Serendipitous Design

Ahhh… Sunday morning in Houston, Texas. Supposedly the temperature outside is 71°F, but inside it’s a nippy 65°F. Yes, nippy, damnit! I didn’t move south to feel chilly.

The thing I like most about living in Texas (over Florida) is that there’s more of a change in seasons here. Leaves actually do fall from trees, and there’s a real possibility (though not probability) of snow once in awhile. This is a good thing in that it allows me to edge my way into feeling… let’s call it homey.

This is the time of year when instead of clicking through the holiday tunes that are always on my iPod, I let them play out. It’s also the time of year I think more and more about my island home in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Sugar Island is where Mum grew up, and where I spent every single summer of my own childhood.

So why do lower tempuratures in Texas remind me of a summer place in Michigan? Ha! You jest. I said it was in the 70s and chilly here. 70° a perfect summer day Up North. The chilly feeling reminds me, not of the summers we spent almost entirely in the water, but the winters when we would visit my grandma on the Island.

Gram heated her house with a kitchen wood stove. The chimney ran up through the middle of the house, and on chilly mornings I can remember running to press my body against that upstairs brick wall before making the mad dash down to the warmth of the kitchen.

In the living room there was a second wood burning stove that was only fired up during really cold weather. It would blow hot air out from the bottom, and after breakfast you could almost always find me sitting in front, toes tucked under the edge. Someone was always telling me to get back before I burned myself.

We have nothing like that here, unless I count the puny gas fireplace that does nothing but draw what heat we do have right up the chimney. I can almost see the dollar signs as they float up and away. No, instead of snuggling around a smoky smelling wood stove, here I huddle next to my electric stove for the few minutes it takes to make my morning coffee.

As the water heats enough to boil up and collect in the reservoir, I cup my hands over the burner as if it were a tiny bonfire. If I close my eyes and focus on the warmth permeating my hands, I can almost remember the feeling of cold mornings at Grandma’s Roy’s. It’s one of my favorite memory places.

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Life with my parents has never been dull, and apparently some things don’t change with age. I grew up thinking vacations were spent on a 27″ cabin cruiser tied to some cliff in Ontario. Staying in a hotel was something entirely foreign to me until at least my teens, and even then it only happened once every few years and was always tied in with some meeting Dad had to attend for school.

When Dad retired, ten or thirteen years ago now (I’m bad with dates), they sold the old wooden boat (the “Nicole”. Gotta love that!) and bought a fiberglass Searay monstrosity. Thankfully I had already moved away, so I’ve never had to deckhand on the narrow, badly designed beast. Alas, that left Mum as sole deckhand having to navigate the narrow sides of this monste… but I digress.

A couple weeks ago, Mum and Dad (M&D) took off on a little jaunt to Richard’s Landing, Ontario (a frequent weekend destination for them). About two hours into the three hour tour (yes, I just said that), Dad noticed he was having to throttle up more and more to keep the same speed. This, of course, happened in Lake George just about the same place our old boat sank when I was seven.

By the time they made it through the rapids not far from their destination, they were at full throttle and barely making headway, but they somehow managed to avoid the rocks. The engine finally died all together just yards from the marina, and they coasted the last several feet. Apparently Dad, all 5′6″ and 70 years of him, lept the last few.

Apparently something had broken, and water was being pumped into the bilge rather than out of it, slowly sinking the boat. So they called the local boat fix-it guy who came down to the dock with his little toolbox and fixed the problem after several trips back and forth the 30+ miles to get parts. Dad, of course, made fast friends, and the man (and his dog) ended up hanging with M&D on the docks, drinking into the late evening. That’s my Dad… making friends with everyone.

Now a lot of people would be wary of taking off in a boat that had all but landed at the bottom of the river three days before. Not M&D. They waved goodbye and started their merry way back upriver. Now the trip back takes them through the shipping channel. This means they’re in hundreds of feet of water with 1,000 foot freighters sharing the waterway. It can be quite dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing, or are incapacitated somehow. You see where this is going?

An hour or so from home, the engine died. Kaput. Nada. The current in the channel is fierce, but luckily no freighters in sight to drag them into their wake. Finally Dad finally resorted to calling in a Mayday to the local Coast Guard (ah the memories). They tell M&D that they’ll be along as soon as they can get there, and to sit tight. So my parents drift until they’re outside the boundaries of the shipping channel, and throw out an anchor to await rescue. An hour and a half later said rescue appears to tow them to the nearest marina.

Now I’m just guessing here, but knowing my parents as I do, they likely passed the time having an afternon drink and some snacks.

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