As I have mentioned before on this blog, my parents had some unusual friends. Some of them were fishing buddies of my dad. There was Boris, a White Russian, who always wore a suit and tie when we went fishing. This sartorial attire was capped off by a pair of black high top Ked's sneakers
and a great hat.I know it's fashionable to wear sneakers with a suit in today's world, but trust me, Boris was not being hip!
Gentlemen of that era never went out in casual dress, according to my mom.
My dad's most frequent fishing companion was Andrew K, who didn't drive, and as a result. put enormous pressure on my dad to go fishing as often as possible, since without a car, his options were quite limited. We did a lot of fishing in New York State's reservoirs in the Catskill Mountain region of New York State. My dad actually "parked" his boat on the shoreline of Ashokan Reservoir there for a few years as was permitted, so you didn't have to haul it in and out each time you went.
Well one day, I came home from school, and in our driveway was an old wooden boat on a boat trailer.
I was puzzled, as the boat was an old and very heavy wooden speed boat and we already owned an aluminum rowboat. My dad explained that all he wanted was the boat trailer,
but the guy who sold it to him said that the old boat was part of the deal, like it or not. My dad planned to dispose of the wooden boat.
Somehow, Mr. K got a look at the boat and told my dad that he was going to retrofit the boat and turn it into a rowboat that we would "park" at the reservoir for our use. Although my dad was skeptical of this plan,
Mr. K was a stubborn old man who insisted this was a great idea.
As I mentioned, Mr. K did not drive and lived a fair distance from our house. So he took the bus back and forth to our house on almost a daily basis for several weeks so he could work for hours on the old boat. After several weeks of hard work and the purchase of the necessary materials,he was finished as he had transformed the old speedboat into a freshly painted rowboat.
The boat still weighed a ton. New oars were purchased as well a new chain and lock, so we could secure the boat to a rock or tree near the shoreline. The launching day arrived and we
drove up to Ashokan Reservoir for the boat's maiden voyage. I can still remember how heavy the boat was and how excited Mr. K was to have his own boat that he had put many man hours into to refurbish.
It didn't take but a few seconds for the boat to take on water, once
we put it on the lake. The water came in from all over the place and in
a few short minutes, we all realized this boat was never going to be
used again.
We somehow dragged it up onto the rocks on the shoreline where for all I know, there it sits until this day.
