whats in a nose

I started on something called a nose-block. This is a bit of wood shaped into something like a nose that will, one day, be the first bit of the boat that cuts through lake, reservoir and sea. There is something Jewey in the nose I have made, not only in shape and prominence, but also in the deliberate way I imagine it leading the assault, making the landing... the way marines or maccabees do. It occurs to me, I find my own way through everyday life, nose-first.

Ben helped me on the nose bit, and so did my friend, Bob Haney. Ben enjoys dangerous machines and wearing accessories and outfits designed to protect. He likes wearing the respirator and operating the chop saw in the same way he dons his hemipterous armor for lacrosse and American football.

Bob Haney knows more about how things work than anyone I know. When I cut a 3 inch slice into the wrong side of nose-block #1, like that bit in Chinatown when Jack Nicholson’s nose gets sliced, Bob said this happens all the time. He then gave me some very wise advice and a number of large and serious tools, one of which (a thickness planer) reminds me of the wood composting machine in Fargo.

pocketship arrives

And then on a warm summer day early in September it arrived. The UPS man drove his very large truck down the alley and off-loaded the 550 lb. box.

Imagine one of those wooden model airplane kits with all the perfect little pieces you would punch out and glue together (I did this a lot when I was Ben’s age). Then imagine a boat instead of an airplane and Jack discovering the giant’s model boat box at the top of his beanstalk. I was Jack. And the magic beans...well that is a much longer story and although we did not have to sell our cow..hey it’s the fall of all falls, starting last fall 2008.

Back to the boat...

I spent a day organizing the 4x8 sheets of marine plywood containing the giant’s punch out parts. It took another week to realize how many bits were not there and that I was expected to make myself. Little things like the tiller and mast, the boom and rudder, all the rigging, the deck, spars and companion way (hatch)...and more.

I'm going to build a boat

“I’m going to build a boat”. I had wanted to say this out loud for a while, but hadn’t. And then, it just came out...“I’m going to build a boat”. We were just finishing dinner. The first bottle of wine was also just being finished, and that yearning, pathetic, predictable dance of ‘shall I open another...I don’t know...okay then...red, white?’’ had just wound down.

Our children were all there, Oliver, Lucy and Ben, witnesses in the way successful cold war spies are. Oliver and Lucy processed this in the unique way they each do. Oliver encouraging and supportive. Lucy with eye-rolling amusement. And Ben. Ben absorbs all. He is a 13 year old sponge. He is unbridled enthusiasm, unfiltered feeling with the reserve and discretion of a fog horn.

I like Malcolm Gladwell. When I open my New Yorker magazine and skim down the contributing writers, he is always one of those I am looking out for. David Sedaris is another. I met Malcolm Gladwell one time he won’t remember. I did recommend him to a large sporting goods company, adidas, as someone I thought might be a good choice as an inspirational speaker. I heard they enjoyed him immensely. What does any of this have to do with the boat I am just starting to build, and Ben?

Without Malcolm Gladwell, no-one would know what a ‘Tipping Point’ is. His cleverness is in seeing something so natural that we, as a culture, never even bother to give that something a name. Like a fish in water* or a human in air, each never really notices what is most essential and obvious. Ben did. He picked this ‘dad and boat’ thing up and in the small world we share he, well, broadcast it.

It wasn’t long, less then a week, that people I know well were asking about the boat I was building. And then, in a couple of more weeks, people I didn’t know all that well were asking, too.

Like the wine-dance, there was another kind of dance coming up. Vicky would have to agree to give up her garage, where I would be building the boat, and park on the street. Breaking her routine, making her walk with groceries, clear ice and snow in the winter was asking a lot. I approached the matter in the way a nine year old Arnie might ask for a puppy. “I’ll wake up extra early and clear the snow, I’ll wash and fill up the car whenever it needs it...promise I will, really”.

In the end, Ben was the spark, the catalyst, to this tiny tipping point and Vicky, in her way, gave me her support and blessing. By the middle of summer I had no choice. I could move my family into a witness protection program, or buy the boat and get on with it.

I clicked the order button on the Chesapeake Light Craft website, cleaned up the garage, bought and borrowed tools and watched youtube videos on how to use the tools.