52 Ancestors Week 27: The Great Outdoors

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 27

The theme for Week 27 is "The Great Outdoors." (It's ironic that's the theme this week, considering I've had to stay inside most of the time due to smoke from the Canadian wildfires. Yes, I'm in Ohio.) Has your family enjoyed hunting, fishing, camping, or hiking? Or maybe their experiences with nature weren't so pleasant. Either way, this is the week to write about it.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker "Great Sea" theme intensifies.

        Imagine cruising down Route 495 in southern New Hampshire/Northeastern Massachusetts in an attempt to escape the intense summer heat. It's hot out there! You could probably fry an egg on your driveway because it's so hot! You're packed in the backseat of your mother's blue Toyota Camry with your older brother by your side as your father drives and plays the greatest hits of the 1950s and 1960s on the radio. You and your brother exchange a look like "This is standard dad behavior" as he sings a random song by the "Beach Boys". You shrug and look out the window as cars zoom by on the highway. Your destination? Dawn Mari-Na (Later named Ring's Island Marina) in scenic Salisbury, Massachusetts at the mouth of the mighty Merrimack river.

The original Toothfairy. Ain't she a beauty?

    As far back as I can remember, we've gone to the marina or "the boat" every summer when my brother and I were growing up. Our parents would put the boat in the water in May and we would head there every weekend until late September. That was pretty much my exposure to the great outdoors. Camping sounds fun and all. But, you haven't lived until you've slept in a v-berth as waves rock you to sleep every night. Of course there was always the possibility of someone zooming by in the middle of the night causing a wake to hit your ship like a photon torpedo hitting the Enterprise. Those instances were rare, trust me. It's getting in and out of the river that was really rough!

    My parents have been "ancient mariners" for a very long time and we've had quite a few vessels to take care of during the height of our boating days. Our first boat was called "The Articulator" and after that came three vessels to bear the name "Enterprise"  err..."Toothfairy". Bet you can never guess what my father does for a living! My friends always laughed when they heard the name. It just fits! To make matters worse, we had a little cartoon toothfairy drawn on the hull on the latest Toothfairy as you'll see later in the blog!

    Summer at the marina was always fun because we had many different boating adventures, cookouts and even a celebration or two. It's hard to focus on just one special event during one summer because every summer was special in their own way. So, it might be best to just summarize the kinds of activities and fun we'd have on the water. 

Jim with Tara and Eddie. I wonder whatever
happened to those two.

    One of the biggest celebrations occured just over the bridge in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The event is called "Yankee Homecoming" and it's held every late summer in the city. The event was inspired by the need to reunite Newburyport friends and families with those who had moved away. It was also a time to celebrate New England history and heritage, too. And what better way to do that than by buying comic books across the river at a low, low price?!

    My brother and I totally took advantage of Yankee Homecoming and we would walk over the bridge to Newburyport with our friends and do a little shopping. He would get candy and various magazines from the local news shop. As for me, that's where I got my first comic books and I was hooked ever since!

    It certainly didn't help that one of my parents' friends, Marina, was also an avid comic reader and always encouraged me to read the funny pages. She helped me sort out the details for my Starbolts story and we talked comics and movies up until the day she passed away. She was a great inspiration and was one of the many important people in my life at the marina. 

    While I'm sure everyone wants to hear the tales of my brother and I raiding various shops in downtown Newburyport and even the flea market, we did have other adventures out on the open ocean with nothing but the blazing sun above and the wind at our backs. Our boat wasn't a sailboat by any means. But, there was wind and lots of it!

The summer of 1990. I wish I still had that
tan.

    After properly ransacking our grandfather's ancestral town, brother and I would return to the boat to see she was getting ready to leave. The engines were running and our parents told us to get on board because another adventure was about to begin. They were boaters and who wanted to sit at the dock and bake when we could be on the ocean?

    We often took trips on the high seas for fishing expeditions just at the mouth of the river.  On rare occassions, we've even went as far as a the Isle Shoals as seen in the picture. That wasn't our boat, though. That was our friends, the Abrahams' boat named the C-Camel. Get it? "Sea Camel"! Can't have a boat name without a pun at this marina. It's bad luck.

    I really liked our fishing trips not just because I continually took my brother to school when it came to catching flounder and other fish. I just liked being out on the ocean and smelling that salty air. There was something about being on the ocean that just capitvated me. I almost always looked past our bow at the horizon and wondered things like "How long would it take for us to reach Europe from here and do we have enough gas to accomplish that task?" 

"Admiral! There be whales here!"

    Fishing was one thing. Seeing the wildlife for free was something else. Newburyport harbor has its fair share of harbor seals, rats with wings sea gulls and all matter of sea life you'd find along the shore.

    As you go further out into the Atlantic that's where you find whales, dolphins and the occassional shark we'd catch by accident. Don't worry. We never caught "Jaws" or anything. They were just your normal garden variety dog sharks whose skin were quite rough.

   When we'd catch something or spot it on the horizon, my dad would always tell me some cool facts about what we caught.

    Though, to this day I maintain that the mackarel is probably the dumbest fish in the sea. Check this out. It's a clear, sunny day and you drop a hook into the water without ANY bait. Those little guys will still bite it because it's bright and shiny. To make matters worse, once you catch a fish and drop the line back in, its friends bite the same hook that got its other friends. Evolution did the macakrel wrong, my friends.

The current Toothfairy.
This ship was built in 1989.

        At the end of our Yankee Homecoming boating expedition, we would head back to the dock with our cargo hold full of flounder, lobster and anything else we've caught on the ocean. Nature's bounty was pretty much our dinner that evening unless a big cookout at the top of the dock was planned. Anything we didn't eat, we'd fillet and put in the fridge to take home.

    I can tell you one thing. The sea gulls really did like it when people filleted fish on the docks. Rats with wings, indeed. They eat just about anything and according to one enumerator in the 1950 census, they stole some of the sheets! Feathered jerks.....

    The real highlight to Yankee Homecoming came a few hours after dinner and we got to watch a fireworks extravaganza which rivaled the Boston Pops Fourth of July Fireworks show. Just past the bridge to Newburyport, the city would launch fireworks and because of where our boat was docked, we had the best seats in the house! 

No, that grill isn't on.

    Yankee Homecoming also meant that summer was coming to an end because it was held in late August. So, we often made the most of the remaining days on the water by visiting with friends, going to the local arcade, shopping across the river and of course fishing. 

    These days, the tradition continues as we still have the boat we spent so many great weekends on and my parents still put it in the water every year. My parents may have slown down a bit with the boating adventures. However, the boating expeditions still continue from time to time and I still see the people who made every summer at the marina so very memorable.

    It's hard for me to describe just how much going to the marina meant to me. I liked being on the water and I never, ever got seasick. To this day when I head to the docks a flood of memories come back to me like it was just yesterday. I can almost hear my friends greeting me as I walk down to our boat. I just had so many good times there that it's hard to pick just one story to talk about. There's just something about the sea air and the people you hang around with that make the most memorable experiences. 

Plus, I got to hear stories of my mom growing up in Newburyport with some context. I mean her home city was right there! Kinda hard to miss. 

    I may never have gone camping. But, boating was definitely the next best thing.

See ya next time!