot of little boat. Trailerable with a 40 horse outboard, cockpit and a cabin which never saw an overnight. We'd ski, fish or run up the river to the Watergate for concerts and culture (us kid's least favorite activity).
(2) Intro to Sailing
The hitchhiker looked like a friendly sort of guy. Once in the van, I found he too was headed South to warmer weather and would be happy to ride on with me to the college in Sarasota. Too, he was English and a likeable, entertaining sort of fellow - good company.
At the college, the students were busy being students. He, myself and another friend where looking for something to do during the day. Someone suggested we take out one of the schools Sunfish. I asked these guys if they'd ever been sailing. The other friend, Kevin Quinn, said sure, his family used to sail all the time out of Annapolis.
Out we went into Sarasota Bay. Nothing to it. I'll be the first to ell you three on a Sunfish isn't exactly ideal. Particularly when not one of the three knew a thing about sailing a boat. Nonetheless, we managed to get away from shore, tacking a couple of times before what little wind there was, evaporated. The sun had evaporated that wind. It did not come back. It took a long time to get back to shore too. If the water hadn't been all of three or four feet deep, we'd still be sitting out there…
(3) Sailing 101
It seemed like a good idea - get a little sailboat for knocking around the James River on with my girlfriend. The boat, an Old Town "Whitecap" was found through the Want Ads in Newport News. The boat did come with a motor, a British Seagull.
The boat, a 13' ˝ wooden daysailor, wasn't much to see. The owner quickly had me out on the river and after showing me the basics, quickly declared "you're a natural." As for the water sloshing aroung beneath the floor boards, he said "it's ok, it's always there."
Some pals helped me move the boat in a pickup truck from Newport News to a friends place on the Chicahominy River. His place was on the West side of the river, immediately past the rt. 60 bridge.
I learned a lot there on the Chicahominy. Like, why you don't want to get too close to the bridge, why you want to watch the tide, why you don't want to leave a lapstreak wooden boat out of the water too long, why you don't fill wood with glu-vit, and why you do want to replace cracked ribs in a wooden boat.
On the bright side, I learned that I enjoyed working on a boat.
(4) Boating and the Real World
I'd spent an extra year in the college town, but it was time for a real job. The Metropolitan area was the place to look for that, so off I went. Several weeks of hunting did produce results. The immediately most promising was with the Dart Drug organization. Their regional office was in the Landover Industrial complex, a warehouse type of environment without a window in sight.
I'd also found a possible alternative in the "Whole Earth Catalog," There was a listing in it of an outfit "Dickerson Boatbuilders," in Trappe, MD. Finding that they weren't too far away, rode down to see if they where looking for some help.
The receptionist, said they where not, but I might want to try across the way at Chesapeake Marine, their hull fabricators, a fiberglass shop.
The guy offered me a job, and even a place to stay. So the choice - a windowless office in Metro, or glasswork on the Eastern Shore. Needless to say, glasswork won out, but did not prove to be all that. After all, moldmaking's a pretty tedious deal. Laying up fiberglass does have a certain intrinsic appeal, however grinding fiberglass is at best a necessary evil.
Six months of that was all I needed. I moved onward, to anything available. Which, was not a lot - painting, boatyard work. I was "betwixt and between" one day, loitering in other words in downtown in Trappe one day when a friend came by and said "do you want a job? Dickerson's looking for someone. By the end of the day I was newly employed doing "general labor" at Dickerson Boatbuilders.