The True Measure of Wealth

                                                       The True Measure of Wealth

The year was now 1959, some three or four years after being reprimanded by Northport’s finest for throwing rocks at Jesse Carll’s barn on Lewis Road. By now, our landlord, Mr. Zillian had purchased the barn from Mr. Carll and scheduled it for renovating and conversion into a grandiose residence.

Concurrently, my boat-building effort at a friend’s house had stalled, since his own project consumed all of his valuable expertise leaving me in the “tomorrow” pile. I had no expertise…I was a grunt. It became late fall and it seemed obvious that my project would be covered for the winter, leaving me “boatless” for yet another season, an unacceptable notion. I asked Mr. Zillian if I could complete my project in his barn and he agreed but told me that when the renovators got to that part of the barn, I would have to vacate.

My brother and I managed to get this partially built boat into the barn by tipping it sideways and sliding it through a series of doorways and on down to the designated spot where Mr. Zillian agreed to let me work on it. Ironically, this was the very spot where just three years earlier, one of Northport’s finest had threatened to “draw” on my brother for his “on-foot-fleeing and eluding” caper during our rock-throwing episode. But then that was nearly a quarter of my life-ago. Time had changed everything and now, I was a serious young man of 13 with an agenda.

I had already addressed this problem with Dad and he agreed to fund the unfortunate event with tools; thirty dollars worth. I was so thankful to everyone for the faith they had shown in me. Now, I just had to figure out how to do this. Even in those days, thirty dollars didn’t go that far in the tool aisle, a constraint that precluded power tools. I remained undaunted.

My “fatherly” tool seminar got underway with mentor, Ed Staab of Snug Harbor Hardware (and later....marine) who led me through his tool labyrinth. One of his oft used phrases in response to my questions was ”you buy cheap…...you get cheap”. I reminded myself of my budget and bought cheap. With a hand drill, Japanese “knock-off” Yankee screw-driver, a hand saw, block plane and a few other hand tools I was ready to craft a fine vessel of beauty. What I lacked in experience, I would make up for in determination. Fortunately, my older brother Steve did hang around for a time and provided some elbow grease. With those hand tools, there was no shortage of that need.

We got the bottom battens installed and the deck framing complete when the renovators gave us our 3-day notice. In compliance, we moved the still-unfinished boat toward the patio behind our apartment. I say toward……as we had to overcome a glitch (the term "glitch" may have been in it's infancy at that time). We had created the classic “boat-in-the basement” dilemma, the real thing! My beautiful boat that we had worked so hard to get to this stage of completion wouldn’t fit out the door. The crown of the deck made the boat too beefy to fit through the door opening when turned on it’s side! Major building support columns of perhaps 16” x 16” (typical of old barns that had been constructed by shipwrights of the 1800’s) flanked the opening. We pushed, pulled, coaxed and measured. Something had to be changed to make the boat fit through. Surely, it wouldn’t be the boat. The keel on this boat was just ¾” thick and that was all we needed to gain clearance for exit. We reasoned that if we cut a notch in the support column, we could fit the keel in that notch as we slid the boat on through. This made perfect sense to us, so with an old hatchet we created some minor engineering modifications to Mr. Zillian’s barn.

The boat slid through and into the sunlight where it spent the winter under a tarp on the patio, not 3 feet from my bed. Come spring, at the advice of Mr. Don Windus of Northport Lumber, I planked the decks with Rotary-Cut Lauan Mahogany Marine Plywood. I finished the boat with paint and varnish, rigged it with a windshield, remote controls, steering, etc. and capped off the transom with a 15 horse Evinrude.

By the spring of 1960, I was now 14 and ready to rock & roll. I launched the boat and very few of my peers believed that I had actually built it. It was the highest praise.

Having had the privilege to grow up when I did….. in the little town where I did…… with the people I did, is a gift that allows me to recognize the true measure of wealth. It was these early lessons of responsibility and a little help from these unwitting mentors that gave me the message that I could. I was thirteen. I built that boat because I didn’t know I couldn’t. Steve pitched in because he thought it was a plausible time investment in his little brother. These values are from a bygone era. Less fortunate folks may never understand the impact of "the true measure of wealth".