Monday, February 4, 2013

Louis and Geertje sailing (I'm pretty sure they're only engaged to be married)


I regret not learning how to sail.  I spent eight or nine summers in the Canadian Maritimes.  I should have learned there.  I could have learned in NYC, downtown, but it cost a whopping $600 for a morning out on the Hudson.  

I do kayak, and I like to be out on water.

If you followed the canal in back of Opa's house, away from the Vecht, you ended up in a lake, which I'm guessing was part of the Loosdrechtse Plaasen.  On the other hand, according to Wikipedia, there are also connecting waterways referred to as the Vechtplassen.  I want to say that my parents are sailing in the Loosdrect, because Wikipedia says it is especially popular for sailing.

Not only that, but whenever I was on a boat at Opa's, we went the opposite direction of the Vecht, and I know it opened up into a huge lake.

My father visited Tom and me when we had a house on the Northumberland Strait and our own private little cove.  He'd be out in the morning, climbing rocks near the beach, his bathrobe flapping open in the wind.  He told me, "When I was young, I was always on the water."

He must have been 81.

Tom took him early in the morning into Halifax airport to catch a plane to Boston and from there to Salt Lake.  

Late in the afternoon, my sister, Janie, called.  "Where's Dad?"

"I put him on the plane this morning," Tom said.

"I'm here with Mother at the airport and he didn't get off his scheduled flight."

Dad was lost.

The airlines, of course, do not reveal anything about their passengers, but we learned from calling a friend, Sue Frame, who worked at the airlines in SLC, that he had missed his flight in Boston and would be in that same evening.

I talked to him the next day.  "And why didn't you call anyone?"

"Because--" he stammered.  "Because I was enjoying being by myself alone in that airport, knowing that I could still get around by myself."

All right, Daddy!



5 comments:

  1. I love your stories. I especially love all these old photos. Do you happen to have them scanned on a CD? What do I have to do to get copies, because Lord knows Teddy doesn't have them.

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  2. Yes, they are on CDs. I think Jason Wunderlich made them after Mother died.

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  3. Ed has your father's body!! Those are his legs exactly.
    I LOVE hearing these stories.

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  4. I do too. Was it your dad's spunky nature that influenced your own?

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  5. Grandpa proposed while sailing? How romantic. And, I forgot about Grandpa missing his flight after his trip to Nova Scotia. But, I love that he relished in his alone time.

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