Squirt

MEMORIES: We used to have this ENORMOUS styrofoam sailboat at the beach house. I'm not sure how we came to own it, I don't think we bought it. More likely, we salvaged it from other drift on the beach, or perhaps it was given to us by another family who had outgrown it. I'm drifting back to the foggy cobwebs of my memory, I think I was perhaps 8 or 9 at the time.

The sailboat was really just a large, flat lenght of styrofoam, maybe 12' - 15' long. It had a slot in the center for the keel, and a hole for the mast, and a rudder. By the time it came into our ownership, I don't remember we ever owned the sail, the mast, and the rudder was broken off. So truly all we had was a large, flat piece of styrofoam. It was light, and two of us could carry it down from the cottage to the beach easily.

You might question what use a large flat piece of styrofoam might be at the beach. My father used it as ... a bed. It was a sanctuary to escape the both children and spouse, and get away for a time on the ocean. He would push the styrofoam boat out just past the breakers, haul himself aboard and just lay out for a nap.

Of course, then there was that one time when he did more than just doze off ... he fell fast asleep. And by the time he woke up, Higgin's Beach was nowhere in sight.

I doze and take naps on an inflatable float -- this one, that my father is floating on now. It's enough, for now, but I sometimes wish I had my own styrofoam raft, and could sail out on the ocean for a time, lost and adrift.