Maggie's Farm

I always enjoy your pictures of boats.

My father bought his first boat when I was five years old so I grew up around them. Friday afternoons between April and September were a scramble to get on the road, hit the grocery and liquor stores and be at "the boat" before rush hour. By the time I was ten I could refinish mahogany like a pro (my father had VERY high standards when it came to woodwork). He'd buy a boat that needed work, spend a couple of years working on it in between enjoying it, sell it and buy another, a little bigger and a little newer.

We went to places up and down Chesapeake Bay, a big highlight being a cruise to Cap May, NJ. After he retired he finally got to do what he'd been dreaming of for years: take a boat through the inland waterway to Florida.

Alas, I cannot afford boats but every year come warmish weather I start to miss him (more than usual) and the boats. Usually I find a local marina and walk the piers looking for ghosts.