7/28/98... The floating life.

Bob got a boat in last week. Summer must be half over. Somehow Bob never gets it together until the moment of peak confusion.

This year he's not even attempting to launch his death-defying sloop, and all his other wood boats are too far gone to put in, so he's making do with a beat fiberglass runabout, pushed by a temperamental Yamaha. It may be temperamental from beating up against Sharpie. We're playing bumper boats again.

Bob has had a mooring directly downriver from me since the good old days, when only a handful of us were playing on the murky waters of the Cathance. His collection of scrap iron habitually walks around on big tides, and tends to go astray during iceout. This year was no exception. This Spring he was wrapped up in a bundle of four ghost moorings, halfway to Brickyard Point. Last weekend he hired Jimmy to winch the whole mess up onto the mooring barge, and sort it out.

Back when there were acres of room it didn't matter how long Bob procrastinated. He could tow his mooring into the mix, start rafting his daydreams to it, and we'd all dodge him as best we could. But it's a new day at Cathance Landing. Even The Lord, our goodtime harbormaster, turned in his hat this Spring, when the forces of order and regulation began to puff themselves up. He could smell the bad feelings smoldering.

We now have 44 moorings in this little river, and they go out of sight around the bend. All the minor boatists have traded up to big cruisers, or motorized party rafts, with a gaggle of seadoos trailing astern. So when Bob starts drifting, the fun gets intense.
Marshal and Cousins had a row over bumperboating, and Marshal has pulled his boat in anger. Maybe Bob can thin out the stew with his Coyote tactics.

He sure got to me quick. When he first put in, he simply rafted up next to Sharpie, because he couldn't find the lost tangle of tackle. Which is OK, except that Bob's method of tying up results in a mare's nest of 2 inch hawsers, suitable for an ocean liner, and a nightmare for me to cast off, when I want to go out.

After Jimmy had cleared Bob's mooring mess, Bob plopped it just downstream of me, and his boat proceeded to prang everyone adjacent. This usually results in everyone shifting their ground tackle to give the wildman room. But Bob hadn't counted on two things. The first is that the big cast iron radiator I've got down won't budge, and be damned if I'm going to risk parting my tackle to move from where I'm ensconced. The second is that the new harbormaster, Mark, is now in the spot Bob used to have.

Mark puts a new spin on the sport. Like most of the new boys on the river, he doesn't have a whole lot of boating experience. Like most volunteer town officials he has more good intentions than good sense. And he doesn't drink as much as The Lord. First thing he did was mark out a personal parking space at the head of the ramp. You get the picture.

Mark's red cloroxbottle Bayliner is neatly in line with the designated moorings the official committee has Oked, but Bob feels his old spot is grandfathered, and the rules would seem to agree. Only Bob didn't deal with it months ago, when the rest of us staked out our turf and jockeyed for position. Mark offered a compromise. He'd create a new spot for Bob at the head of the other line of moorings, just downstream from the dock. A perfectly good place, which I moved out of years ago when Jimmy and Bruce decided they wanted to float their eelcars there, in the mouth of Frizzle's Creek. But Bob argues that the crowds of fishermen who now angle from the bank will be forever casting lures into him there. My response was, "Hell, they cast into us over on this side of the river." But Bob is adamant.

So he's dragged his mooring upstream of me, but not far enough, and bangs into Sharpie at the bottom of every tide. Pissed me off. For a day. Then I got to chuckling. Between us, and Ron's houseboat, we pretty well plug up access to the new slipway for the big boasts. Instead of coming hard aboard me when leaving or approaching the ramp, the tyros now have to swing down into the eddy by the bridge. Mark steps back a pace or two when Bob starts flinging himself about. Old Coyote playing in-your-face boating.

The "improvements" foisted on us by well-intentioned committists are looking less charming a year hence. Most of the plantings along the shore, which were to replace the 75 trees they clearcut, have died. Now they're talking about hiring the same nursery crew to yank the carcasses, and plant some trees. Nobody has pointed out that a few suckers from across the river would probably survive better than approved parking lot landscaping. This week they installed the big cement holding tank for the new toilet. Apparently these facilities have been architecturally designed to look like a faux train station, to suit the railside ambiance. WooWoo.

