Tag Archives: Family

Family, “…what it’s all about”

17 Sunday May 2020

Posted by in From the Writing Room, Thinking Outside The Boat

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Sunday, May 17, 2020.  At a time when COVID-19 has led to families across America being asked to “shelter in place,” homeschool their children, and not visit loved ones in hospitals or nursing homes, I’m reminded of an unexpected comment from a member of a famous rock band.  

Our son, Bo was born in August 29, 1968.  A month before his birth, I had opened a new hotel in Greenville, SC and worked nearly 24/7 during the final month of my “bride’s” pregnancy.  Though I rushed home to Winston-Salem, NC the night of his birth, it wasn’t until six weeks later that the family could join me in Greenville.  Soon thereafter, the Beach Boys stayed in the our hotel while performing in concert at the Greenville Auditorium.  The morning they were to leave, I asked if we could get a picture of our newborn son with them.  Beach Boys and Bo at 6 weeks They were most gracious, and the picture was taken.

Before handing Bo back to me, the band member holding him asked, “Is this your first?”  I replied yes.  As he continued to hold Bo in one arm, he pointed at him, looked up at me, and said, “You don’t understand it now, but right here’s what it’s all about.”  He was right, family is what it’s all about. 

 

This post is about a boat, the man who designed and built it, and a father that wanted his young daughter to grow up with the special memories of time spent with family onboard a boat — a specific boat — a Cargile Cutter Cruiser.

The Cargile Cutter Cruiser

The Cargile Cutter Cruiser was designed as a family boat.  The late Allen Cargile, designer and boat builder, made his name building houseboats found on lakes and rivers throughout America. According to his son Jim — who ironically, I met when he became engaged to one of our daughter’s soriety sisters — the idea for the Cargile Cutter design came from a family vacation to Key West.  As they cruised back and forth past the US Coast Guard base, Allen Cargile stared long and hard at high-bowed U.S. Coast Guard cutters.  In them, he saw the future of an affordable, planing hull, family cruiser with the roominess of a houseboat.  A few weeks after the family returned home, his father walked out of his design room with a carved model of his vision in hand.  The Cargile Cutter Cruiser was destined to become a reality.  

In 1977, when some boatbuilders were still questioning Cargile’s design, Allen took a 30′, single diesel powered, sterndrive Cargile Cutter from New York to Paris in 31 days — a feat that none of his critics had ever accomplished.  Ensign article P 1Allen Cargile was a man of true grit.  In his trip across the Atlantic Ocean, he proved his confidence in his boat.

I Want Your Boat

In late 2012, I received an email asking if we would consider selling the 1977, 30′ Cargile Cutter Cruiser that we had restored thirteen years earlier.    SunSmiles from Naut-LessSunSmiles was not for sale when I received Patrick Lee’s first email.  Though we had debated selling her, after restoration and nearly thirteen years of ownership, the ‘old girl’ was a part of our family.  The only reason we considered selling her was the fact that following the birth of our first two grandchildren, our cruising time had become non-existent.

After we had come to terms on the sale, Patrick said, “You’re probably wondering why I wanted your boat.”  Yes, I wondered why he had tracked me down through the Internet to try and buy a boat that he had never seen, and wasn’t for sale.

He gave me a wonderful reason to sell the ‘old girl.’  When he was five years old, his father had bought a Cargile Cutter Cruiser for the family to enjoy.  Now, he wanted his five year old daughter to grow up with the same wonderful memories he had of days aboard his family’s Cargile Cutter. Together, he and his daughter had searched the Internet for Cargile Cutters, and his daughter had chosen SunSmiles because she loved the name, the Fighting Lady Yellow hull, the high-gloss white decks, and the bright red canvas.  Before taking delivery of SunSmiles, Patrick bought a Cadillac Escalade EXT as a tow vehicle because his father had towed the family’s twenty-eight foot Cargile Cutter with the family’s Cadillac sedan.  It was all part of reliving wonderful, childhood memories.  I understood.

