Chapter 25

The taxi dropped us off at the shipyard.

Grace and I are twins ... but, more than that, we seem to be partners in all we do.

We took flying lessons together. I paid.

We walked most places because we lived in smallish towns. We ate out a lot. I paid.

When we needed new clothes, we shopped together. Grace had the fashion sense of a girl who had dressed herself since she got out of diapers ... she learned. I paid.

We did what kids do ... newly minted teens ... football games, snake dances out to the the bonfires before the games, we rode the bus to away games. I paid.

Grace loved her Cherry Chocolate Cokes ... I paid.

Whatever ... I paid.

It's only money ... I had a bunch ... why not?

After Mr. Bishop bought Vera's boat, and I had decided I'd like to try my hand at boat building ... although it wasn't much of a decision ... it was more like walking by a car lot on Saturday morning and saying to the salesman, "I'll take that one." Even though you had a perfectly good car at home. Sheer impulse!

After all that we still needed a boat.

I needed a place to stay while I found a suitable hull to use as a plug and Chicago hotels are expensive. The season was heating up and baseball fever kept the rooms occupied ... Plus ... the Bears were starting their season ... and the Black Hawks ... space for a fourteen year old math engineer staying by himself was beyond hard to find.

We had two houses in Pentwater ... well ... one and a pile of rubble. The Green street house had a perfectly useable seawall ... and a boat house. Since we no longer had a motorboat and the seawall looked naked ... lonely and forlorn ... poor thing, it needed a boat. A little boat would absolutely NOT do. It was why I was in Chicago.

Daddy flew Grace to Meigs Field on the waterfront two days after I left Pentwater.

"She's miserable, David. If she weren't your sister, I'd never condone this ... can she stay with you? Vera is definitely in the family way ... and the last thing she needs is a complaining Grace."

Grace was standing right there with 'PLEASE' written all over her face.

"I don't have a place." Grace's face fell.

"Buy a live aboard ... you came for a boat ... get one." She perked up.

"JHC daddy ... I'll have to do it today." Grace grinned.

"JHC?" Daddy asked.

"Jesus H. Christ."

We zipped right out and bought a copy of The Rudder. What Motor Boating is to power boats, The Rudder is to sail. (When I say zipped ... I meant we walked to the tower and terminal. Airports cater to people with money. Of course they had The Rudder.

The book ... a huge magazine really, always had a healthy classifieds with a section devoted to the Great Lakes.

In Chicago, there was a 1939 schooner rigged Alden Sixty Six (length on deck), just out of refit, that the broker owner, due to financial reverses ... and the prison sentence, couldn't pay for. The price was 'negotiable'.

Daddy 'negotiated.'

"We'll pay what's owed and not a dime more."

"We'll take it ... get it out of the yard."

Without touching the mil that Bishop paid for the Margrave, we bought it. Lovely old boat. Grace liked her lines ... I liked her headroom. Daddy was sure I wasn't done growing so a boat with six feet eight inches of clearance under the beams was right up my alley.

She was newly rigged aluminum. Masts and booms with electric winches and the very latest in electronics. All lines led to the cockpit so singlehanded wasn't out of reach. A perfect boat for a couple of young amateurs. Without her top hamper of wood she was light on the wheel and a joy to sail. Because the rig was so much lighter she stood on her bottom much longer... (the longer the waterline the faster the boat.)

"What are you going to call her?" Grace asked, she was looking at the name painted so boldly across the stern... Your Brokers Money Pit... "That will never do."

"I thought it was funny."

"It is ... but ... you're not a broker and I don't like it."

"I thought I'd name her after a girl I know."

"Do I know her?"

"Yes."

She was thinking Jennie or maybe Diana ... I let her.

Bishop was the man who found the yacht. The Vanderbilt yacht was at the shipyard on the north end of Goose Island. The new boat was at the boatyard on the south end.

The city wouldn't let us keep the new used Alden in 'The Pool' at the north end of the island. Disgruntled and cursing the democratic regime, we ended up at the Columbia Yacht club.

One would think it would be a simple thing for an absolutely gorgeous 66 foot Alden yacht to join ... it's not. It's the yacht owners who must join ... and be recommended by three members before joining. Then it gets complicated.

Daddy was not only a lawyer ... he was also blessed with a national ... nay ... world wide ... affiliation with two Fraternities. Daddy was an 'ADelt' (Alpha Delta Phi) and a Phi Alpha Delta. The 'ADelts' were a party frat ... not quite Animal House but getting there. The Phi Delts were a Law school frat ... and serious about it. As an undergrad daddy was an ADelt ... when he graduated and started law school he joined Phi Alpha Delta.

It is a fact of life that college age students go to college to explore new horizons..."Don't Let Your Education Get In the Way Of Your Education," was what my advisor advised. Those new horizons look better the farther away they are from the old horizons.

Many successful Chicago Attorneys went to University of Michigan Law School. They are ALL Phi Delts ... many are members of the Columbia ... it wasn't a problem for daddy to find three sponsors. But he didn't live in Chicago ... however ... for the duration ... his children did ... live in Chicago.

"God, Charles. That's a pretty boat."

"The kids like it."

"Living here now?"

"The kids are."

"You separated, Charles? Divorced?"

"No ... in fact Vera is expecting a significant event." Daddy said, "It's the twins ... they're experimenting with a new process and have to be here until they go back to school."