Time to set sail

I am going to California in a few weeks to help our daughter, who is pregnant with twins,  move from Riverside to San Diego. Her husband is at U.S. Marshall school in Georgia so she needs extra help.

I'm a little nervous about this. Not about moving or flying or being gone for three weeks. No, I just recall the time my mother went to Kansas to visit my sister. While she was gone Dad purchased a sail boat.

It wasn't a little Sunfish, good for skimming across the water on a small  lake. No this was a big, 22-foot boat complete with trailer, a main sail, a jib, a spinniker, anchor, a cabin with a berth . . . you get the drift. (drift, ha ha). It would not be good if King decided on a similar purchase while I am gone.

I don't believe Dad was in the market for a sailboat at the time. He co-owned a small C-scow with friends from Chicago and Dad did a lot of sailing on a small lake near Gobles. But his sister called and said her son was selling his sailboat and did Dad want to buy it? If  Dad didn't buy it she was afraid he -- her son -- was going to sail it to his cottage in Naubinway. She was worried about him undertaking such a voyage.

I should interject here, my cousin was just a few years younger than Dad. He wasn't a kid. He was married, ran his own successful multi-million dollar business and had several children my own age.

But I don't think Dad ever said no to anything his sister asked. If my aunt was concerned for her son's safety and Dad could help out, there was no question he was going to do it. The thought that perhaps a major purchase such as this should be discussed with Mom never entered Dad's mind.

The timing was not good. Mom and Dad had just sold their home and had moved into an apartment while they were building their retirement home in Glenn. To avoid any major expenses they were paying cash as they built, so a purchase such as this was quite possibly not the greatest of ideas.

Dad out on Lake Michigan in his boat, the Willy.

That was the summer between my Freshman and Sophomore years in college. I was working in the factory Dad managed and one one evening after work -- about a day into Mom's visit  to Kansas -- Dad, my younger sister and I drove to Grand Rapids to pick up the sailboat. We brought it home and parked it in the parking lot of the apartment building where we were living. Picture a sailboat with all its rigging resting on a trailer in a parking lot. The fact that it was parked next to Dad's Fiat convertible made it seem all the bigger.

Now, my mother's full name is Christina Wihelmina. I don't know if she was named after Queen Wihelmina of the Netherlands or if it is part of a family name. Regardless, that's Mom's name. Dad liked to call her Willy. So my sister painted Willy on the back of the boat. We were going to complete the name after Mom got home. The boat's full name would be based on her reaction. Dad's thought was "Surprised Willy," "Happy Willy," "Shocked Willy."  It never occurred to him the name might be "Really Pissed-off Willy."

Mom eventually got over it. She was a real trooper and learned to hoist the main sail. She figured out how to raise the spinniker. How learned how to drop anchor and even managed to man the tiller while Dad undid whatever mistakes she made while hoisting said sails. The woman whose swimming skills didn't go beyond a dog-paddle even took sailing vacations with Dad.

They kept the boat for about eight years until Dad sold it. He decided his grandchildren needed to learn to water ski so he bought a jet boat . . .