water water anywhere

"Thats how you do it, don't hot dog it, now. Use both hands! Don't hot dog it."

I want to believe my father coined that phrase, "don't hot dog it"; probably not, but I'd like to think that. we were playing catch, the front yard carpeted with grass... jungle grass that barely gave under foot. Dad would throw the ball as high in the air as he could, a pop fly. Youthful perception dictated his strength combined with a tennis ball's mass would send it to the mesophere.

Of course, it wasn't too far in the air. I could catch the pop-fly. Now, 25 years later it dawns on me... in this lil' recollection, neither my father nor I liked baseball. Not a homerun. Not a pitch. Not a game, really. We had gone to Memorial Stadium a few times... but my it was my mother whom loved baseball.

The link, besides DNA, I have with, Pop... as I call him... is bad movies, more on that in later blog. Sailing became his passion for a long while. Our first boat was an Ensenada 19, a nineteen foot stronghold of spiders. The earliest memory of that boat was right after he bought it; we packed in mom's fake wood paneled corolla wagon... and drove to some development, I'll never remember where... but, I remember it was dusk and drizzling. The boat didn't look like any sailboat I had seen before... most boats I had seen had a raised cabin with little windows you could spy passing vessels... spacious cabins where you might engage a pirate in sword play... the Ensenada 19 did not live up to these fantasies.

But my father's excitement bubbled over, if he could have, he'd a jumped on the deck right there on the trailer in a white american suburb, hoisted the sails, lowered the keel, and set off to navigate the Cul-de-sac. he didn't though. We drove home, he-excited, me-nonplussed.

The idea of sailing has a sort of romanticized hold on the male of the species... we see it in poetry, novels, films... the man and the sea... some salty, iron wrinkled man with white brillo scruff squinting his slate dry eyes into a distant horizon... he talks of the mystery of the sea... "the sea, she's a cruel mistress, but ye have to obey."

ARGH.

For my dad though, he didn't romanticize the sea and all her briney peccadilloes. he felt free on the susquehannah. really, not until right now, as I click keys and sip my coffee, did such a realization appear. On the water perhaps, my father felt equal to everyone else out there. The rules couldn't be simpler. You only go as far as your skill allows, your attention to winds and currents, the weather forecast... these factors mattered in piloting any vessel. Here my father controlled his movement... as well as or better than most folks.

My dad found freedom, too. In childhood, my father contracted Polio leaving him with a withered leg resulting in a severe limp. Despite the disease he swam, biked, played tennis. Working his body twice as hard as the other boys, men, he excelled and usually rose to the top... maybe not rose... that indicates a certain ease... he pulled himself to the top. But on the water... his legs weren't necessary for sailing, of course my brother and I were the crew... but he was free... the dry land and the doubled effort had no say in what he did on the boat. boats cut through water and if conditions are right, they glide unimpeded, unobstructed... like birds. If that were the case, every trip we took on the boat allowed my dad to truly breath, truly move.

grimm