Memories are ignited in the firewood
Issue 38 : Sept/Oct 2004
The woodpile. Sorting out the heap of driftwood harvested in haste after the high tides and high winds
of the equinox, now there is time for reflection as fragments are set aside for splitting, larger pieces to be sawn, while some are just the right size and brittleness to be snapped with a smart rap against a stone.
How suddenly the days became shorter this year; winter, when it came, approaching quickly and with stealth. The sun was still bright well into November, the days warm. But there was an edge to the air, a sudden shiver catching one unawares, while faraway unfamiliar sounds made one look up to see mysterious long-necked birds against the north light.
As I turn over the fragments of wood, each has its tale. Logs with the moss and lichen that tell of a long life in the forest upriver, far from the sea. That will smell of the land when it burns. Flaking paint on a sawn timber, a vessel wrecked in the gales of another year, frayed rope still belayed with strands of weed on a long-forgotten cleat. New paint, a recent loss. A length of gunwhale and part of a varnished hatch, a caring owner. Was she lost at sea, a parted mooring warp, or crushed by another’s neglected charge?
Here green paint and diagonal planking, Jack’s old fishing boat broken up in the creek. I recall her smart and strong, rolling her decks under at work in deep water. There gray paint, a remembered curved beam. She was a double-ender, a well-kept boat, her master’s pride and joy. He was a stern man, and as a boy I was in love with his pretty daughter who would favor me with a wave from her deck. He is gone now, and his boat passed on to one less caring. I saw her towed in astern of the lifeboat, then she dragged her anchor in a gale and fetched up on a lee shore where she was soon broken. I cannot bring myself to burn that curved beam.
It was not really fireside weather until the end of November, but there have been gales. The day after I took my little sloop up the creek to her winter berth two boats dragged their moorings, and on the following springtide an old Norwegian harbor boat, 27 heavy feet of her, broke clean adrift, and I found myself out on the marsh at three in the morning driving pegs in and lashing her down. High water the night after that was mirror calm, and she came back to her mudberth on the bank without a murmur.
Getting dark already and a chill with it. Time to check the mooring, then light a fire. I enjoy winter — walks on the beach or across the saltings, then home to hot buttered toast and a bright fire crackling in the stove with the boat safely up the creek and the wind playing tunes in her rigging.
A good time to dream dreams of the long days of summer gone and perhaps to see visions, pull out the admiralty charts and plan voyages for the long days and starry nights to come.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
