Before the IRS intervened, April was my favorite month. It was when the cover came off the boat and springtime fitting-out began—a respite from the long, cold New England winter, enjoyed in a muddy, damp boatyard scattered with lingering piles of dirty snow. (There was always a mini-drift under the boat, and my first job was to shovel it out of the way.) All around the yard, men and boys, and a few girls, freshly aroused from winter hibernation, rolled up in pickups loaded with the implements necessary to get the boat ready for summer. T. S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month,” because it makes promises that summer cannot keep—but in my memory, April never failed me: Summer days spent on board made April’s labor well worthwhile.
Some of my best boating memories are of working with Dad, and sometimes Mom, too, on the
