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MARCH 1998

The Boat

It was going to be another scorcher that day in Kennewick, so I dragged the boat I was building into the shade of the shed dad built.

That meant my industrial efforts would be visible from Juniper Street. And that meant the two Big Guys would, sooner or later, check out what I was doing. But I would take that chance. Kennewick summers were at least as hot in 1950 as they are now, and the shade was a relief.

The boat looked like a solid-bottomed soap box derby racer without wheels. In fact, it had been a racer I built earlier. But, since there were no traffic-free hills near my neighborhood, I decided to power my conveyance, not by gravity, but by another ready source of motive power.

The irrigation ditch was a natural. It flowed just a block away. Khacki colored waters oozed silently in from the direction of town, then countryward, ending up I knew not where. It would be a great adventure to explore the ditch's desert ramblings aboard...my boat.

That is, my boat with a steering wheel. I had an extremely neat steering wheel I'd picked up at the Kennewick dump south of town sometime in '49. The color was a faded chocolate. I figured it had fallen out of a '36 Chevy but it could have been a Ford. Cheaper cars didn't have the dynamite ivory colored steering wheels found in Cadillacs and Chryslers.

In the center of the wheel, where the horn had been, I inserted an iron bar, about the size and shape of a chopped-off broomhandle. To the opposite end, I would attach a rudder. This would allow me to stay in the right-hand lane of the ditch without disrupting traffic that might be coming the other way.

I plunked this contraption down through a special hole in the floorboard of my boat, and attached the rudder. It worked great. I was the proudest 10-year-old in at least three states.

I tested my boat's engineering for a grueling five minutes, then headed for the irrigation ditch and adventures that would boggle the mind of man.

Problem was, the rudder mechanism stuck out the bottom, and the boat didn't want to go very fast. My masterpiece was heavy. I would have to drag it slowly, with great effort and sweat, in front of the homes of...the Big Guys.

Hard wood skidding on gravel sounded louder than the steam engines that plied the tracks beyond the irrigation ditch.

Suddenly, they were there, the Big Guys, bright eyed, enormous, with Cheshire cat smiles.

"Hey, what are you doin' kid?" said Dave Wolfe. Dave was fat, he wore glasses, he outweighed me by 75 pounds, and was a pimply faced teen. Lyn Gillespe, his inevitable sidekick, sported a deep chin dimple and squinty green eyes. Lyn studied me like a cat studies a bug. But he smiled, too.

"It's a boat", I said. "I'm gonna float it down the irrigation ditch." I swallowed, hard.

"Neat!" cried Dave. "What an invention, eh, Lyn?" He elbowed his pal.

Lyn smiled. "Sure. Why don't you let us help you carry it down to the ditch?"

Boy, was I relieved. Not only were the Big Guys not going to me, they were actually going to help me for once.

Dave took one end of my boat, and Lyn took the other. Effortlessly, they hefted my boat down Juniper, across the field, up over a hillock covered with tumble weeds, and down to the side of the ditch.

I was so excited when I saw the boat flatten beautifully on the surface, that I didn't see what Dave and Lyn were doing. The boat edged toward the ditch's center, and as scientifically expected, started moving on down the line.

Without me.

I started to jump in after it, but Dave and Lyn grabbed me, and lifted me off the ground. They laughed. I did my best to spring free, but these turkeys were strong, like they had steel in their arms. As my boat rounded a curve in the ditch, I lost sight of it, and it was gone.

The Big Guys carried me away from the ditch, and deposited me on Juniper Street, their guffaws indelible in my brain, Lyn's little squinty eyes forever in my mind.

I ran back to the irrigation ditch, eyes full of tears, but the boat had such a head start I never saw it again.

Forty-eight years later, Lyn and Dave still pop up in my noggin from time to time. So does the sight of my boat, with its neat steering wheel.

Oh, well. Look on the bright side. (You, not me).--LA