Monday, October 27, 2008

D Is For....

Dad!

My Dad and I might just share a few things in common other than a few genes. When I was growing up I always joked that even though I was an only child I always had my Dad to play with. You cold always find to two of us playing with some sort of new toy, building something on the table, or plotting new ways to make things work. I share my Dad's passion for building things and making them work.

When I was little we spent hours building with Legos, origami, rockets, boats, and even kites. We have built kayaks, two string kites, little Lego houses, tiny rockets and huge rockets. We even once built a moon mask out of paper mache.

Growing up we spent our summers sailing. We started with a 16 foot Venture Catamaran, this is by far my favorite boat and I am still a little sad that my Dad sold it without me knowing. Once I got too big to sail the Venture and I was ready for my own boat we spent an exciting afternoon negotiating for my very own Snark.

Although I loved the freedom of my own boat, I still missed sailing with my Dad, so we upgraded the Venture for an 18 foot Hobie Cat. Of course, like true boat enthusiasts we kept the Venture, Snark and the new Hobie Cat, much to My Mother's frustration. The new Hobie Cat meant that we could now race through New England on the weekends. Since my Dad and I are both on the lighter side, and had plenty of time to practice we were one of the teams to beat for a few summers. It didn't help that my Dad is an amazing rigger and knew all the tricks on how to make our boat the fastest. Well, times changed, and we stopped racing after a few summers. It is still a very fond memory of mine.

There are many more sailing stories that I can and will tell (like the time I fell off the boat when I was just a toddler!), but I am going to save them for another blog.

Enjoy ~SJ

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