Trolling Atlantis

One of my earliest complete memories has to do with my grandfather and his fishing boat. The boat was not docked at a pier; rather, it was tethered to a buoy in the harbor with dozens of other boats. In order to get to the boat, we had to ride on a small dinghy operated by the harbor patrol. To me, this was fascinating – riding on a boat to get to another boat! – and I always loved hopping from the dinghy to my grandfather’s boat. Such an adventure. Everything was much larger then; my grandfather’s boat was probably no more than twenty feet long, but to my five-year-old eyes it was enormous. There was a little space out front with cushions and handrails where I would ride as my father and his father drove the boat out of the harbor and into the sound. For about ten minutes we crawled at the minimum speed allowed by the harbor, gasoline fumes circling the boat until we reached the red & white buoy… and that was my signal. I remember looking back at my grandfather upon reaching that buoy; he would smile back at me and then throttle the powerful engine forward. The early morning water was a flat sheet of glass as it slipped underneath the hull.

We’d fish, sometimes catching bluefish and bass, more often catching nothing at all. We’d eat sandwiches and drink cold soda, and my grandfather would smoke his cigar. I have few memories of him without a cigar, and to this day I think of him whenever I smell cigar smoke. Once, when I was eight and my brother four, we snuck down to the basement in his house and found his cigar box… and proceeded to break all of his cigars into little pieces. Gramps was livid. However, my brother and I were treated to ice cream on the way home courtesy of our father, who was happy that we were concerned for Gramps’ health. Anyway, he would be smoking, and the smell of salty sea air and cigar smoke is a very pleasant memory. Inevitably we would turn off the engine while we ate lunch in order to enjoy the sounds of the sea, and inevitably the engine would fail to start when we were ready to return home. Thankfully the radio was more reliable, and every memory of fishing with my grandfather involves being towed back by the harbor patrol or even the Coast Guard on occasion. It never seemed to bother my grandfather much; he just accepted it and tried to make the best of the situation. Dad would try to fix the damn engine and would always become frustrated when nothing could be done to improve the situation. In any event, we always made our way back to the buoy in the harbor and the little dinghy.

I was recently on a ferry in Long Island Sound and with the wind in my face and the smell of the ocean all around, that memory came rushing back suddenly. I don’t know how these things get etched into the brain and stay there for years and years. I have earlier memories, but they’re mostly brief snapshots and moments in time, vivid though they may be. Perhaps the earliest memory of all is a brief glimpse of my father’s friend’s house; I was apparently playing in the grass and I can still see the white garage door and smell the lush green springtime. But that’s a brief glimpse, not a complete story. The brain is truly amazing – there are people out there who can recall every day of their lives and what they were wearing, what they ate… and then there are people like me, who forget what day it is right now (I think it’s Thursday, but I’m not sure).