The History of Cargile Cutter Cruiser “SunSmiles”

SunSmiles was built the year that Allen made his historic voyage across the Atlantic.  The first owner of the boat that was to become SunSmiles was a Texas oil man who apparently went belly-up, leaving the boat in a covered storage lot near Dallas, Texas.  The second owner decided he wanted a Cargile Cutter Cruiser after touring the company’s plant in Nashville, TN in the early 1970’s.  Unable to afford one at the time, he spotted the boat that would later become SunSmiles while making sales calls in the Dallas area during the late 1980s.  He bought the boat for the price of several years of storage fees.

In the early 1990s, while driving from the Kalispell, MT airport to a meeting in White Fish, I saw my first Cargile Cutter in the side yard of a Kalispell home.  A couple of days later, I was given permission to inspect the boat.  That afternoon I left that 28′ Cargile knowing that if we ever moved to another coastal community, we would own a Cargile Cutter Cruiser.  In 1999, when we made the decision to move from Raleigh, NC back to the Charleston area, I began my search for our family’s Cargile Cutter.

An internet search led me to Allen Cargile.  Though retired, he welcomed my phone call and interest in the boat that carried his name.  He became my treasured source of advice in choosing the right boat and in its restoration.  Though only lukewarm on the idea of painting “his” boat Fighting Lady Yellow, with white decks, and bright red canvas, he was very complimentary of the final product.  When the restoration was complete, and we started cruising to destinations along the ICW, I enjoyed calling Allen while in route, just to let him know the pleasure his boat was bringing us.  I wanted him to know that it was a boat that was fun to cruise, and alway got attention when we pulled into a marina.  I’m not sure who enjoyed the calls more, but rarely did one end in less than a half hour of conversation.  He was a warm, friendly, and fascinating gentleman to talk to.

On March 23, 2011, Allen  passed away unexpectedly after a brief illness.  If he had still been with us when SunSmiles  was sold, I know he would have been pleased that it was going to another family that wanted a Cargile Cutter Cruiser — and no other boat would do.

Journey to a New Home

On Monday, March 18, 2013, SunSmiles began its cross country journey to a new family and homeport in Portland, OR.  You could say that it was sold and bought for the right reason — making lifelong memories.

Patrick and his family never got to see, much less cruise aboard SunSmiles.  On the forth evening of the trip, disaster struck.  On Interstate 80, twenty-three miles out of Laramie, WY, at a place called Sherman Summit, SunSmiles and two tractor trailer rigs were hit by what the highway patrol described as a hurricane force wind that capsized and destroyed all three.  By the grace of God, the tractor  trailer drivers weren’t seriously injured.  The trailer hauling SunSmiles broke free of the tow truck as a wind burst lifted the front of the boat and trailer into the air.  Once the trailer hitch gave and the trailer was free, the trailer and boat began flipping.  The driver was able to regain control of the truck and stop without crashing.

Fortunately, the boat and trailer were insured before leaving Mount Pleasant for the journey west.  In the aftermath, I helped Patrick find another Cargile Cutter, and over the years since, his daughter — just like her dad —  has been able to make her own memories of  spending days with her family aboard their Cargile Cutter Cruiser.  Today, the family lives on an island, across our northwest border with Canada.  Patrick recently completed a multi-year restoration of his Cargile Cutter.  Though he purchased a hybrid cruiser for the family to enjoy while their Cargile Cutter was being restored, he’s still hanging onto the old memory-making Cargile Cutter Cruiser.  We stay in touch, and on my birthday last month, he called and we “face-timed” while he and the family were cruising.  What we both lost in the wreckage of SunSmiles, we’ve made up for in friendship.

Allen Cargile would be proud.

 

Fair winds and following seas, 

Oh Captain My Captain

 

 

The Man He Didn’t Have to Be

02 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in From the Writing Room, Thinking Outside The Boat

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Bop Ches

He is with me every time Slow Dance leaves the dock.  He may not have been my “father,” but he was the kind of “Dad” every child deserves.  He was my stepfather, Chester Woodrow Shore.  He was a “man’s man,” yet humble and kind.  He died unexpectedly on March 1, 2003, one day before his eighty-first birthday. To say that I miss him every day is the classic understatement. From the moment he came into my life, he was always there for me.  If not for him, I don’t know where I would be in life, or if I would be boating today.

