Sea legs for the brain

I think that one of the ways I skimmed through my childhood without managing to acquire any particularly useful skills, or rack up many meaningful accomplishments, was to tune out lingo which I saw no compelling reason to make sense of. There were, after all, acorns to be run through with toothpicks, and miniature villages to be constructed out of twigs. I could ignore the encyclopedia maps that my brother was painstakingly tracing and invent my own geography. I guess I was sure it was just as good.

Somewhere along the line, probably after childbearing chemically altered my brain toward the more practical, I began to recognize the value of skills, and started to at least try to pay attention. This remains an ongoing process, and I am often filled with regret to be catching up after goofing off.

As such, partnered with a boat-fixer, and spending half my time 30 feet from a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, I'm trying to learn boat stuff. From 11 years old to now, I've paddled many a small paddleable vessel, but I can neither sail nor pilot a larger craft with any authority, and we're working on that.

The funny thing is, I've spent my entire life amongst boaty people and their boats. But it didn't rub off. Because I can be that oblivious.

Typically, Allen and I will be somewhere--anywhere--and someone asks him what he thinks about a 20' Grubbly-Toader semi-trawler with a 2 cylinder Hackenputt, electrolyte-cooled downpiper.

So I listen, trying to look like I'm in on the lingo, and hoping that if you throw enough words at me I will--like a toddler--begin to assemble them in a useful mental grid.

Today's random encounter involved a discussion of the merits of pokewood for decking, fungible bilge wafting, and surgical steel tampers. I noticed a small grayish-green frog clinging to a nearby planter, but still I paid attention, and let the words try to seed my brain, until sprouts of comprehension could grow into a usable mesh.

And then I contributed some useful information about carpenter bees and woodpeckers who peck cedar, when the conversation skewed briefly in that direction.

"What kind of engine is that?" I will say to Allen, pointing out a Pondcrawler 38, jacked up in the boatyard.

"It's weird," he'll say. "Runs on a blend of high-test and Gatorade. They only made them out of clapboard between '74 and '80."

I nod. I've got it. For sure.

Meanwhile, the course I'm taking on piloting, and all the compass headings I'm plotting and nautical miles I'm calculating should at least slap a coat of paint on the framework.