Blog for September 2008

Dr. Amy Peters Wood

Family:

We had a burial at sea for my father's ashes off Portland Head light on a clear windy day, while the fog hung thick everywhere else in Maine. It was a nice ceremony with offerings made to King Neptune, of flowers, Cracker Jacks and Good and Plenty. The biodegradable package the funeral home had put Dad's ashes in, bobbed over the waves jauntily heading back to land at an alarming rate- to our horror and rising distress. My sister asked me in a panicky voice "It will sink won't it?" Not being an expert on nautical cremains, I had to wait a second or two before answering. I noticed a tell tale list to starboard- indicating a breach had finally been made in the cardboard ballast- yes it was going down. With seagulls circling over the sun crested waves, my Dad slowly sank into the briny deep of the Northern Atlantic forever.

The more formal memorial service followed a few weeks later at the Somerset Club in Boston, with many of his financial world colleagues attending. This real life version of PG Wodehouse's Drone's club, was a quiet oasis for me during my tumultuous years in Vet school. I would meet my Dad here and we would either have lunch in their quiet courtyard garden, or walk a little further down Beacon Street and grab a roast beef sandwich at the Hole in the wall deli. Despite all the renovations the club has gone through it looks exactly the same. It will be a Boston institution I shall miss almost as much as my father!!

Phil and I also made a trip to Granby, Quebec to pick up my birthday present. For as long as I can remember I have wanted an Airstream travel trailer- not just any Airstream, but an old Bambi. The new ones are too big and too- …well, new. We found an old one in North Carolina in 2004, but it was a rusted shell and the owner wanted $10,000 for it. We gasped and passed.

When The metropolitan Museum of art exhibited the Bambi- I figured there was no hope of ever owning one, so I should settle for second best- a Shasta trailer with wings! A few years ago I talked Phil into buying a little trailer I noticed sitting forlornly along the side of the road on our way back from Moosehead Lake. Its only salient selling point was a pair of mercurial wings affixed to her backside. Bustle-like, these "wings" on this Shasta-trailer-wannabe played no role in increasing the towing speed of this oversized bread box, nor were they even original. Used for a combo love nest/hunting camp by her prior owner, the blood stained trailer was in rather decayed disarray- but I figured I would "gut" the trailer, as seemed to be its lot in life, and then start over. When I finally came to my senses, a young couple stumbled upon my ad in Uncle Henry's and happily took it off our hands.

The thing both of us miss most about cruising is the continuous parade of interesting people that would knock on the hull of Iwalani wherever we went. Being two people that like living at the end of a dead end road- we never felt like this was an invasion of our privacy. With her gaff rig, massive wood hull and stalwart presence, Iwalani always did the introductions for us, beckoning like-minded people into our world better than a neon billboard. This was the only way two introverts would ever meet anyone- traveling in a unique boat. Perhaps an airstream could do the same thing for us?

Phil found my fiftieth birthday present when he and Nathaniel went to Canada to learn the finer points of riveting and building the Tundra kitplane. The world of rivets was foremost on everyone's mind and Phil casually mentioned to one of the factory workers that I was trying to get him to build an airstream bambi- since we couldn’t find, nor afford one. The worker said that he, in fact, owned one, and because his family was expanding, he needed a larger trailer and was interested in selling his vintage airstream.

So on my birthday Phil gave me the new kasbah- it was made the same year as me- 1958, and is in about the same shape. We drove the 2000 Ford Ranger with its newly built Nathaniel engine to Canada to pick it up. Oscar instantly decided this new dog crate on wheels was his, and set about guarding it with typical dachshund zeal. The former owner told Phil that our new home was ready to roll and needed no work. The inside is virtually original- with pink settee cushions, pink curtains and gray carpeting. It really is cute despite the French Canadian decor and possesses no signs of carcasses or carnal carnage. Unfortunately, winterization of pipes and tanks had been poorly executed the year before, and the brand new copper pipes were split in four different locations- turning our cozy cabin on wheels, into a fantastic form of fountain art as soon as I decided to wash my hands. The gas lines too, were bent and occluded. How we ended up not exploding or killing ourselves from carbon monoxide gas is anyone's guess.

This little kasbah also has a toilet- a potential necessity for people over fifty I have noticed, (but not yet experienced) whose bladders are unable to quietly sleep through the night. While still dressed and strictly in test mode I carefully settled myself onto its fifty year old seat.  I might have a heard a small crack- but thought nothing of it. But I had definitely just added to Phil's worklist, when he began doing the dishes and we noticed water flowing all over the aft end of our little home as the outflow discharge line had snapped in two, sending fifty year old rust and I really-don't-want-to know-what into our new little swampy environ.

 A few weeks later we decided to go on our first camping trip.We headed downeast to an old girl friend of Phil's who had recently broken up with a post-ex-husband-boyfriend-rebound. It was awkward to say the least, hearing another woman call my husband "babe" as we drank too many martinis and reminisced of experiences I knew nothing about. Phil and I headed back out to the kasbah much too late. With a sufficient quantity of alcohol antifreeze running thorough our veins, Phil proceeded to light the gas heater with no light, eyeglasses missing one lens, a match held by frozen fingers, ethanol saturated breath and a quirky gas tank belching the remnants of odorless Canadian butane.  The ensuing explosion rivaled any I have experienced from gas cook stove mishaps. We nearly turned most of Washington County, and half of the state of Maine for that matter, into an impressive incendiary display. Fortunately, the damp environment from the previous weeks water woes prevented a combustible catastrophe.

That's it from this corner of the ocean!