Water Memories

Today I sat in traffic next to a noisy monster truck. I lack the car speak to describe its appearance except to say that its tires were nearly the height of my car. And unless the driver owned a small crane, he would have to pole vault to the drivers seat. Generally speaking, the sight of such trucks does not appeal to me. But today was different.

When the engine in this truck revved for the green light, it made a low guttural noise. The sound transported me to my Dad's boat on the Chesapeake Bay where we would occasionally spend the summer. When my father would turn the boat key in the ignition, the same low guttural noise would gurgle in the water. There would be a brief smell of gasoline and some smoke as the water lapped gently on the sides of the boat before we took off.

My father's boat was nothing fancy. His only qualifications for a boat, to my recollection, involved holding 8 people and being able to tow a tube. His first boat was really his father's, but for all intents and purposes my father babied that thing like it was his own; it was considered his.

He bought his own boat years later. It was never bought new, only used. He knew boats were for leisure and didn't need to be super fancy. Plus he had 5 mouths to feed.

I remember with fondness when he would send me to the bow of the boat as he put it in low gear. We'd troll around the Chesapeake and scoop up crabs in our nets. Some would be softshell, some hardshell. We'd throw them in a bucket and hear them click around frantically in an effort to scramble out. One time I ignorantly thought I should "help" a baby crab which was in the clutches of another crab. The tiny creature promptly cut through my thumb and skittered back into the bay.

And the end of a day if we had enough crabs Dad would steam them for dinner. I never liked hearing the crabs dance around the metal pot until they succumbed to the steam. But boy were they fun to eat. We'd throw some newspaper out on the picnic table and dig in. It was a time of family bonding and learning about nature.

I really miss the smell of salt water and the sound of gently lapping waves. But sometimes on quiet, gentle windy nights the prairie preserve behind my house blows gently and reminds me that home is not too far.