Nathancat7
Jedi Master
I'm putting this post here because it's extranious and not necessarily insightful--but I wish to share it. I'm just telling it for my own processing and I hope I don't cross any lines.
In the early 1960's the Olaf Hammer was the largest boat in Cordova, Alaska. Harber to Copper River and the Prince William Sound. I believe it was a gill netter, and as a double ender it could really handle the high seas.
My father bought it in the late 70s, I must have been 7 or 8, when there was some question about the integrity of its wooden(planked) hull. We hauled it out of the sea and put it on dry dock--and set about renovating it. This mostly involved rebiulding the double decker cabin and fiberclassing. My mother made my brother and I long banana-shaped sleeping bags so we could sleep on the deck, hugging the curvature of the cabin. Matthew and I spent many nights bragging up the O. H., gazing at the stars, and dreaming of the day it would return to the sea.
Around this time early in the year, the Wamser family was looking for a some land to buy in order to build a two story log house. We loaned them the money for the land but on a condition--that we could store the O. H. there and, as my parents were having marital problems and were separating, maybe pull the old yellowstone trailer and squat. They they found a place near where the old gravel pit is, out by Heney Creek. Here there were the stumps of the old forest, firs up to 8 feet across.
By the end of the summer the logs were up and the Wamsers moved in. They had a well and a big oil stove. I was selected to spend the fall/winter with my father in the small trailer-with only periodic visits from my brother. We got water from the creek (and later the school--my father referred to himself as "the humble schoolteacher") and for an outhouse had a special tree, which no one, despite their attempts, could ever discover. We kept our distance. It was strange being neighbors to someone in a huge house when you are living in a little trailer under a flimsy roof--vulnerable to the effects of the elements but also their grace.
Much of our food stuffs were stored in the O.H.--including a large box of marshmallows and toilet paper--and of course my cat Heney would sleep in there. Covering the small trailer and the boat was a we built a large lean-to like stucture--to shed rain and snow. And it worked--though a bit frightening. Sometimes I would have nightmares about a small kitten trapped under the machine-like-clockwork of weights and levers. It was a hard winter, and my Dad (an organic portal) shoveled a lot of snow. We shoveled paths for the Wamsers, and becuase they wouldn't get around to it, off their pick-up camper, and other things. We hoped they would return the favor--but it was not to be.
In the summer we moved to the big city but had no place to store the boat till the following year--leaving the fate of the O. H. in the hands of the Wamsers.
The shelter collapsed. It was not really the fault of the Wamsers--they had other interests, other concerns. But the dream collapsed, the dream died. Just devastaing. The double decker cabin collapsed inward. I wasn't there to see it, but my brother related the dismantling. He said he and others to large mauls and hammered away. He said they found some planks that were compromised and rotten.
In the early 1960's the Olaf Hammer was the largest boat in Cordova, Alaska. Harber to Copper River and the Prince William Sound. I believe it was a gill netter, and as a double ender it could really handle the high seas.
My father bought it in the late 70s, I must have been 7 or 8, when there was some question about the integrity of its wooden(planked) hull. We hauled it out of the sea and put it on dry dock--and set about renovating it. This mostly involved rebiulding the double decker cabin and fiberclassing. My mother made my brother and I long banana-shaped sleeping bags so we could sleep on the deck, hugging the curvature of the cabin. Matthew and I spent many nights bragging up the O. H., gazing at the stars, and dreaming of the day it would return to the sea.
Around this time early in the year, the Wamser family was looking for a some land to buy in order to build a two story log house. We loaned them the money for the land but on a condition--that we could store the O. H. there and, as my parents were having marital problems and were separating, maybe pull the old yellowstone trailer and squat. They they found a place near where the old gravel pit is, out by Heney Creek. Here there were the stumps of the old forest, firs up to 8 feet across.
By the end of the summer the logs were up and the Wamsers moved in. They had a well and a big oil stove. I was selected to spend the fall/winter with my father in the small trailer-with only periodic visits from my brother. We got water from the creek (and later the school--my father referred to himself as "the humble schoolteacher") and for an outhouse had a special tree, which no one, despite their attempts, could ever discover. We kept our distance. It was strange being neighbors to someone in a huge house when you are living in a little trailer under a flimsy roof--vulnerable to the effects of the elements but also their grace.
Much of our food stuffs were stored in the O.H.--including a large box of marshmallows and toilet paper--and of course my cat Heney would sleep in there. Covering the small trailer and the boat was a we built a large lean-to like stucture--to shed rain and snow. And it worked--though a bit frightening. Sometimes I would have nightmares about a small kitten trapped under the machine-like-clockwork of weights and levers. It was a hard winter, and my Dad (an organic portal) shoveled a lot of snow. We shoveled paths for the Wamsers, and becuase they wouldn't get around to it, off their pick-up camper, and other things. We hoped they would return the favor--but it was not to be.
In the summer we moved to the big city but had no place to store the boat till the following year--leaving the fate of the O. H. in the hands of the Wamsers.
The shelter collapsed. It was not really the fault of the Wamsers--they had other interests, other concerns. But the dream collapsed, the dream died. Just devastaing. The double decker cabin collapsed inward. I wasn't there to see it, but my brother related the dismantling. He said he and others to large mauls and hammered away. He said they found some planks that were compromised and rotten.