Page 33 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

My father, like his father, was an excellent carpenter. One day I was surprised to see
him building a rowboat. The frame was laid on top of two sawhorses in our backyard.
He fastened the side boards to a block of wood for the bow with long screws that he
counter-sunk and filled with something like putty or plastic wood. He separated the
sides in the middle of the boat with boards and then with screw clamps bent the sides to
a narrower boat stern. As he added the boards for the bottom of the boat, he placed a
heavy string-like material between each board, apparently to allow for expansion or
contraction or to maintain water tightness.
We launched the boat at McGirt’s Creek, a branch of Ortega River and my brother and
I often rowed it along the wooded shoreline. One day, we started to explore a narrow
inlet. Suddenly, an alligator raised his head above the waterline in front of us. Almost
frozen in fear, we slowly eased the oars to move the boat in reverse towards the open
waters of the creek. A few days later, I took the boat to the Ortega River. The railroad
bridge near Roosevelt Blvd. was so low we had to lay across the seat of the boat to clear
the bottom of the bridge. I learned about the changing levels of the water while fishing
from the dock on the west side of McGirt’s Creek. Sometimes the water was only a foot
below the dock at high tide, but as the tide went out my line went a couple of feet lower
to reach the water.

When I was about 13 years old, a man named George Stich, who worked for the
Jacksonville Gas Company, often came to our house. We soon learned that he and his
wife had divorced, and after a year or so we saw him with mother nearly every day. My
brother and I never liked his sharp tone with us and his bitter attitude with the outside
world. Finally, out of frustration, my father left for New Jersey to stay with his father in
Pine Beach. Occasionally, Mr. Stich would come to our house with either a bottle of
Seagram 7 or Southern Comfort whiskey. When the bottle was empty, we never knew
whether they wind up in an argument that led to a fight, or if they would party and turn
up the phonograph real loud until 2 or 3 A.M.

Several weeks later, we learned that my father had a nervous breakdown and was
admitted to a Sanitarium in New Jersey. When Mr. Stich and my mother heard this,
they were furious and said he must come back to Jacksonville immediately. The next
time I saw him, he looked at me with a glassy stare in his eyes. He just hugged me and
hardly said anything.

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