The school calendar arrived today. It is full of the things that make up the context of what school means to the community, whether you have children currently enrolled, whether you are a staff member or whether you simply contribute to its existence and mission through your taxes … or any combination thereof.
It reminded me of how much school meant to me as a student, teacher, parent, board member and taxpayer. And it also reminded me that all of the lessons we learn don’t come from that institution. To succeed at school there have to be lessons taught at home, basic lessons, some that I learned from my father a zillion years ago.
My father found the boat lying in the reeds at the marshy beginnings of the smaller of the two lakes that make up Lake Carmel. He watched the swamped boat for some weeks before he retrieved it and brought it to sit upside down on his old paint-spattered saw horses for another month while the local constabulary tried to find its owner. Finally, it was ours … to repair.
This was my dad’s opportunity to teach his children the method and meaning of persistence, goal seeking and having a boat that wouldn’t sink. I was 10 years old at the time, which meant that my siblings were, in order, 8, 7 and 6 years old. Thinking about this now, it is clear why most of those lessons seemed deigned to be my lessons. I mean, what can you do with six- and seven-year-olds and my eight-year-old sister was a master of having to use the bathroom whenever there was work to be done.
The boat, lying bottom up, dried out, soaking up the sun of a sunny June.
It was a sorry sight. Painted green many times over, its surface had a lizard-like appearance. One of the seats was rotten and the sun squeaked through the bottom boards making bright lines on the ground underneath. Even a 10-year-old knows that doesn’t bode well for seaworthiness … in this case, lake worthiness.
I was anxious to repaint the boat, but my father cautioned me that it was important to prepare the surface for the paint. I had no idea what he meant until he handed me a paint scraper and showed me what to do. At first, this seemed exciting. The “at first” part lasted a very short time. It seemed to take months to remove all of the “alligatored” paint.
My father coached, “Don’t gouge the wood. Use long even strokes to loosen the paint.”
How much of this kind of energy and focus can a 10-year-old have? The sun was hot, the effort was both difficult and boring. I whined but persisted with visions of us in the boat out on the lake, and, with Dad’s help, the boat was prepared, primed and painted. A new seat was installed. My Dad showed me how to caulk the open seams of the boat’s bottom. “The cording swells and keeps the water out.” Just in case, we hunted up an empty coffee can for bailing.
Dad bought some oars and oar locks from Sears.
Finally, somewhere near the end of July, the unnamed boat was ready. My father made a transport vehicle out of baby carriage wheels and his stash of scavenged pallets. The flat-bottomed boat made its way down Ogden Road to the small spit of land that juts out behind the row of mailboxes on Route 52.
We spent so many happy hours in that little boat. The last time I remember being in it, I was in my early 20s and had taken my in-laws to be out onto the lake to fish for perch. My Dad was quite ill by then, but his hand was there, in mine, in the boat and in the lessons that he taught me that went far beyond the boat repair.
And today, as the opening of school comes closer, I am reminded that this lesson of goal setting, persistence, hard work and support was a skill set that I used as a student, a teacher and a parent.
Let’s wish that all children come to school having experienced their versions of old green boats.
