Ingenuity And The Red Boat
by
Helen Gibbs Pohlot
Bruce couldn’t get out of the classroom fast enough. Third grade was finally over. With the exception of the required summer reading, he vowed not to think about school until Labor Day.
Along with several other kids, Bruce raced for the bus, thrilled with the start of summer vacation. He knew that the summer of 1961 was going to be his best yet.
The summer before, Bruce’s family had moved from the city to Sparkle Lake in Yorktown Heights, New York. It took him a year to get the lay of the land, which to Bruce meant finding good fishing spots. This summer he planned to go fishing every day.
Everyone in Bruce’s family loved living on the lake. In the winter, the mile-and-a-half-long lake provided the perfect ice skating area, while in the summer, people enjoyed swimming in the beautiful, sparkling water.
With the addition of a little eight-foot dinghy that Bruce’s dad bought for the children, summer fun went to a new level. Fishing, Bruce’s favorite sport, now offered bigger opportunities and more excitement.
On the first morning of summer vacation, Bruce was up early and on the beach. As he was untying the dinghy, a boy about his age came over and asked, “How is the fishing in this lake?”
“It’s pretty good. I found all the best spots for catfish,” Bruce replied.
“Want to go fishing?” Bruce asked.
“Sure! By the way, my name is Gene. I just moved in down the street.”
“Great, I’m Bruce. I live in that house right over there,” Bruce said while pointing to a lake bungalow. “Let’s go, but you better ask your parents.”
Bruce and Gene agreed to meet back at the boat once Gene got permission. Within five minutes, Gene was back with a fishing pole in hand.
“What are we going to do for bait?” Gene asked. Bruce held up a coffee can filled with worms, which he claimed were the “best worms around.”
Each took an oar as they rowed out to deeper water. The boys were ecstatic when they caught their first catfish. Several more followed until they had a total of eight fish.
Just as Gene was winding in his fourth fish, a noise from shore caught his attention.
“It’s Bingo! He’s coming out,” Gene yelled to Bruce. “It’s pretty far for him to swim. I don’t know if he can do it.”
Bingo was Gene’s beagle. The two boys would soon find out that the adventurist dog loved boats.
Bruce and Gene, in an effort to save Bingo if he was unable to swim all the way, grabbed the oars and started rowing towards the enthusiastically swimming dog.
Bingo made it to the boat with no problem. The boys hoisted him in, and he assumed his new position, looking much like a car hood ornament at the bow of the boat.
With eight fish, the boys decided it was time to go home for lunch. Bruce gave his mom the four fish which she said were for Grandpa.
“Grandma and Grandpa are coming up tonight from Mt. Vernon. After lunch do you think you can try and get some more fish so the whole family can have catfish?” Bruce’s mom asked.
“I’ll try, Mom, but next time you have to give me a little more time,” he said jokingly.
From that day on, whenever Grandpa was coming for a visit, Bruce’s mom instructed him to go fishing for catfish, which Grandpa loved.
Despite Bruce’s request for at least two days’ notice, his mom rarely gave him more than twenty-four hours.
Bruce and Gene became best friends. They were the same age; both enjoyed fishing, swimming, and spending every minute outdoors.
During the previous summer, Bruce noticed a twelve-foot boat partially submerged in about three feet of water. He wondered why people would abandon it. He mentioned the boat to Gene on the way back in from an emergency catfish run for Grandpa’s dinner.
The two boys agreed to go see if the boat was still there the next day.
Bright and early the next morning, the two eight-year-olds met by the dinghy. They walked over to the spot where Bruce last saw the half-sunken boat.
“It’s still here,” Bruce said happily.
“I think we can fix it if we can get it out of the water and see why it sunk. The first thing we need to do is get the water out of it and see if we can make it float a little.”
Gene agreed.
Bruce and Gene went to work. They emptied the boat of water with coffee cans and an old bucket, but it was so waterlogged, moving it seemed impossible. A bunch of older kids saw the two boys trying to pull the boat to shore and decided to help. With considerable help, the boys finally got the boat to shore. It took over a week, but they did it.
Bruce made a preliminary assessment of the boat damage. It had a hole in the side about a foot long. Other than the hole, the structure seemed sound. They would need some wood and nails to seal up the hole.
With no money, the boys searched both their garages and sheds to find material. As an added plus, Bruce found a can of red house paint and some brushes to paint the boat once it was fixed.
Work began in earnest. The boys found several pieces of wood and a bucket of nails. After careful examination of the job at hand, Bruce noticed a serious dilemma.
“How are we going to bend the wood into the curved shape of the boat?” Bruce said to Gene.
“Maybe if we wet the wood it will be easier to bend.”
Bruce placed a couple boards in the lake. He left them there for two days.
The moment of truth came when the two boys used all their might to bend the wood into the shape of the boat. Bruce pushed the wood while Gene nailed it.
Success, or so they thought! The wet wood allowed the wood to bend with great difficulty. However, when the boys went back the next day the nails had popped out.
Bruce realized that nails would not hold it. They needed screws, which they found in the shed behind Bruce’s house. Bruce used hand tools that did not come with instructions to drill pilot holes and then screw in the wood. It took the entire day to manually secure all the screws.
When they went back the next day, the board was just as they left it, perfectly attached to the side of the boat. The boys celebrated their success and went to work finishing the project. The final job was painting the boat with the red house paint.
It took most of the summer, but by Bruce’ ninth birthday on August 1, the boys finished the boat.
People marveled at the ingenuity and hard work of the young boys.
After a test to see if the boat leaked, the boys decided on a maiden voyage with a purpose. The two nine-year-olds decided they needed a tree fort.
Bruce noticed that about a quarter mile up the lake there was an area where people dumped wood and leftover construction material. He and Gene with Bingo perched on the bow set out in the newly painted red boat and rowed up the lake to find materials for the tree fort.
The maiden voyage proved successful. The wood boat had minimum water seepage, which the boys carefully bailed with coffee cans.
When they arrived at the site, Bruce and Gene found many useful items for the future tree fort.
The boys loaded wood on the red boat until Bruce told Gene that it was enough. Bruce didn’t want to overload the boat.
“We have the boat now. We can come back as much as we want,” said Bruce.
As they pushed the boat out for the return trip, the weight of the wood caused the boat to go down, leaving just two inches above the water line.
The boat was underway and too late for the boys to turn back. They rowed as fast they could with Bingo standing proudly on top of the wood at the boat’s bow.
Bruce”s father had just gotten home from work. He looked out across the lake and went wild, waving his hand and yelling.
“Get that boat to shore,” he screamed.
While the boys could see him, they couldn’t hear what he was saying. They proceeded to row.
All of a sudden, they saw Bruce’s dad plunge into the water fully clothed and start coming towards them.
Bruce was very confident the boat would not sink with all the extra weight because it had not sunk any further.
The boys called out to Bruce’s dad, who stopped swimming and stood up when he realized the boys would make it.
“Never load a boat with that much wood,” he yelled.
Bruce knew he was right and assured him they would not do it again.
The maiden voyage of the red boat proved very successful.
When Bruce moved from Sparkle Lake in 1967, the red boat was still in use and left for the next generation of kids fishing on the lake.
Construction of the tree fort is a future story from the young boy who grew up to be an engineer.
*Watch what your kids are good at. It may tell you about their life’s journey!