Smells Like Teen Spirit

I was 14 and Dave graciously let me spend a couple of weeks with him, Joan and Jill in Pennsylvania.  He is either a good man or a fool for accommodating a young teenager in his home.  We did a lot of sailing and other fun things for me at the time.  I will always have good memories of those adventures.  There are a few that were memorable but not so fond:

• Being the large-footed teen that I was, I was quite clumsy on the boat.  It irritated Dave quite a bit when I would fall or stumble around.  He made a few comments and I tried to improve but soon tripped coming out of the cabin and fell floundering into the cockpit.  He instinctively hit me on the top of the head and the crown on my front tooth flew off onto the floor of the cockpit. We retrieved it and tried to fix it but ended up having to take me to the dentist to get it re-attached. Joan was not happy and the sailing fun came to an abrupt end for that trip.

• I was first mate on docking at the harbor at the Lake Erie marina as we were stopping to attend church services there one Sunday morning.  Dave warned me not to let the bow bump into the concrete wall as he was making a straight-in approach.  I was hanging off the bow railing with one foot on the boat and and one ready to stop the boat from hitting the concrete dock.  I slipped and fell into the harbor water right in front of the bow.  Dave and Joan said I bounced back up on the boat as if I had springs on my feet.  I did get completely dunked in nasty harbor water, but in order to make it to the church service on time, I was not allowed to shower.....only change some of my clothes and head to the services.  I am pretty sure I smelled like bilge water and my long hair was crusty and pasty and the same time.  

Richard Kester