NEW GROUND... with some shocks (Part 99k)

He came back to me and we shook hands. Before any conversation could take place he said he’d be back in about a half hour with the check. I stood there for a minute or two and wondered what had just happened. The $1200 figure I threw at him came right out of the blue. It was what I’d paid for the boat ten years before. Even after he’d offered to buy it earlier in the month I’d not put any thought into a price. The last figure I’d heard for the sale of a Comet class sailboat was back the previous Summer when Cat had told me that she and her husband had paid a little under a thousand dollars. It didn’t take me long to shift my thinking to what I was going to do with the money. I knew the first thing was to finish paying for ”Pop’s“ race car. The rest of it would go in the bank.

It took a few minutes to realize that if Herb was going to bring a check back to me he’d want the rest of the equipment that went with the boat. My parents house was less than ten minutes away so I headed there to get the sails, rudder, tiller and other miscellaneous parts. I pulled up to the garage and saw no one. In a way that was good. On the way I got to thinking about what my father would say but I rationalized that it was my boat and had paid for it with my own money. Even with that I just knew he wouldn’t be happy.

Herb was waiting when I got back to the club. I showed him some of the enhancements I’d made to the boat and then left. It was hard driving away even with the check in my hand. There were a lot of really good memories that went with it. I was almost back when I started thinking of just how I’d feel in the morning and then looked at the check folded it into my shirt pocket.

When I got out to the beach I saw a bunch of people all along the water’s edge looking out on the water. The wind was out of the North and blowing off shore. I quickly scanned the horizon and as I did i realized that my father’s power boat wasn’t at it’s mooring. Then I saw it out in the bay and towing something with a blue and white sail behind it. I found Elle and asked what was happening. She didn’t really know the whole story but knew my father had gone out to rescue some people who lived down the beach. I remember thinking that I’d missed the excitement.

My mother filled in more of the story. It was that two of the people who had just bought the house two houses to the East had set out on a Sailfish (like a surfboard with a sail) and it was readily obvious they didn’t know what they were doing. The wind kept pushing them further and further away from shore. When the people who were still on the shore saw what was happening they came running down to my parents beach looking for help. My father had gotten in his boat and had gone out after them.

With everybody safely back on shore and all introductions made and thanks given we started to get the whole story. The people who had bought the cottage were city dwellers and had absolutely no experience on or near the water. But, with a beach house felt compelled to get a boat and someone had persuaded them to get a sailboat. This had been the ”maiden voyage“ with the owners kids on board. The boy was introduced as being 16 but he looked more like 12. We were told the girl was 23 and in law school but she looked more like a teenager. It didn’t take long for my mother to volunteer me to show them the basic rudiments of sailing. Upon hearing that the boy backed away saying that he wasn’t going out again and actually went up the steps and onto the lawn. My first reaction was to think ”Thanks, Mom!“ with a negative connotation.

Before the girl could answer the mother stated that she didn’t think it was a good idea and then started in on the father saying that she’d told him not to buy the boat. By then there were at least a dozen adults standing around with the neighbors, Jeanette, Karen and their husbands wanting to know what was going on. Not really dressed for sailing on this type of boat I did say I’d go out with anyone interested. The mother was still ”ragging“ on her husband and he finally spoke telling me to go try it out.

I’d seen some of the same type boats at the sailing club and they were used to teach the younger sailors. In looking at it the one thing that bothered me was that I’d have to sit with my legs straight out as there was no cockpit to put them in. It looked uncomfortable. With no one volunteering to go out with me I took off. Once out away from the shore where there was some breeze it was pretty exhilarating. I wasn’t out for long and when I returned I tried to get the girl to give it a try with me but the mother told her ”No“ and there was no doubt she was the ”boss“. Both Jeanette and Karen’s husbands gave it a go and seemed to enjoy it. I decided to ask Elle since she was in her bathing suit. The baby was asleep and my mother said she’d watch to see if she awoke so, with much prodding she joined me. I was kind of surprised that she liked it as it really was a bit uncomfortable to sit. By the time we got back to shore the family who owned the boat had gone back to their house.

I walked it down the beach to their house and the man came out and asked if I wanted to buy it. Before I could answer he went on to say that he was willing to ”give it away“. That wasn’t the exact truth but he offered to sell it for half of what he’d paid for it. I certainly wasn’t interested right at that moment even though I had Herb’s check for my boat. I thanked him for the use of it but said ”no“ to the offer and headed back to my parents house to get cleaned up for the party and pretty much forgot about it. I was more concerned about what my father’s reaction to the sale of my sailboat would be. Surprisingly, I didn’t even think about what Elle’s would be.

Not surprisingly, my father’s wasn’t good... but in the end he recognized that I was an adult and had the right to make my own decisions. Elle’s was just the opposite and it just added to the mystique of the female mind as far as I was concerned. We didn’t talk about it until we headed for home. In retrospect she was upset that I hadn’t discussed it with her. I, on the other hand, had looked at the offer as cash in the bank for us for the first time. In any case it was too late to go back on the deal. 
   
To be continued...