The Boat

Dear Readers,

I don't often share short stories in this space, but below is a work of fiction, written recently for a coastal magazine. I hope you enjoy it.

The Boat

by G. E. Shuman                             

The crudely-penciled words, written on a folded, faded scrap of paper, were those of a young child. While I, at first, had no clue as to their meaning, I marveled at the fact that these were probably my own father's words, and thoughts, from long ago.

I had found the aged note in the bottom of an elderly, homemade fishing tackle box, which I knew had once been Dad's. The note had lain flat on the bottom of the small wooden case, under a well-used hand fishing line still wound on it's stick frame, for many years. In fact, nearly three quarters of a century had passed since Dad's boyhood, and the box had come to me, by chance or by plan, in the things handed down from his estate.

“the star where we fish

143 big steps

Aunt M can't get

I will when bigger

my flag too

Caught 3 today,”

stated the note. Under the words was a child's drawing of a boat, and one of an American flag.

It didn't take me long to make the connection. The hand line was more than a clue. Our family has been visiting the Rockland Maine breakwater each summer for my entire life. Dad had spent the summers of his own early youth in that great town, visiting his uncle Charlie and Aunt Marian. His favorite pastime while there was line fishing for rock bass out on that great granite breakwater. I had even heard his story many times, of losing his boat and the flag Uncle had given him one sunny July fourth.

I drove, the very next day, to Rockland, and to that old breakwater. While feeling a bit foolish, I started on shore, and carefully counted 143 big paces out onto the thing, looking closely for some star shaped crack or mark in the rock as I neared the end of my counting. To my great disappointment, I found none; nothing that even slightly resembled a star. Thinking I might have miscounted, I returned to the shore, and began again. Truthfully, in admission, I counted those steps at least three more times that sunny June day, only to be disappointed, three more times.

I eventually found myself sitting on shore, late that afternoon, windburned and heartbroken. Taking Dad's note from my pocket I thought it ironic that this was not the first time the fragile shred of paper had visited this, my very favorite coastal spot in the world. Long ago a young child had held it as he walked this very path. “Wait a minute,” I said under my breath. “He was... a young child.” This was the first time it had dawned on me that my father's legs were once smaller than my own, and that his “143 big steps” were very different from mine.

At that moment, by chance or by plan, another gift came to me, this time in the form of a young family, poles in hand, heading down the shoreline path, toward the breakwater. There, with his parents, was a boy of about six or seven years, equipped with a small child's legs, and feet, and all. I wasted no time in asking them my strange favor, and they agreed to let me walk with them.

Little Michael had fun helping me count his steps to 143, to a spot where, to my near disbelief, five granite pieces did fit roughly together, meeting at what could be taken as a star-shaped hole. After thanking my new young friend for his help, I first knelt, and then lay flat on the rough stones. Even as I watched Michael's family walk away, I carefully stretched my arm way down as far as I could reach, into that weathered crack. My heart nearly stopped as my fingers first touched, and then retrieved what will always be my most prized possession; a terribly rusted tin toy lobster boat, with the remains of a small American flag still stuffed inside.