Dad, we learnt it together, didn't we - you and I?

How to repair holes in that boat I bought from that guy

All we did was send away for the fiberglass kit

And then you and I together - just made it all fit ...



Turning a beat-up old hull of a boat which'd been destroyed

In a massive hurricane ... saving it ... making it our new toy

And then when I came back from England some four or five years later

It was still there, but the transom had rotted out from foul weather



You wanted us to start repairing it all over again ...

Redoing all we had learnt together - as we both did train

Ourselves - about how to layer fiberglass over holes in wood

Something we did so darn well back when I was young, and so I could



But I was so upset to find you had let the boat's hull rot out in the rain

You decided to get rid of it, because you couldn't bear to see my pain

And now I look back on it, and wish I hadn't been quite so upset

Because all you really wanted was me to readopt "us" as a pet



And now you are gone, and I wish I had it all to do over ...

For it could well have been a great project for us both together

And perhaps ... just perhaps ... you would (and, well could) have found a real need

To keep your life going longer, for the shared vision of our deed ... 



- Tristram



(c) Christopher W. Thomas

8:30pm Sat. June 20th, 1998