In the essay below, Dan waxes philosophical over some things seen in the March MAIB. So to help you keep up with Dan's ranting, Bob Hicks, the editor and publisher of MAIB has generously offered to allow a free download of the issue in question. Just click the cover at right to download adn read the issue. If you like what you see, and you will, you can sign up for a subscription HERE.

At risk of being seen as eccentric, I have a minor admission.  I tend to start leafing through periodicals from back to front.  Maybe it’s sort of like watching a play from back stage.  Certainly not the way anybody in charge planned it; but pretty instructive. 

So, when I pulled the March MAIB from our mailbox this afternoon, I stuck it on top of all the lesser stuff from Atlantic, the Economist, and the latest gottahave offerings from Rockler and headed on down the hill to home.  Oh yeah, I was also carrying our attack toy poodle, Bosun, (“…can that dog walk??...”); so I hadn’t made it beyond the classified section by the time we got to the door.  Starting at the back, of course.

Actually, I hadn’t made it anywhere at all, past the first ad.  There, in the upper left corner of the page, in gleaming black and white was the THE boat of my often confused dreams.  THE BOAT.  A ’56 Chris.  All decked over aft and showing the most attractive tumblehome in the universe. 

Of course, I can’t have it.  Of course not.  But, maybe if I’d done just about everything differently in my whole life.  Maybe, that and winning a few lotto’s a week, and I’d be on my way to Florida right now.  But, that boat is the sort of thing that could have made it all different.  Unfortunately.

I grew up when Mrs. Cleaver was wearing pearls in the kitchen, and Ben Cartright owned all of Nevada.  And, as fate would have it, wooden boats were rapidly becoming old fashioned.  Obsolete, even.  Why would anybody want one of those old dinosaurs, when you could have something in hot pink and lime green that you never had to wax or even take care of it at all?  The times, they were a changin’.  I never got the opportunity to get very close to that varnish and chrome genre.  Granted, the rich kids’ folks had boats like that.  But, for the most part rich kids were also the cool kids, and since about the time of Socrates and Plato it’s been a requirement for cool kids to be blasé about stuff.  And, if cool kids were blasé to each other, they were strictly not-available to the rest of us rabble.  Anyhow.

Only once, did I ever get to ride in one of those.  Actually it was only similar.  And, it was at night.  And, it took all of 20 minutes, and then it was over.  Well, not exactly over.  Not for me.  But, that was one of those roads-not-taken.

So, after I got the ink all smudged, and stopped dialing that number in Coral Springs.  After I finally put the phone down and got my pulse back someplace below 100, I continued on toward the front of the magazine.

Then, like a flyswatter across the point of your nose, came Boyd Mefferd’s piece on the decline of our designated lifestyle.  Hey, just about every word was perfectly squared with my own rather negative take on what’s gonna’ happen to this thing we call rather loosely, “boating.”

There I was, suddenly “talking” with yet another brother from another mother.  And, for all I know, Boyd has had his very own hands on the subject of my intense lust at the top of page 58.  Lucky boy, huh?

I’ve said as much myself, many times.  Boyd nailed the whole topic with an observation on associative conditioning.  Back “then” when we had the opportunity to actually work on, and handle, and just love most anything that floats; we most of us tend to carry that predilection forward into later life.  In my case, it was fiberglass runabouts and later fiberglass sailboats.  But, to come full circle.

I kept flipping forward and ran into this laconic tale of some dude taking a throw-away glass hull and planking a re-arranged deck with hardwood.  I got to thinking that there was some sort of longing in this guy for the actual stock standard, factory original version for sale in the classified section, by some rich guy in Florida. 

The pictures seemed familiar, and I came to notice that this particular story was one of mine.  OK, kinda’ slow sometimes.

Boyd also speculated that future generations will carry a love of video gaming with them into the corporate board rooms and beyond.  Now, that sounds pretty thrilling, huh?

Here’s what I think.  Back about 50 years ago, there weren’t all that many cool kids.  Now, everybody is a cool kid.  As in, aloof and detached.  Well, just use the example of each and every launch ramp in North America.  Other than the blood sport of watching bass boats collide with pontoon extravaganzas for the honor to launch or retrieve first; launch ramps are a pretty good place to study human behavior.

And, what I see—actually, what I DON’T see—is completely sad. 

I don’t see 12 year old boys begging dad to allow them to back the trailer in.  I don’t see those same boys out-racing little brother and the kid down the block for the honor of laying a perfect bowline or cleat hitch across the bow cleat.  I don’t even see those boys firing up the engine and backing away from the dock.  Nope.  Just about never.

Those boys have to coaxed out of the SUV with promises of “It’s a short ride, and then we can go to the mall…”  So, they troop off (just about like the cool kids used to look at me, when I’d say some sort of social faux pas like, “Wow.  Your family has an inboard ski boat…wow.  That must be sooooooo fun!  I just wish I could go with your some time…”)  Anyhow, you probably already remember that look.  Even if you weren’t a cool kid, yourself.

So. What are we gonna’ do?  Mostly, we’re gonna’ get older and stiffer and more forgetful.  But, man oh man.  Some stuff you never forget.  Did I tell you about the ad for a really, really cool Chris Capri I saw?

*****

You can subscribe to the print version of Messing About In Boats HERE - or you can subscribe to the online version HERE

To comment on Duckworks articles, please visit one of the following:

our Yahoo forum

our Facebook page