Building a Boat: Lessons of a 30-year project

How was I to have known a simple question asked by an inquisitive young Grandson would rekindle a long postponed dream and start a cascade of ruminations on war, marriage, working class conflicts and boat building? "Grampa, what is that thing hanging up there?" "A boat I've been building for a long time," I said. "Why don't you bring it down and work on it?” My Grandson asked. Looking into his deep brown eyes I realized I could not intellectualize these questions away. His curious questions troubled me deeply. I lowered the unfinished hull the next day but, it was months before I could begin to fathom how many interwoven and unresolved remnants of my life would crop up as I dragged out the tattered boat building blueprints, dusty cedar boards and tarnished bronze screws and fasteners. This story details the interwoven threads of building a classic small wooden boat with the ways life experience, relationships and personal change come together. In the end they all make this boat building project more of an adventure than the author ever expected.