Editor’s note: The Daily News is publishing an eight-part story written by former Pink House owner Bruce Stott. The Stott family owned the iconic Newbury home from 1960 to 2010 before selling it to the federal government.
One day the motor developed a problem and was taken for repair but came back in a box to our deep dismay. There wasn’t money for another one so the boat was turned over for the season and set up a little off the ground on a few wood blocks in the grass. One year would turn into two and into five and into 10 and then not at all would that boat be used. A bit of us was lost at not going out on that boat. It was a part of life that ceased as we continued to grow up and have our own boats moored there too.
Brother Mark was proud to be the first south of the causeway. We all shared a well-used pram and a few runabouts with outboards engines as a highlight of living there. And they are all gone save the original one. So many hours and not enough hours were spent on the river and there was never enough money for 30 cent a gallon gasoline and oil for a 6-gallon tank. It’s a knack to read the tide and gauge the tide to motor out the creek. No more than two-and-a-half hours, each side of high tide was the most efficient way to get out and weave back through the winding creek littered with tall grassy water particularly late in August when the water runs clearer. Getting to the boat and getting underway was a bug endurance test especially during high mosquito and greenhead season.
Living there was somewhat isolative making it difficult to have friends situated between the island and the mainland in a kind of limbo. Education was encouraged. Books and music helped fill the gaps.
Now the years have become decades gone by and motor on Dad’s boat has long gone. The boat’s hull has sagged and her back was broken from the advance of time and gravity. Barely any hull paint will be visible if you find her. It will be sanded off by the wind and taller grass around the hull. Her sides amidships were held together gunnel to gunnel with a tie rod installed by Lowell’s Boat Shop in Amesbury to prevent the outward splay of a her hull. Her transom is well split side to side with a brass bilge drain sticking out. There’s a part of her starboard side now missing, a result of four short cedar planks being removed. Her planks are now refinished and presented with her original hull letters and numbers tacked on to the honorable members of her remaining original crew in nautical tradition.
Our boat she rests behind the house to the east and set back covered with grass. Maybe a slight rise in the flat surrounding growth. You might find it still melting into the marsh like my dad’s ashes settled nearby. Its where some of his ashes were solemnly spread on the water of a high Spring tide with honorable words and sentiment. And so one of us has a resting spot there, until the Lord calls anyway.
Bruce Stott lives on Plum Island and in Sebastian, Florida.