This one is for you, Jim, ifyer looking in on the blogosphere from wherever it is you are. Jack too. Maybe there is some kind of a device over there that makes it “safe” for an old coot like Grandroobly to look at the Internet because he sure didn’t want to have anything to do with it here on earth.

Anyway, I put up with having an outboard motor in my living room all winter. Finally, it’s running again and it is attached to Grandroobly’s old Starcraft, which is also properly registered.

The Starcraft, with my green boat in front of it

My brother the engineer was mostly a motor boat kind of guy but he was also known to mess about with other sorts of boats. He found his first boat buried in sand down at the pond. I have no idea how it got there nor do I know why any of us expected anything out of a buried boat. But he dug it out anyway, with the aid of some of the usual beach urchins.

The square-prowed vessel we unearthed did not look seaworthy. In fact, it looked a lot like an extra-long dresser drawer, handles and everything. It was a little leaky but, miraculously, it floated! A nice yellow paint job spruced it up, it was christened The Top Drawer, and it had a lot of good times ferrying Jim and other various beach urchins around the bay.

Jim, leaning against the Top Drawer watching freighters. (from the Sherman archives)

This is a historic picture of some significance beyond Jim and the boat. It includes a bunch of bikini girls in the background to the left. It looks like some Sherman boys are by Grandroobly’s sailboat, the Sacre Bleu, with Don’s old raft up on the bank behind it. And then there’s Radical Betty and Esther and, last but not least, my Grandma, the esteemed Margaret Finlayson.

I actually took a ride in the Starcraft the other evening. Don’t tell anybody at Houghton Lake that I was in a motor boat, they think I am a cranky old witch who only does kayaks. Grok grok. You ARE a cranky old witch! Grok grok. It goes quite a bit faster than my green kayak and I had fun but I still like the kayak best. And sometimes I miss rowing the old yellow Top Drawer out into the bay with my cousins, singing at the top of our lungs. grok grok!

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