The improvers are right about the waterfront being an attractive resource, of course. Teenage boys have been diving off the Brooklyn Bridge since the last rivet was peaned. On hot afternoons there's bound to be some daredevil shinnying up the girders for a plunge. One day last week the Time Record had a wonderful front page. Three photos in sequence down the left margin, of two boys jumping from the bridge. Next day DOT is bolting signs to the girders: NO DIVING OR JUMPING FROM THIS BRIDGE. No petty bureaucrat worth her salt can resist a chance for Nazi signage. Reminds me of the signs in the R. Crumb cartoons. KEEP A TIGHT ASSHOLE. Not that the kids will pay them any mind. Just another indication of how civilized we're getting here.

And the place is almost urban on the weekends. Between honking great stinkpots and screaming jetskis, the quiet "recreational resource" the nice folks with kayaks voted to "improve" last year has all the charm of Cony Island. But it IS a hoot to watch. The party boys churning up big wakes to roll the smallfry, and caroming off the sand bars. Skidoos wake jumping. Steve the Sauce trying to pick up his oversized balloon buoy and keep his cruiser head to tide with a full load on. But the best show this week was when Mike the Bike brought a party of kayak excursionists for an outing on this "hidden" waterway.

Mike has been putting together excursion packages for LLBean, which is a nice job, if only mildly lucrative. But Mike isn't necessarily in it for the money. That's what he tried to tell IRS when they caught him a few years back. He'd neglected to file for a generation or two, and Uncle smiled, as He took the farm.

At first Mike said, "Hell with them. They want to garnish my income, I won't have any." Now he works part-time for Bean's, and sells electronic gear at Staples. He's always game for good sport, and has toured the West on a recumbent bike, commutes by motorcycle. Has the loud joviality of a born hustler. Knows how to be rude to his friends.

This kayak caper consisted of a pickup-load of boats, tiered up on racks, and two stretch limos full of big guys. The drivers were in uniform. Jacket and tie. The boys in leisure attire. Under Mike's guidance, the sports fought the tide down to Wild's Point, about 2 miles, where they hauled out for a breather. And a snifter or two, maybe. By the time they had thrashed back to the dock they were feeling no pain. They poured into the limos, and headed back to civilization. The second limo, in hot pursuit of the leader, never noticed the flashing light by Jeanine's, and got creamed by the through traffic.

Nobody hurt. The innocent Nissan was totaled. But all the drunken sports crawled over to the canon on the green, and the entire emergency response team of Sagadahoc County descended. Fire department, ambulance, first responders, sheriff, troopers. And they all had to get statements in triplicate. It was marvelously incoherent. I tried to find the telling camera angle, but it was all too exciting. Mike spent the whole time telling jokes. That's what happens when you try and turn Bowdoinham into a destination resort. The limo gets kinked.

We've resorted to the waters ourselves, on scalding afternoons. And they've tended to be. High summer wildflowers line the roads and color the fields. Purple loosestrife, wild potato vine, and milkweed in bloom. Out on the river the cardinal flowers are starting to show, and the young eagles are fledged. We sailed past this year's crop taking fishing lessons at the mouth of the Muddy. Seven or eight young eagles back-peddling in the air and diving into the shallows after carp. Eagle school.

The past few days the wind's been up in the afternoon, and we've had some lively sailing, after a dip at Michael's dock. I've been logy with the heat for weeks, and depressed with a sugar spike from sheer lassitude. Trying to stay cool, I neglect the necessary exercise, and go into a sugar snooze. Caught myself this time, though, and I've been trying to burn it off with early morning activity, and afternoon water therapy. I can understand why sweet guys get to be physical workaholics. About the only way to keep your head clear, unless you're religious about diet. Fortunately the garden is in full delivery, so snacking doesn't put me down for the count. I'm working on a green tooth.

The peas are past, but pole beans are dangling thick, and the Lughnasa fruit is ready. New potatoes, firm and tender, and ripe garlic. Broccoli and chard. Fenimore's farm market down the road is opening this week, so we can get pickling cukes. We tend to scoff up everything that bears in our garden, now, and have to buy produce for pickling. And Marty and Henry open their vegetarian restaurant tomorrow. MMmm.

Last night the third waterfront concert happened at the town landing. We put one of David's chickens in to roast, and went down to partake. Family groups sitting on the lawn as the sun goes down salmon, and the evening boaters trickle in. Hal put together a small stage backed against the trees lining Frizzle's Creek, and the acoustics are pretty decent. This time it was a solo folkie with a line of patter. Probably a good act, but we were all too busy jawing to savor the full flavor. Kids playing soccer among the adults. Toddlers climbing the municipal sandpile. All it needed was straw boaters and bloomers to be another century. I may grouse about the local dogooding, but live music on a Monday night alongside the Cathance ain't all bad.

Between the river and the garden we'll survive the hots. And the entertainment is cheap.