Adventures with Dad

We used to vacation two weeks a summer at Ocean City, MD. But even with the beach and the boardwalk, the miniature golf and Playland, the best part for me and Dad was going out on his 16-foot aluminum boat to fish Assawoman Bay. You heard me. Look it up.

Now, Assawoman Bay was, in many places, so shallow that, if you had trouble with your boat you could pretty much walk it back to the dock. Trust me. I know. And thus I always wore sneakers. There’s some icky stuff down there.

But on this particular day, Dad wanted to go down by the bridge, where the big boats play.

I, as a 12-year-old, was up for it because down that way, just the year before, we’d caught 142 blowfish. I say “we,” but Dad was mostly baiting my double drop hooks, then scooping them up in the net by fives. It was like they wanted to get in the boat. Later, bless his heart, he cleaned them all … barehanded.

Anyway, the closer we got to the bridge, the rougher the water was getting.

Dad’s wasn’t a Jon boat with the flat front. His had a pointed bow with a triangle of aluminum at the tip with a handle so you could lift it onto the top of your car to carry it home. And it came equipped with a 5 1/2 horsepower Johnson motor, which was about the size of a dorm room refrigerator.

With all that weight in the back, Dad had me sit way up in the fronty front to balance it out. It didn’t work, but it made him feel better.

On this day, I felt like doing the bucking bronco, what with the rough water and all. I’d sit on the triangle of aluminum, holding on to the handle with my legs dangling over the bow and ride her like a steed.

Only this time, one of those big boats happened by, creating quite the wake. That, combined with the already rough water, caused our mighty vessel to ride up and tip violently to port. So I rode up and tipped violently to port … and fell in the water. Tshirt, shorts and tennis shoes. And a hat! I forgot. I lost my hat!

When I reached the surface again, Dad had put the motor in neutral and was laughing his butt off. I grabbed hold of the side of our piece o’ crap craft and glared at him. I could see the thought forming in his brain.

“Deb. As long as you’re down there, why don’t you see how deep it is?”

“Dad!”

“C’mon. You can do it.”

Right. Play with my ego. So I pushed off, took a deep breath and dove, pulling myself down … and down … and down. This was creeping me out, so I turned back up and propelled myself to the surface as fast as my sneakers would allow.

I came up for air yet again and Dad was still laughing and almost clocked me with the boat.

I grabbed the side of our dinky dinghy again. “Dad, I couldn’t get to the bottom.”

“Wow. It must really be deep, then.”

OK. That formed a little pearl of pride in my chest. A little one. We still had to get little miss waterlogged back in the bloody boat.

It involved pain. You know those little round thingies you can put oars through? Yeah. Ouch.

We decided this trip was pretty much over and headed back to where we were staying. I slogged my way up the stairs and put my fishing gear down on the porch, stood, and saw Mother standing in the doorway.

“Howard! What on earth happened?”

Dad, who was standing beside me, beaming with pride because he had, after all, brought me home alive, was about to say something when I interrupted.

“Mom, we never really saw it, but it had to have been huge. Fortunately, we got the fishing pole back.”

I inched past her through the doorway and squished my way to the bathroom for a shower.