Thursday, May 14, 2009

Uncle Howdy had a big old boat


Uncle Howdy had a big old boat.
It was made of wood and was white with blue trim. It had an inboard motor, a small compartment with a head below decks in the bow and a covered cabin where you could get in out of the wind when we were under way. A classic fishing boat.
Dad had a 16-foot Chris Craft tri-hull bow rider with a small outboard motor. We trailered it to the shore except for the month of August, when we stayed at 2954 Asbury Ave. in Ocean City, N.J.
Our boat was fiberglass. I know that because I ran it into a piling one day trying to do the old slam-it-into-reverse-as-you-pull-up-to-the-dock trick.
Uncle Howdy had his own slip. Going out on the boat with dad was fun. Going out on the boat with Uncle Howdy was more like going to a church social. I had to wear shorts with a belt, a polo shirt and new sneakers.
Uncle Howdy owned his own business and was very businesslike about everything except when he named his boat Sea Gal after Aunt Betty. He had three different boats during his life but they were all named Sea Gal.
On this particular day, Uncle Howdy said the flounder were biting just north of the Ninth Street Bridge.
We would go out at low tide and then drift on the incoming tide from the Longport Bridge to the Ninth Street Bridge.
Toward the end of one drift Uncle Howdy went to start up the Sea Gal and she didn't respond. All of a sudden the rectangular concrete and steel piers of the Ninth Street Bridge looked more like big, rusty teeth.
"Dan, get the boat hook," Uncle Howdy said calmly to dad as he climbed up onto the gunwale and walked toward the bow holding the handrails on top of the cabin like he showed me.
Dad grabbed the boat hook and handed me an oar. Aunt Betty led my mom and two sisters forward into the cabin.
As we positioned ourselves on the back bench and leaned over the transom toward that nasty old bridge I turned in time to see a Coast Guardsmen throwing a line into Uncle Howdy's outstretched arms.
He tied the line to the forward cleat, and we were snatched from the jaws of the bridge with less than 10 feet to spare.
Uncle Howdy climbed back into the cabin and took the wheel.
"Thanks, shipmate," he said to me.
After that, going out on Uncle Howdy's boat was not only fun, it was an adventure.

1 comment:

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