July, 1968

It is an intensely hot and humid summer made all the more insufferable by the architectural deficiencies of a 100 year old house. The house is a large, two story Queen Ann style cube built for a sea captain in the late 1800’s and has had a connection, albeit a sometimes tenuous one, to my family for almost as long. In accordance with July tradition the family is packing up for a summer vacation to the cottage: a converted shed located in a small cove set back on little beach. It was once used by fishermen more than a dozen decades previous to store gear during winter and more recently, according to rumour, as a holding house for illegal booze heading into the United States during prohibition. It was purchased by my father about 15 years before and to turn it into livable summer house became his obsession. Much to my father’s credit he turned the rundown, two story shack into a charming, two story shed and while in those days it lacked the civilized niceties such as running water and electricity it was a perfect parcel of Earth designed for the delight (and risk it would turn out) of kids.

The cottage was a two hour boat ride away and at the age of 4 months, it would be my first time on the water. My father had bought a retired longliner and commandeered it back into service for no other reason, it seemed, than to transport the family back and forth between town and cottage. On my first trip my mother stayed with me in the cabin listening to music while my father had the unenviable task of running the boat, trying to keep the rest of the kids from falling overboard and to console my oldest sibling and sister, now 14, to stop sulking about not being able to bring her friends with her and that she would have a good time. They both knew, of course, that it was not going to be. Tied to the back of the longliner was small rowboat that weaved and bobbed between the peaks of the wake like a dog protesting its leash.

After a couple of hours, the longliner slowed and putted and belched its was around a curiously formed rock cliff known as Tom’s Nose and just a couple of hundred yards in the distance, across the shallow cove, was the cottage and the rocky beach before it. The boat slowed to a stop and my father let loose with the anchor. For it was a curious oversight that while my father built a dock to shore a larger boat, the cove, from about 100 feet out was not deep enough to accommodate the old fishing boat’s large, ocean-going keel. It sometimes made for dangerous maneuvering to get the passengers from the longliner to the rowboat and onto the shore. Despite the risks and inconvenience, the shallow cove may have been the only place in this northern part if the Atlantic where the summer sun was capable of warming the water to swimming temperatures. My mother, demonstrating the adeptness of a lifetime of ocean-side living, coupled with many years of child rearing, skipped from the gunwale of the longliner to the rowboat, with me in her arms, with ease. About 30 minutes later everyone was ashore and my first family vacation, known only to me by story and faded photos, had begun.

My first family vacation must have been when my parents made up because it was announced about two months later that my mother was about two months pregnant.

Number 1 song, July 1968
Hello, I Love You, The Doors