This is a story of a Restoration

I restored this boat from April 2006 to October 2008. You will need to go to the very bottom, October 2008, to find the biginning. See blog archive on the right side.















Friday, November 21, 2008

Epilog...the Love Affair Continues

Did you notice that my first post about this boat was titled, "The Beginning of a Love Affair?"
"Affair" means other than your wife. Read on to see where this is going.

Now that the boat is finished, I am making plans for next summer. I will be going to local lakes near here and in Utah for exposure. I mentioned that I will be going to some boat shows. Tahoe, Coeur d’Alene, Lake Oswego, up near Seattle, to name a few. I needed pictures, I actually needed to finish by October so I could find water in a lake. And I didn’t want to turn it into an ice breaker.

My motto with hobbies is, no deadlines. As soon as you "have to get it done", it becomes a chore. So I spent more time at the shop, without making it a deadline. If I didn’t get it done, then there was always another year. But I finished it with about 3 weeks to spare, you know, water was still in the lake.

You’ve read the chapters and seen the pictures. As I went from one day to the next, I could hardly wait for morning to come. Yet if other things needed to be done, or a trip to see my grand kids, there was no urgency. But there was one thing I noticed that bothered me a little. I was anxious to get one step done, so I could start on the next. I wanted to get the framing done so I could start putting the bottom planks on, etc. And each night when I went to bed, I planned the next days work, seeing in my mind what I would do. I used to fly instrument approaches in the airplane the same way. In my mind. All the steps. Before I was in the plane.

You saw the beauty of that boat. I still can’t believe that I did that. I knew it had to be near perfect, but I am so surprised that it is.

A boat is a girl. A boat needs a name. I wondered what I would name it.

You may know that I was partially retired. I had no set working hours, just get the job done, which was managing a grain elevator. I was actually teaching the bosses son the drill. And his wife to keep the books and inventory correct. As they learned more, the less I worked. I had been doing this for 7 years, and I fully retired at the end of 2007.

So when I started on the boat in the spring of 2006, I had a lot of time for the boat. Now I didn’t neglect my wife. When I retried, she didn’t want me home all the time anyway. You know, like one of her friend’s husband, in his boredom, he rearranged her recipe book!

We teased each other a lot. I always had a hobby in the evenings. I built things out side, a garage, bridges, a grape arbor, a covered walkway for her vast yard, helped build flower gardens, etc. But I always came in from my model railroad, or my model planes, etc. by 9 PM and spent the last hour and a half before bed with her. Talking, rubbing her feet, laughing, watching TV. When I got my first computer in 1988, and spent so much time on it, she gave it a name. She called it "Meg" (It was a "Mega-Turbo") It had that name on the front.

So one day she teased me and said, "You spend more time on that boat than you do with me."

Now I had my name.

THE OTHER WOMAN

Here is my beautiful wife with her brother at 3 years.

Here she is at 17 years. Here she is at 45 years.

Here she is at 61 years with her lucky husband.

Here she is at 69 years.

I would never step out on this wonderful woman.

Here is the boat at 59 years.

Here is the resurrected boat.



Here is my resurrected wife. You know, the prime of life.



They are both so beautiful.

And that is the last thing I need to do on the boat. I’m having a graphic artist paint it on the transom later on.

I am going to expand these chapters and pictures into a loose leaf folder to display at the boat shows. So this gave me a start.

Thank you for reading and commenting. Read you on the blog, I am the OldBoatGuy.

9 comments:

Barbaloot said...

This is the first time I've been to your blog, but I've seen your comments on a few I visited and I'm glad I came by.
Love the pictures of your wife. And I don't know anything about boats, but I bet if I did, I'd be really jealous of yours:)

Heidi said...

Holy cow! She is gorgeous! (and so is the boat!)

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Wow. Your wife is beeeeautiful. She looks like Lisa.

What a cute post. You are so cute. I love having an adopted old boat guy for my gramps. It's just too bad Lisa gets the boat and the money. hee hee j/k

I love the name MEG too.

You sure do keep yourself busy, don't you? But I know it must get lonely. You're a fairly recent widower aren't you? A few years maybe?

I'm still working on that dream interpretation. I'm thinking the 2nd one means you feel a little guilty that you might be ready to move on and find a companion again. And the first one probably means you're weird.

hee hee. Or it means that you think church is a complicated uphill progression/battle.

OldBoatGuy said...

Good moring, all.

Barbaloot, welcome to a thorn among roses. Thank you.

Heidi, thanks, she is a beautiful lady.

Crash, Fourteen months. Lonely for her only. I'm very content, very busy. You haven't seen weird until me. Thanks.

Funny Farmer said...

Let me second the "he is weird" assessment. I have known this since I was 14 years old. :D

OldBoatGuy said...

Only 14, what did we do, adopt you?

Emily Anne Leyland said...

Wowsers!! She is stunning. I loved this post!!!

OldBoatGuy said...

Thanks, Emily

The Crash Test Dummy said...

Okay, now . . . before you make your loose leaf, please let me give your boat a name. I'll post it tomorrow on my blog. hee hee