Bonnie and Clyde prowled the high grass along the bank. I sat at the TV tray inches from the river and let my mind drift with the current. I waited and waited and then a mesmerizing commenced…toward boats of all things, toy boats. I thought that perhaps I would bring a toy boat to this river and play with it as a child might play, if a middle-aged man had a great notion to play with toy boats on an Oregon Coast river with no around except two old dogs. Yes, he does, or he instantly had one now!<\/p>\n
It occurred to me that in my youth I never had a toy boat. I was always the Army\/Marine-toy-kind-of-kid, tanks and trucks, half tracks and howitzers. Is there something inherently wrong with a child who never had a single toy boat? Only toy tanks? It also occurred to me that I had only one indelible memory of any boats in my youth: eating octopus from a sherry glass in a formal dining room aboard a cruise ship bound for Brazil that was transporting my family into missionary service for the Church of Christ.<\/p>\n
I stared at the river and the rocks below the surface and imagined constructing a harbor for my boat, or better yet, a toy ship, perhaps even a fleet of toy ships! Why stop at a fleet? Why not a flotilla? Why not include an ark, yacht, battleship, cruiser, minesweeper, trawler, drug boat, Love Boat, freighter, Huck Finn raft, Coast Guard cutter, amphibious landing craft, corsair, barque, schooner, sampan, a canoe, yes, a canoe on the Lewis and Clark River, modeled after the canoe Lewis and Clark’s men ripped off from the Chinooks before they departed Fort Clatsop.<\/p>\n
Clyde came over and nuzzled my pocket. Treat time goddammit! The spell was broken. I packed up the studio and we headed home. As I walked, I couldn’t stop thinking about toy boats. I knew I would begin my search for one soon, perhaps that very morning. They were out there, lost, forlorn, dry docked, languishing on dusty shelves of the thrift stores. I would find the boats and return them to the water to float again. It occurred to me that I was trying to do exactly the same thing for myself.<\/p>\n
(If you found this post enjoyable, thought provoking or enlightening, please consider supporting a writer at work by making a financial contribution to this blog or by purchasing an NSP book.) <\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bonnie and Clyde prowled the high grass along the bank. I sat at the TV tray inches from the river and let my mind drift with the current. I waited and waited and then a mesmerizing commenced…toward boats of all things, toy boats. I thought that perhaps I would bring a toy boat to this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[203,5],"tags":[206,40,205,13,207],"class_list":["post-2949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bonnie-and-clyde-files","category-meditations","tag-dog-sanctuary","tag-dogs","tag-old-dogs","tag-oregon-coast","tag-oregon-rivers","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2949"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2951,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2949\/revisions\/2951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}