Thread: My Father's Big Surprise

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Moving day arrived and my sister, Cathy, and I were unaware of our fate until we arrived on the docks of Long Beach Marina with our first, and only, small load of things to be moved into our new home. That should have been my first clue that this was not going to be an average, middle-class family move. Dad saying he had a big surprise for us should have served as a warning. Nevertheless, I was caught unprepared.

As we sat in the marina parking lot looking out at the many boats and yachts, I was the one who ventured to ask the question that I assumed was on everyone’s minds.


“Is this where we’re going to live Dad?”


“Yah, isn’t it neat?” our father chirped. “We can be by the beach all of the time now, and go fishing whenever we want!”


Cathy and I stared at each other wide-eyed as we piled out of the car. The sun flashed off the calm rippling waters of the harbor as we walked down the ramp to dock F. Each insecure step that we made on that ramp made a hollow creaking sound. My sister and I gave each other short, blank glances as Dad hurriedly led the way. His three hundred pound body made the dock teeter with each confident stride. Mom gave us a sympathetic expression, as she shrugged her shoulders, and proceeded to dutifully follow our father. The sea air filled my senses along with the smell of dead fish. The yachts gently swayed in their small slots and occasionally bumped into their landings. The riggings on the filed-away yachts echoed chimes all around like disembodied beings. It was a week day, and there was not another soul around, it was almost creepy. We soon learned that most people didn’t actually live on their yachts.
We arrived at slip sixteen in the presence of our new floating home. It wasn’t made of fiberglass like most of the other boats around us, it was almost entirely wooden. The hull stared back at us with its bright white paint. The polished wooden railings rose on top of the hull above us. It was elegant compared to the other yachts. As we stood there and quietly stared, Dad broke the silence.


“It’s called a Grand Banks!”


My mother and astonished sister had a look of disgust glued on their faces. I decided I was up for a new adventure and resolved to give it a chance. I was anxious to climb aboard. Dad was red with delight as his large chuckling belly directed the way.


“With the swim deck it is forty-two feet!” he informed with pride. “The room in back is called the aft cabin. It is for you girls. The forward, or fore cabin is ours.” He went on, showing off his new found seafaring vocabulary.

“Where did you learn the words for all of this stuff Dad?” my usually quiet sister inquired.
“Oh I just picked it up.” He was never one to explain things that he found insignificant.

“From where?” I asked.


“Never mind that. Now, look over here...,” Dad said as he proceeded to show us around.
Mom, a very well proportioned, auburn haired, beauty, stood there with a fake smile that looked painful to keep on her face and occasionally took in deep uneasy breaths.
Our entire living quarters were reduced to the size of a typical family room. It included two downstairs cabins, a galley or kitchen that doubled as a helm, and a dining/family room. We never learned the nautical term for that room. We just assumed it was the galley too, because it was all really the same room. The designers must have assumed that by putting a small divider that housed the stove/bar halfway down the small space, it would give the illusion of two rooms. We quickly found that many one-item things doubled as other things. It was a way of saving space. Much like that old wooden and brass-fixtured fishing boat doubled as a house. Although living on a yacht was initially exciting to me, the novelty quickly faded.

For the first year or so my father worked diligently to fix the yacht to his liking. He put a fancy router groove down each side of the hull and filled it in with canary yellow, polished every brass fixture, and fine tuned the two diesel engines every weekend to ensure a safe voyage. Unfortunately, when he tweaked the engines the cabin would fill with diesel fumes, because he would leave the engine room wide open while he turned the motors on and off. Another downfall to this was that the entrance into the engine room was in the middle of the dining/family room floor. Once, one of my friends didn’t notice the huge hole in the floor and disappeared from sight in mid-sentence.


The women of the family grew weary of the constant inconveniences brought on by Father’s construction projects, and I was ready to get even with my fanatical father. I started dating a guy with a green Mohawk. As an added bonus, he also drove, what I thought to be, a dangerous moped. I figured that would drive my dad berserk.