My mother and father divorced when I was a toddler. A couple of years later she married a man that before the age of twelve, I was begging her to divorce.  He never touched me, but when drinking, he became a nightmare for mother.  No child should ever see their mother bruised or her eyes blackened.  No child. Ever.  It never goes away.

Mother and I had it tough after she filed for divorce and he moved out of our home. But Mother was strong, she was frugal, and we survived. I can’t tell you the year or day, but I will never forget her smile when she arrived home from work one afternoon. On the way home, she had run into her high school sweetheart when she had stopped to fill the car up with gas.  In conversation, she learned he was going through a divorce. After graduating from high school, the war had separated them, and ultimately each married someone else. Later, when his divorce was final, I was invited on their first date, and about every date until their marriage in October of 1960.  In their forty-plus years of marriage, he never once raised his voice to Mother or me.  Soon after their marriage, he began calling me “Junior” more than he called my name.  I wish I could say that I called him “Dad” for the rest of his life. Country music star Brad Paisley, and Kelley Lovelace wrote the song that best described my “Dad” when they wrote He Didn’t Have to Be.

That first summer after they began dating, we started going to a lake cabin that he leased from a friend.  He introduced me to boating in his beautiful sixteen-foot Borum Mahogany runabout.  He taught me about boating and taught me to water ski.  He also taught me the importance of boating safely and to respect other boaters.

After he and Mother were married, they bought a rustic little cabin on the same lake. Later, he taught my “bride” to ski, and in the summer of 1968, just weeks before our son was born, she was skiing with my dad at the helm.  When she told her doctor about it, he asked if she knew what could have happened if she had fallen.  Her response was that she knew that she wouldn’t fall with my dad at the wheel.  She was right, he was that kind of man.

Early in my career my bride and I were transferred multiple times in a few short years, but we were living back in our hometown when our daughter was born.  Our children called my dad, “Bop.”  Growing up on a farm, he had smoked since his early teens.  One Sunday after lunch at my parents’ home, our young son and daughter climbed into his lap.  As they sat talking to him, our son, who was about eight at the time, asked, “Bop, why don’t you love us?”  Shocked, my dad replied, “Bo, you know I love you very, very much.”  Our son’s innocent response was, “Bop, if you really loved us, you would quit smoking so you could watch us grow up.”  From that moment, the man never smoked another cigarette. Not one.  That day he quit smoking,”cold turkey.” It was another example of the kind of man he was.  On the day that he died, our son insisted on being with him as he was taken off life support.  It was the last thing he could do for the grandfather he loved so much.

He died five days before his first great-grandson was born.  He would be so proud of each of his three great-grandchildren.  If he had lived, he would be ninety-eight today, March 2, 2020.  He enjoyed anything and everything to do with boats, fishing, and hunting.  He would have loved Slow Dance, and I’m confident that we would have gotten him onboard for a ninety-eighth birthday cruise.

He would have loved witnessing each of his great-grandchildren on the water, whether boating or fishing.  He would be proud at how the oldest has excelled in rock climbing to the point that he now climbs with the varsity team at boarding school.  He would have been proud to see his great-granddaughter make her solo run on her dad’s Hells Bay flats boat when she was only eleven year old, and shot her first deer at fourteen.  He would be equally proud that his youngest great-grandson, who just turned eleven, has an amazing vocabulary, could sell ice to Eskimos, and shot his first deer before his eleventh birthday.  Our grandsons like boats, but his great-granddaughter is the one that loves being at the helm every chance she gets — which is almost daily during the summer months. To her, boats are more important than “electronics.”  She’s a high achiever, and when it comes to boating, she is mature beyond her years.  As her uncle Bo says, “She does not lack for confidence.”

There was never a question that I couldn’t ask “Dad,” and while he may no longer be around for me to ask, he’s still with me when we leave the dock — right there at the lower helm, where I go when the cruising gets rough.  His picture gives me peace and a little more confidence.

Happy Birthday, Dad.  I love you and miss you.

“Junior”