The Victors

I don't recall posting about it offhand, but yeah, I would sail with my dad from time to time, and we took one particularly memorable trip around that time. I think it may have actually been in the late summer of 2001, not long before 9/11.

It was him, me, and a friend of his in a 36' Tayana-Mariner cutter rig. Wasn't a racer by any means, but a classy and stable cruiser with beautiful lines and wood trim. We left in the morning from his marina just south of Monroe and went around 48 hours non-stop up to Tobermory

Most of first day was fighting the current up the Detroit river.

I remember the smell of the shrimp we tossed on the outboard grill for lunch somewhere downriver. A lovely sunset evening sail across Lake St. Clair, and a cold, long, overnight push up the St. Clair River. I finally turned in for my first sleep around 4 in the morning just after we'd passed under the Blue Water Bridge into Lake Huron.

When I woke several hours later, we were far out into the lake off the coast of the thumb. It was a beautiful day crossing. As the night fell, the waves picked up. We were tossed a good bit in the pitch black of the middle of the lake, only occasionally spotting lights from another vessel or a distant radio tower on shore.

The morning of the third day was shrouded in thick fog as we approached the tip of the Bruce peninsula. I was stationed on the bow, giving a blow on the foghorn every few minutes and looking out for other boats and boulders as we threaded the channel through the shoals in very limited visibility.

We spent the next few days bopping around the eastern end of the North Channel before making our way back down the Canadian side, with a few stops to break up the long journey back. The most memorable was in Kincardine, a town that embrasses its Scottish roots and holds the tradition of a bagpiper playing at the lighthouse at the entrance of the harbor at sunset.

He saw us coming in and waited until we hit the mouth of the harbor before striking up the drones and piping us in with the Skye Boat Song (aka these days, the theme from "Outlander").

While that trip was memorable for so many reasons, in a butterfly-effect sort of way, one spontaneous minor souvenir choice I made wound up being one of the most influential path changes of my life in ways I would have never predicted.

In a souvenir shop in Killarney, Ontario, I picked up a harmonica. Thought it'd be a fun little diversion to mess with, as I hadn't done much with music in a few years. It's a bit of a twisted path, but there is a direct connection to buying that little harmonica, and me winding up learning to play the bodhrán at the Old Town School of Folk Music while I was living in Chicago, which put me on the path of falling deeply in love with authentic traditional Irish Music.

That little harmonica has directly led to countless friendships around the world, the most significant adventurous period of my life when I walked away from my job to wander about Galway for a few months, and right to where I'll be on stage in Royal Oak tonight!

Wow. Had no idea I was going to wind up meandering this whole path back when I started responding, but here we are...


As for my dad... He is, thankfully, still with us. He sold that boat a several years ago and downgraded to one that was easier to navigate and maintain, but even that one got to be too much before too long. He wound up a few years ago being elected into the flags and eventually serving as Commodore of the Crescent Sail Yacht Club in Grosse Pointe--the 'sailing club for the common man'. As a life long blue collar, skilled tradesman, who wound up a few credits shy of being the first college graduate in his family, I think his involvement in that club has been an incredible point of pride for him, and for me. He really found a wonderful supportive network of friends who he loved and respected... something that I think was deeply missing for a lot of his adult life. He busted his ass while we scraped by when I was growing up. He deserves everything he's gotten later in life.

But now, alzheimers is slowly taking hold. It's not too bad, yet. But getting gradually worse all the time. We're at the point where we've started seriously looking at alternative living arrangements for him and my step mom. And that is another big challenge that I'm dealing with at this point in my life, and something I will probably come back to the board for advice and guidance on at some point in the near future.

But that's for another day.