After a ride home from my boyfriend I invited him down on the docks to show him where I lived. As we rounded the bow of the boat, Dad was squatting down, sanding the hull, with his butt crack hanging out of his pants. This was a frequent sight around our yacht. He gave us his goofy, missing front tooth, grin and asked my friend if he knew how to sand wood.


In the next moment, there he was, my new boyfriend, enlisted in my father’s navy, and helping my Dad sand that monstrosity. From behind they sort of blended. The Mohawk and my father’s rear quarters made a nice vertical picture.

The relationship with that boyfriend lasted for about two seconds. That didn’t bother me too much. What bothered me was when I realized that my seemingly goofy, uniformed father had just outsmarted me.


By the time I was fourteen, my father felt it was time to give the yacht a try. Only he failed to inform me. I was awakened by the smell of diesel fuel. It was Saturday morning. I had plans to meet my friends at the mall. Only I wasn’t going! Because I was already halfway to Catalina Island with no way of calling them to say I couldn’t make it. Most people didn’t own cell phones in the 80s.


As the yacht dipped and rolled, I staggered from my cabin to the helm on top of the boat to express my displeasure.


There was Dad, manning the helm up on the flying bridge yelling things at me like, “Ay mate!” and “Swab the decks!”
Close by was a pirate flag, hooked to the mast. The flag and his hair were whipping around wildly in the wind. They looked like they belonged together. I wondered where he got that stupid, and very embarrassing, flag and could hardly believe that stores actually sold them.


“Whatever Dad,” I retorted and concluded that he was a lost cause.


Next, I went stumbling around looking for Mom. I needed someone to complain to. She was in the galley putting together sandwiches, looking to be more annoyed than me. She kept losing her footing with the roll of the waves and toppling over the sandwiches in her efforts.


“Hi Mom, need some help?”


“No. I’ve got it,” she said through clenched teeth.

I realized it would be a terrible mistake to bother her with my grievance. I was stuck on that boat and decided to wait it out. From the galley I could see my sister on the bow, carefully holding on to the railing, as her long blond hair flailed madly, and all of the muscles in her legs flexed to balance the waves. I wondered what she found so interesting down in the water and went out to her.


“Cathy, what are you looking for down there?”


“I saw a dolphin and I am trying to see another one.”


“Doesn’t standing out here make you feel a little sick?” I asked.


“Not at all. This is great and I love it. You’re a sissy!” She said as she exaggeratedly rocked her body with the waves.


“I need to go...” I said as I cupped my mouth and made my way to the toilet (or the ‘head’ as Dad called it) to puke my guts up.


Our boat finally pulled into the harbor. Dad was so excited, he was giggling like a little kid, even though he didn’t seem to be sure of what to do next. We noticed a long wharf that jutted out from the island. It seemed to beckon boaters to come over.


“Maybe we should go over there, Ray,” Mom said as she pointed over to it.


“You don’t say, Linda” he said sarcastically as he directed the yacht in that direction.


Due to Dad’s inexperience, he caused the vessel to bump into the dock with a little too much force, which rattled those who were standing on it. They gave us a startled look. Mom appeared satisfied that Dad got what he deserved for his previous tone with her. Cathy seemed concerned for the pedestrians on the dock. But Dad went about his business and threw a line to a complete stranger to tie us off. I thought that, that was a little forward of him, but the guy seemed not to be offended. He was like a valet parking attendee for skiffs, and I half expected my father to tip him. He didn’t. With wobbly legs Dad climbed off the yacht and bobbled over to a little shack on the floating parking lot. He came back with papers and mumbled something about high prices.
As my father was struggling at the helm to pull away, throwing the big knobbed wheel first right then left, he was giving us a lesson on the difference between mooring and docking.
“When you park your boat alongside a wharf, it is called docking your boat. When you hook your boat to one of those buoys out there (he pointed to what looked like hundreds of little white balloons, dotting the water not too far away from shore) it’s called mooring. That’s where we will keep our boat, and we’ll dingy over to land. This part of the Island is called Avalon...”


