Page 20 - WCMS2Q22

The Boathouse early in its life
got a call from my Uncle Fred, who was in Cedarville, saying he had just bought a boat, a fancy new speedboat, a 19’ Century Resorter. It cost $4,000, toward which Fred had put down $700, and by the way, could we please pay for some or most of the rest? It was a beautiful boat, with mahogany trim and a huge 8-cylinder Graymarine engine, but it was more suited to cruising, joyriding, and water-skiing than to our more mundane needs, commuting to town and fishing. To add insult, this boat had upholstered seating not designed for fishing, no place for storing an anchor, and the engine was geared for cruising at high speed rather than for trolling at slow speed. My parents were not happy about this, but to keep peace in the family eventually accepted it as a
fait accompli.
One of the first things we discovered with the new boat was that, at 19 feet long, it didn’t fit all that well into the boathouse, which was too short and too wide for it. The original plan was that the boat would be hauled up out of the water by chain hoists and suspended on crossbeams for winter storage, which would save money, and we somehow actually did this for a while. There is an old photo from the local newspaper showing our Century Resorter with a bird’s nest having been built on the transom in the back and the headline “Mobil Home on the Water.” After that, the boat was always (wisely) stored in town over the winter lest more than
birds nest in it.
In September 1953, my father bought a 13’ wooden Tomahawk boat for my brother and me, ages 9 and 11, to learn on and use. It was a “Spirit Standard” model, as best I can tell from old catalogs. It had a white oak frame and cedar strip hull; it cost, with oars, ropes, and anchor, just over $300. It was and has been ever since referred to as the “little boat,” and it has served as the children’s first boat, the one to learn on. A 7.5 hp Evinrude engine, which was more than enough to get us to town and back, was purchased the following year. We used it for fishing and exploring, and we could pull the motor up and use it as a rowboat in shallow water or row in it for exercise. We used it to go through the mysterious Bosely’s Channel, the narrow, shallow strip of water between Big LaSalle and Little LaSalle islands, that connects to a shallow bay, which in turn gives way to Lake Huron. This shallow bay we found was studded with large rocks one had to carefully thread through to get to the big lake. Exploring further into Lake Huron to the east, along the southern shore of LaSalle Island, we discovered even larger boulders just under the surface We took the little boat to Bass Cove, a small, shallow lake on the south side of LaSalle Island separated from Lake Huron by a strip of sandy beach. This was another scenic location we had only heard about. There was once a trail splitting south off Lover’s Lane that went all the way to Bass Cove, which was at one time a picnic destination, but we were never able to find the trail. By the time we
20 Washtenaw County Medical Society BULLETIN SUMMER 2022