Grandpa’s Boat
This is a true story.
My grandpa bought an eight-foot long aluminum jon boat in the spring of 1960. This boat was the most dangerous boat I ever saw, and grandpa couldn’t swim. I didn’t know how dangerous it was at first. Our clubhouse was flooded that spring, as it frequently was during the early spring, so we couldn’t get there directly. The solution dad came up with was to launch the boat some distance away from the club, motor over to the club and check for any flood damage there. The little boat had a transom that would accommodate a motor, but looking back I suspect it was limited to a very small, perhaps five-horse engine or an electric motor. The boat also had a weight limit, which I’m sure no one thought of before they started loading it up.
The flooding forced us to park a long distance away from where we could use the boat, so we, Dad, Grandpa, Mel (the owner of the clubhouse next door to ours) and me unloaded the boat from the station wagon, unloaded the gas tank, Mel’s 25 horse motor and a case of beer, plus a few sodas for me (15 years old at the time). We walked along some ridges on higher ground that were above water while I dragged the boat with a rope along our path. We had to walk about three quarters of a mile to get to a spot where we could actually have open floodwater and use the boat and motor. Dad mounted the motor on the transom, placed the gas tank in the aft of the boat beside the motor and seated himself at the bench beside the engine. Grandpa climbed into the boat beside dad. Dad wanted Grandpa beside him because Grandpa couldn’t swim. Mel climbed aboard and took the center bench, leaving all 130 pounds of me to slide the boat into the water and jump aboard as the bow cleared land. The boat was so overloaded that when I shoved it out and away from the shore, the transom slipped under water. Dad, Grandpa and Mel went right down with it. The boat disappeared in two seconds, Dad popped up but no Grandpa; so he went back under water to find Grandpa. Dad came back up with Grandpa by the collar and he swam to shore pulling Grandpa with him. It was a good thing the boat sank where it was, if we had gotten as far as the river to go up to the clubhouse we would have surely capsized in the deep water.
It was just the first week in March and the weather was windy and cold. I hadn’t gotten wet but the three of them were drenched. Grandpa was into his sixties and just a skinny old guy so he was shivering immediately. Dad had a pint of brandy in his pocket, don’t know why because he never drank anything but beer, but he had it that afternoon, so he started feeding it to Grandpa as we hiked back to the car. Dad had us walk in a straight line at that point because the three men were already soaked and needed to go by the direct route to get back to the car and some warmth as soon as possible. Grandpa kept wanting to stop and rest, but Dad kept feeding him the brandy and kept him moving, fearing if he stopped Grandpa wouldn’t be able to start again. We got to the car and headed home. We dropped Mel off at his house and drove to our home where Mom had a big pot of chili cooking for us. Grandpa had finished the pint of brandy by the time we got home and he was drunk as a skunk! He was taking high steps over invisible objects in his path. It was the only time I ever saw him loaded, but he was in a different world that afternoon. He was singing and bouncing off of the walls. Dad explained to Mom why Grandpa was so smashed and what had happened as they put him to bed under a mountain of covers.
The next day Dad and I went back to look for the boat. He had a grappling hook on a rope and we trudged back across the high ground to the spot where the boat went under and Dad tossed the hook out to try and latch on to the boat. He thought he hit it several times, but the hook would not grab onto the boat. So after a half-hour of that I decided I would strip and go into the water to bob up and down to locate the boat and then get the rope to pull the boat out of the water. It was cold, breezy and snowing when I crept into the water. I was shivering, but it was the fastest way to complete the task at hand. I swam out to where I thought the boat had hit bottom and began to dive down to locate it. On the third dive down I found the boat. The fourth time I moved my hands along the rail to the bow and found the rope, then it was just a matter of swimming back to shore and handing the rope over to Dad. He pulled it to shore while I put my clothes on over my wet body. Once we had the boat out of the water we disconnected the motor and laid it in the bottom of the boat and dragged the boat back to the car.
The next week Grandpa and I drove over to Mel’s house and I knocked on his door to tell him I had found his motor. He looked at me with this bewildered look as he said: “I don’t want that thing, I’ve already filed with my insurance company to get a new one.” I thought that was pretty ungrateful considering I had nearly suffered from frostbite in an area I had big plans for in a couple of years. He took the motor though and never even said thanks.
That was the last time I ever went into water when it was snowing outside. As I look back I’m amazed that not one of those men realized how overloaded that boat was. I had concerns, but it wasn’t up to me to voice my opinion.
Bill
This is a picture of grandpa's boat with grandpa in front and his fishing buddy Eddie, taken later that summer. You can see how small the boat was.
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