Mom was blocking out Dad’s every word and staring off into the clouds. She was laying on one of the decks trying to act as if she was enjoying the sun in her bikini, but I could see the worry lines stretched out over her forehead.


Mom’s general unhappiness with this whole yachting thing was making me nervous, and I had, had enough of the lessons in nautical terminology too and thought, I wish I could go home. Damn-it. I am home! This truly sucks.


Surprisingly, Cathy was listening like a dog with its ears perked up. She seemed to be enjoying herself. She had been making herself useful as Daddy’s little deckhand. Cathy was busily fetching this and that and watching for rocks that we could hit on our way into land. To me she was an irritating little butt kisser.


Dad maneuvered the yacht into a place in front of one of the white buoys and tied a line to the back of the yacht, then he tied that line to the buoy, and finally he made his way to the bow of the boat to drop the anchor. He looked as if he had been doing this all of his life. The rest of us watched bewilderment. When he was through, Mom grabbed her purse for any possible shopping on land, while Dad lowered the dingy off of the back of the vessel.


Our little dingy ride over to land included Dad putting the little engine on full throttle, waves splashing up over the bow, getting us all wet, and repeatedly asking, “Isn’t this great!”

I wanted to tell him that I’d rather be at the mall with my friends, eating pizza, and looking for good looking guys.


Instead, to compete with the shrill buzz of the little dingy engine, I screamed back, “Yah Dad, this is great.”


Cathy and Mom, with eyes squinted to avert the strong gusts of wind, unconvincingly nodded their heads.

Once we reached land, Dad pulled the dingy on land and we began to walk. And then, we walked some more. It was hot and miserable. On the bright side, I sensed that Mother was beginning to perk up and enjoy the many little shops that were there. That eased my mind, but I still wished I hadn’t been dragged along on this little family excursion. Cathy remained quiet as usual. She too seemed content that Mom and Dad seemed to be enjoying themselves. Most of her conversation was directed at teasing me when the time was right. The time was usually right for her when no one else was around to hear her do it. Mom and Dad never really knew how passive aggressive she truly was.
Many of the shops were sea shell and souvenir shops. I wanted to take home every shell that I saw, but due to the fact that we had limited space at home, my parents denied me most of them. With gloomy eyes, Mom admired the domestic decorations and knickknacks. I knew she realized that we had no need for things of that nature either. Finally, after what seemed like hours of looking around, Dad appeared to grow weary of our window shopping and nudged us to go look at The Wrigley Memorial.
“Hey girls, why don’t we go up there and take a look at that building?” he said as he pointed to a building up on a hill.


“Sure, let’s go see what that’s all about?” our Mother said with a light tone to her voice.


“I’m hungry, thirsty, hot, and tired of walking. Why don’t we go get some pizza?” I groaned.


“We’ll get something to eat after we go see the building,” said Mom.


I was sure that I did not want to trek all the way up that hill. Cathy stood there, nauseatingly, amiable looking, ready to follow anywhere. I snarled at her for not backing me up with my suggestion for grabbing some grub. She smirked at me and turned heal to tag along behind Mom and Dad. In protest, I trailed behind as slowly as I could.
In my opinion, and, I think, secretly everybody else’s, the memorial was intolerably boring. Its main purpose was to highlight the vegetation that surrounded it. Our family didn’t know much about plant life. Nor did I think we really cared. As far back as I could remember every potted plant my parents ever owned died. They eventually stopped getting them altogether. Probably the purpose for going there was so my dad could say that he had been there. Our stay was brief, and future trips to the island didn’t include ever visiting the place again.


While we all looked out over the view of the ocean from the memorial Dad said, “Did you know that the famous gum moguls the Wrigley’s had a mansion on this island?”


“What’s a mogul?” my sister asked.


Our dad gave her a vacant stare, blinked, and said, “Let’s go.”


