MORE SUMMER HEAT... lots of it (Part 162y)

MORE SUMMER HEAT… lots of it (Part 162y)

It didn’t take any imagination, especially for me, to know what I was looking at. On the box spring were two pair of band leg cotton panties and a sanitary pad. On the floor was a pair of plastic panties and another sanitary pad. They were what Barbara wore to bed, at least up until the last night she stayed with us. I couldn’t imagine why they’d been stowed under the mattress or why she’d not taken them with her. I picked them all up and thought about what to do with them. It didn’t take long for me to come up with an idea… save them for memory’s sake. The linen closet was in the hallway and Elle kept empty shoe boxes in there never knowing when she’d need one to store something away. I found a small one from a pair of the kids shoes and proceeded to fold the items up and put them in. There was no way to get it up the stairs to the attic even though it was right there as Elle was calling asking if I needed help with the mattress. What was also right there was the little cedar closet that I’d used to hide my ’stash’ right after we’d moved in so that’s where the box went. I got the mattress down the stairs and, along with the other one, loaded onto the roof of the station wagon and took off for the landfill. The whole way there I tried, unsuccessfully, to come up with an idea why Barbara had hidden the items away. I was at a total loss for even a hint for an idea.
        

It was on my mind, on and off, the rest of the morning as I mowed both the church lawn and our own. It wasn’t until Cliffy showed up with the race car that afternoon before I dropped it. Sometimes Alan and Buster would ride together but on this afternoon he and Dick were in the cab of the hauler. I got right to the point and asked if he might be interested in the furniture we were replacing. He wasn’t but Dick picked up on it right away agreeing to come take a look at it the next day. My focus was to just get rid of it, not make money on it. With that out of the way we got into ‘racing talk’ and, unlike the last time we raced, there was no expectation of a good finish. Having finished second we’d won enough money to be faced with a starting position more to the rear than the front. It was almost like a self fulfilling prophesy and we ended top finishing in the middle of the pack. The only good thing was that damage to the car was more cosmetic than anything else. My friend Jay, from the County data processing department was there with a friend of his. He was introduced to Cliffy and the two of them got into a deep conversation while Jay and I chatted about the race that had just finished. On the way home Cliffy told us we might be in line for some sponsorship money… but no guarantee.

At the sailing club on Sunday I was happy to see the guy and his wife that I’d sort of met the week before when helping Rex rescue the Sunfish that had been washed from their storage racks. They were standing next to a white Comet class sailboat on a trailer. I walked up to them and he introduced himself as Martin, or Marty, and his wife as Janie. I didn’t recognize her at all even though I’d been right up next to her when pushing that Sunfish up the stairs of the club. Her hair was neatly coiffed and she had on some make-up. I was sizing her up as the introductions continued and felt she would offer a definite possibility for at least some DP’s and VPL’s. What also interested me was the sailboat. I’d raced a Comet for over ten years and had sold it so I could introduce my kids to sailing in a boat small enough for them to handle. I still liked the class and hoped that some day I could get back to racing one again. I’d always been a ’numbers guy’ and as each boat had a registration number carved into the centerboard trunk I made a point of checking them out. When I saw the number 2903 I started laughing. Of course Marty had no idea why. My answer was but one word… “Spider”. That thoroughly confused him.
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An aside….

Back when I first got involved at the sailing club I was 11 years old. The club didn’t have a formal junior program with formal sailing lessons at that time. The ‘senior’ sailors would volunteer their time and would take kids like me out sailing with them to get them exposed. One of the sailors who did had a last name of Webb and his boat was named “Spider”. I got to sail in it over a two year period. The registration number was 2903. That had been 20 years ago and here the boat had returned to it’s original venue. I had to ask how Marty came to get the boat. That brought out a laugh from him. He was living in the next county to the West but to go sailing he had to go to a waterfront town with a harbor. After a storm with high tides like we’d just experienced he saw a partially sunk boat ensnared on a marshy island. After seeing it for a few weeks he made his way out to the boat and realizing that it wasn’t too severely damaged got some people to help him salvage it. The Comet Class tried to keep track of all the owners and Marty got in touch with the class office only to find the name and address for it had not responded to mailings in over ten years. Marty then posted notices of the found boat and when he got no response decided to take and restore it and I was looking at the finished product.

What makes the story so ironic is that, in further conversation, Marty and his wife had just made an offer on a house just a mile away from the club in a waterfront Summer community called SaltAire… which is where the guy who had first owned the boat had lived. Marty and Janie didn’t buy the same house but it turned out to be but three away from it.
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The day was to be the ‘maiden voyage’ of the restored boat. After talking with him and helping him to step the mast I was wishing it was me who would be sailing it. But, Janie was his crew. When the boat was launched I had pangs of envy. Janie, like most everyone else who was racing, was wearing shorts but I couldn’t tell if she had a bathing suit on under them. The way they were scheduling the races at that time the Comet’s went first and, if enough wind, they sailed another race following it. Those who were racing Sunfish, like me, had to wait until the Comets’s got their second start. That usually meant the Comets would be finished and put away before we hit the shore. That also meant there was no chance to see Janie at the end of the races.

Elle was also racing and she was finally starting to show confidence in her abilities. This day was the first time the women got their own start. Enough men had complained that the women were interfering with them and today was it. I didn’t see the finish but because she was so excited when she got to shore I was sure she’d won. I’m laughing as I type this because when she stepped off the boat I could see that she was wet and not from sea water… and she didn’t care. I was going to tell her to go take a dip into the water but after I gave her a congratulatory hug she darted off to talk with one of the other women. I stood there watching her still bouncing up and down from excitement and ignoring the fact she was ‘advertising’ to all around her that she’d pee’d her pants.

To be continued...