Somewhere east of Missoula

Popeye’s bark startled me as I prepared my twenty-foot Gradywhite sport fishing boat for a weekend trip to our beach cabin on Cypress Island.

The blind in one eye harbor seal stared his good eye at me, while begging for any handout of marine scraps. My grandkids loved to see the sideshow antics of the water dwelling creature every time they came down to Lovric’s Marina where our boat is moored. I shrugged, shaking my head to the seal, as I had nothing edible for her, until I spotted a bucket of squid lying in the back of our friend’s, Mark and Mary, commercial crab-fishing boat tied up in the adjourning slip.

I slipped on the wet dock as I stepped forward to toss a chunk of smelly calamari to Popeye. Slimy squid ink plastered the side of my boat where my errant seafood throw had bounced off before falling to the splashing seal seizing her prize.

I cleaned off the squid ink from the fiberglass, which was covering the manufacture’s name on the boat, GRADYWHITE. I flashed back to my saga to buy this boat and four of her sisters. More than that…a promise I made to me…unfulfilled until now.

Gradywhites are the Cadillac of small sport fishing boats and not cheap. They are manufactured in South Carolina and twenty years ago only new ones where available in the Pacific Northwest. I could not afford a new one and formed a plan to have one and make some extra money as well. I knew that when people on the east coast retired to Florida. The men would buy a new boat they always wanted and a pickup truck to pull it around. The wives outlived their husbands, ending up with a boat and pickup truck they didn’t want. Enter me.

Over the next fifteen years I would fly back to Florida twice, North Carolina, Illinois and finally Kansas. Each time I would find the boats in the Boat Trader Magazine, make a deal with the owners and buy a used pickup to pull them back to Washington State. When I got home I would sell the pickup for a profit, use the boat for a year before usually selling the “in demand hot boat,” for over twice what I paid.

In June of 1998 I was on my third trip home. Each trip was four days of fourteen hours behind the steering wheel pulling a boat trailer on a dozen different Interstate highways. I was following the Blackfoot River in Southern Montana on Interstate ninety. My body was crying out for a respite, but it was only midday and I had many more miles to cover.

My heart started to ache; I had accomplished so many things in my life that most people could only imagine, but my thoughts where of my wife and kids. I dwelled on all the stuff that seemed to make them unhappy. As I drove, I watched the fast running river splashing its way through rocky gorges, hell-bent on reaching the sea still hundreds of miles away. That’s how people live their lives, oblivious to the present conditions around them and speeding towards an unknown goal.

I prayed for the next several hours asking god to intervene in my loved ones lives; to stop the bickering, stop complaining, stop sweating the small stuff. Then the light went on. God would help me, but first I needed to help myself. I decided to put away my macho attitude of the past and be the peacemaker in my family…at all costs.

After a dozen years without telling anyone, I’ll now ask my wife and kids how am I doing?

The Reality of Reality

As the psychologist sitting across the desk from me was debriefing me on the results of the four hours of I Q and psyche testing I had completed early that morning, I thought, “here I go again…another fine mess I’ve jumped into.” I had not just sought out this new adventure; I had been on a ten-year odyssey to achieve it.

I’ve been a high-risk taker my whole adult life; while racing dune buggies the thousand-mile length of the unforgiving Baja Mexico peninsula, making full-hardy investments and being an electrical contractor working with dangerous high-voltage wiring. My loving wife Suzanne will ask, “aren’t you ever going to act your age?” Which I reply, tongue in cheek, “if it wasn’t for calendars and mirrors how old would anyone really be?”

The attractive lady PHD in her late forties looked up from the paperwork and smiled at me. “Your Wonderlic score was high…interesting your career choice…you could have done my job,” she said. After the blush left my face I said, “not good a crazy testing other crazies.” She smiled again. “For all the bad things you have overcome in the past…it’s amazing on your positive outlook.”

To me life is an adventurous journey. My only goal in life is to have another goal. All humans are pyramid builders. First you build your foundation. For lucky people that base level would be your family and your God. The next levels are for your experiences and friends. How you fit the pieces together is the key. Some people putty their blocks together with mortar of lies and deceit, making the joints weak and destined to fail. Smart people hew the surface of each stone surface (friend, experience) to mirror the one next to it, making mortar or glue unnecessary.

On my pyramid there can never be a capstone.
I’m always looking for the next BIG THING.
Life is a rush!