Tuggy!
One
afternoon, when I was six, my father asked me if I would like it if he built me
a boat. He told me that he would like to
build me a fishing boat. I told him I
would rather he build me a tugboat. “No
problem”, he told me. I was quite thrilled.
A
couple of weeks later, on a Sunday afternoon, my parents and I were settling
down in the dining room to have lunch.
My sister was playing at her friend’s house so it was just us. My father
placed my newly finished boat on the table and sat down. I looked at it quizzically.
“This
is a tugboat?” I asked.
“No,
it’s a fishing boat.” he replied.
“But
I wanted a tugboat!”
As
tears welled in my eyes, I could hear my mother say, “I told you so.”
At
this point, you would have to be impressed with my father’s recovery.
“Of
course this is a tugboat.”
“Really?”
“It’s
a special kind of tugboat. It’s called a
dragger.”
“A dragger? Wow.”
I
looked at the boat with skepticism. “If that’s a tugboat, where’s the bumper in
the front? It’s not a tugboat without a
bumper.”
“Ummm, It’s in the workshop. I forgot to put it on. I’ll be right back.”
As
he left the table, my mother yelled out, “What about your lunch?” My father continued on as he pretended not to
hear her.
As
I ate my grilled cheese sandwich, I tested the different moving parts on the
boat. The cabin doors opened and
closed. I could reach in and turn the
steering wheel. I could raise and lower
the boom with little cranks. “ A dragger!” I said to
myself. “It sounds pretty neat, whatever
it means.”
About
forty minutes later my father arrived with a woven blob of string and worked it
off a makeshift plywood loom. He fitted
it over the nose of the boat and told me he would fix it in place later.
“It
really is a tugboat!” I gasped. “I’m going to name it Tuggy! Tuggy the Tugboat!”
To
say that I was excited would be an understatement. Now whenever I went with my father to the
park, I had a boat of my own to put in the water. I sailed it in the pond at Leonard Park in
Mount Kisco, Nannyhagan
Pond in Pleasantville and in the reflecting pool at the base of the Kensico Dam. It was
there that I learned something awesome about Tuggy. There were fish in the pool and Dad suggested
I put some bread on the hook and see if I could catch a fish. “Wow!” I thought,
“Tuggy’s a tugboat that can catch fish! How cool is that?” I didn’t catch anything but I had fun
trying.
Later
that summer the whole family went to Central Park. On the ride down all I could
think of was how nice my boat would look with the others. When I got to the pond, I turned on the radio
control and Tuggy went coo coo.
A grownup with a plain sailboat was on my frequency and we would have to take
turns. Dad decided to let the grownup go
first so I sat on a bench with Tuggy on my lap and I
waited. After watching every single
other person in the whole wide world have fun except me for about a million
years, the grownup pulled his boat out of the water and told me it was my
turn. Dad told me to thank the man and I
did. Coincidently, I would befriend that
grownup about seven years later when my father started racing model yachts.
So… I
turned on Tuggy’s radio, tested it, and put the boat
in the water. Tuggy
motored along briskly among the other boats.
As it got close to something else I would say to myself, “My boat’s
better than that boat” and “My boat’s better than that boat, too.” “Daddy’s
boat is pretty neat but my boat looks way better than that boat over there.”
At
about that time a pair of long, hairy legs with a voice pulled up next to me.
“Is
that your boat?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Did
you build it?”
“No,
my dad did.”
Then
he saw where my father put “MIKE” on the back of the boat.
“Mike. That’s a nice name for a boat.”
“My
name’s Mike. The boat’s name is Tuggy. Tuggy the
Tugboat!”
“That’s
not a tugboat. That’s a fishing boat.”
At
about that point I wished I were a lot bigger, so I could push the stranger
into the water for being stupid.
“It’s
a tugboat!” I corrected him.
I
don’t know what dad was doing because he was standing behind me, but his shadow
was waving its arms and hands. Then I
heard him say, “It’s a dragger.”
“That’s
right!” I added with the tone of “…and don’t you forget it” in my voice.
“Oh,
I didn’t realize.” The stranger said apologetically, and then he bent down to
take a picture. “That’s a very nice boat
you have there.”
“I
know.” I answered back.
I
sailed this boat regularly until I was about nine. Then I sailed a bigger
motorboat I called Powertug. It wasn’t nearly as nice
or charming as Tuggy and it’s no longer around. I recently looked inside to see what would be
involved to put more modern equipment in it.
I was delighted to find that I was too late. My father had already done that. All I need to do is replace the receiver and
transmitter, and get some batteries. I’m
pretty sure I will sail this again. It’s
just a matter of when and where.
Before
we move on there are a couple of things we’ll have to get straight, and then
we’ll get along with each other just fine.
Now repeat after me:
Santa
Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy are all real.
So
are UFO’s, Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster.
Everybody
has a soul mate. If you look patiently, you will eventually find yours.
Miracles
happen but only if you believe in them.
Tuggy is a tugboat. (pssst…and it can catch fish!)