When we came down from The Wrigley Memorial we got pizza and sodas as promised and made our way to our home out on the water. Once we reached the vessel we were all exhausted, except Dad.


“It’s time to go.Weigh anchor!” Dad yelled, as he began to hoist up the anchor. I think my Dad’s main enjoyment came from cruising on the yacht, and not necessarily going anywhere specific.

The motor that wound up the chain for the anchor slowly hummed along as the anchor ascended. Then we heard, Bam! The bow of the boat jerked down into the water, the little engine jammed, smoked, and then turned off completely.

Dad announced, “Damn! I think we’ve got a problem,” as he went to fetch his tool box.
Mom huffed in frustration, my sister tried to help Dad, and I wished I could shoot myself. Our anchor was stuck on what the harbor patrol said was probably one of the few yachts that had ever sunk there. It took till the next day, and after putting in a lot of hours of grumbling about how expensive anchors were, for Dad to give up trying to retrieve his precious anchor and leave it behind. The trip home, or the boat slip with a phone jack on it, and thus my access to normal people, was a miserable blur. This new life on the ocean just didn’t agree with me....There's a little more at the end.

Please seperate the paragraphs and return the font to default. In its current state, your piece is virtually unreadable.

Thanks. I didn't realize that the story didn't paste properly.

* * *

By the time I was seventeen, I began to appreciate the resourcefulness of my father a little more. For my mother’s birthday he had bought her a big, shinny, deep-sea fishing pole. He stood there with a proud grin on his face.

“This is one of the best reels they sell. Isn’t it great?” he said.

“Uh...hum,” breathed my mother.

“It’s a fast action rod. That way I can catch a whole lot of fish, and you can clean and cook them for the whole family!”

I was sure Mother wanted to throw him overboard at that moment. Her face was redder than my sister and I had ever seen it. She appeared to be holding her breath, and her hazel eyes were staring straight through him. When Mom was angry with one of us, her rage burned through white hot. She didn’t have to say a word for us to know it.

Dad finally looked up from his fishing pole and noticed Mom’s anger boiling and said, “Well, if you don’t like it, I’ll get you something else.”

“Do you mean that you will take that back and buy me anything else?”

“Yes...I mean no...I mean, I’ll still keep this and I’ll get you something else. Wouldn’t that be okay?” he pleaded.

“Just forget it Ray,” she hissed back at him.

The next thing we saw was Mom quickly walking down into their cabin and Dad following close behind. Cathy and I felt it necessary to find something else to do at that Moment and we took a long ride in our little dingy. When we arrived back home, Dad was dreamily standing in the living/dining room. He was admiring our old chandelier dangling over the built-in dining table, which had a booth-type couch wrapped around it like a candy cane. The chandelier had bungee cords holding it in place by way of the hand railings that ran along the ceiling, and it was entirely too big for the area.

“So girls, what do ya think?”

I didn’t want to tell him that it looked like an atrocity. I was sure Cathy felt the same way. She didn’t say a word, but just stood there and stared at the thing with her mouth hanging open.

“Cool, Dad. Where’s Mom?” I asked trying to hold back a chuckle.

“She went to the store. Do you think she’ll like it?”

“Sure, Dad,” I told him.

I wanted to get the whole conversation over with and sat down to watch television. Unfortunately, that stupid chandelier blocked most of the view so I went to my cabin with Cathy.

* * *

We saw mom coming down the dock holding a grocery bag a little later that evening. She still looked a little upset. However, when she reached the yacht and noticed the chandelier glistening over the dinner table she cocked her head to the side with a look of perplexity.

“What’s this old thing doing here Ray?” she said with a defeated smile.

“I thought maybe you’d like it. It makes it kind of homey, don’t ya think?” he said with a hopeful tone.

“I think that it’s way too big for this boat, but if you want it there that’s fine with me.”

We bumped into that hanging ornament every time we had to walk by. It served as a constant reminder that although dad could be irritating, he had a good heart.

This was a very interesting story. I think it hasn't found its font yet, but it's still very interesting to read.