By Howard P. Johnson
My parents grew up in Baltimore City, Dad, (Howard), went to Baltimore Polytechnic, and Mother, (Micky), Forrest Park High School. Due to the depression, their families were not well off.
Somehow in 1932, they were able to ride the WB&A train down to Camp Linstead, in Severna Park, where they met and spent a week crabbing, canoeing and swimming. They told me they swam all the way across Round Bay, to St Helina’s Island and back. They admired each other so much they fell in love. The good times led to buying a flat stern canoe with a Caille Red Head engine; they each chipped in $50.00. My father said the engine was junk and threw a rod; he got an Elto which allowed them to explore the entire Severn River.
They dated, worked hard, saved money and married in `39. My father studied engineering at John’s Hopkins Night School, which led to a job at Edgewood Arsenal making munitions. During the War, sometimes, they had enough gas ration cards to go to Clayton’s Boat Yard and do some boating. After 5 years of 24 – 7 production, at Edgewood, in February of `45 they had produced sufficient volume to win the war in all six theatres. So they decided to have child. November of `45, my grandmother and great aunt were taking turns on the weekends so Howard and Micky could use their new, used boat, my father had found.
When we looked at the pictures, years later, he said, You were too young to remember, when we had that one.
I remembered the Dodge, all varnish, nice cabin, with a head; my mother made a curtain out of a sheet.
My father took the spotlight off for repair; when it would rain, it would drip on me.
We always went somewhere, swam, and then had a picnic lunch.
Dad was the only one who didn’t smoke. Our favorite place was the beach outside of Sappington’s Yacht Yard. Sometimes our friend Bill Smith would be there with his boxer dog and Chris Craft. They enjoyed using his Aqua Plane behind the boat. My father was driving when he fell off, then the board dove down, getting stuck in the mud. Soon he began to holler, Howard, I can’t swim! My mother grabbed a life jacket and swam it out to him. Then later, on the beach, they lit some cigarettes and laughed.
The beach was where they dug the sand to build The Naval Academy, in Annapolis. It was at the end of the narrows and beginning of Round Bay; lots of white sand, cliffs to climb, and an artesian well pouring out delicious ice cold water.
So every year or so, dad would find a better used boat. The NONA was built in Maine, a lapstrake day boat with a cabin and bunks up forward, a Gray Marine 6, which took us on hundreds of outings with never a problem.
Then my mother’s father, Henry Rodgers, who taught Steam Engineering at Polytechnic, offered my father his 1929 American Car Foundry, 32ft Cruiser, so he could buy a 42 ft. Mathews, he found at Oxford, MD.
We kept the ACF, – Leda, at Sappington’s, it had an aft cabin with 2 bunks, a center cabinet and 3 portholes, but was still 90 degrees in there in the summer. We cruised all the coves and many rivers of the Western Shore; the Magothy, Severn, South, West River, Rhodes River and the Patapsco. My parents liked staying overnight in coves or going to Yacht Clubs for orchestra music, dinner and dancing. They left me with books to read and instructions to take care of myself. Sometimes I could hear my mother’s laughter above the music. One night I heard my father vomiting in the head, and pumping it overboard. They had great times.
I was used as a slave, I used to say, to get the cakes of ice with wheelbarrow and tongs, to carry my fathers ”portable” radio, pump the bilge, sweep the decks and cabins, polish the brass, sand and varnish with my mother, and drag the basket of crabs while dad scooped them up in the seaweed. We had a wooden boarding ladder that dad would hang over the side; it could really pinch your finger. The Leda had a Penn Yan dingy in the davits, aft, that dad would sometimes tow when cruising. I could ride in it for hours while towing my model whaleboat hull.
One day the string came off and I called and called for dad to go back. He yelled we’re NOT going back, yet, a while later, to my relief, we DID go back. He told me later, our mother made me go back! Another time, while at anchor in a long forgotten cove, the sky turned black and a big hurricane hit, all day and night. My father put a second anchor out and we dropped the canvas curtains around the deckhouse, which soon were torn by lashing rains and buffeting winds, we sat in the rolling cabin and sewed the tears by the light of the kerosene lanterns.
After 5 years of boatyard fun and travel adventure, my folks decided they wanted a waterfront property. They had found the servant’s cottage of the Mathews Estate off of Benfield Road, in a small community, Lakeland, for $2,500.00. It was on a high hill overlooking the river, the bluff, another place where sand was dug for the Naval Academy.
Down on the water was a swamp which dad wanted to turn into a beach, so after school I had to dig sand from along the water and throw it into the low areas of mush. Gradually we built a beautiful beach and a pier, working on weekends. We put the pilings in with a jet pump. He took me to get the 17ft Chris Craft utility with a fiberglass bottom. We were going along at around 1,200 RPM when suddenly we were thrown forward, then the water began to pour in. He said, let’s put on our preservers, minutes later we were swimming. The boat would barely float, the 95hp six was so heavy. Luckily we were close to Sappington’s and they came out to give us a tow which had to be very slow, the fiberglass had all come off. At home, on the trailer, my job was to use broken hack saw blades with a hook ground into one end, and tar tape around the teeth to make a handle to clean out the seams, then force Kuhls caulking compound into the seams with a putty knife.
Then paint the whole bottom with copper racing bottom paint running down the brush handle. All this was before the advent of masks or gloves. We would just run down the hill and dive into the river, spit a lot and use sand to scrub our hands.
Dad bought me a twelve foot rowboat made of 3/8 plywood, by a local builder. It was my first finishing job, mahogany topsides with varnish, light green inside; my mother and I made a canvas cover on her Wilcox and Gibbs treadle sewing machine. With the Wards, Sea King, 5 1/2 hp engine and later the McCulloch – Scott, – with an eighty pound skipper, it would fly. They never knew all the places I went!
So we built a rickety pier with the neighbor’s help and had the Chris Craft and my boat tied up there. To start the engine dad used 2 batteries and to get it to spin fast enough, he would switch the polarity to 12 volts (big sparks) and I would push the button, it would roar into life and I would lower the throttle on the wheel. Soon we would be sliding along across the silky smooth water bathed in sweet summer air, with the thunder of the engine behind us. The kids spent whole days out on the water, I had a rotting rowboat, The HJ, which we painted, would bail out, paddle out, sink by rocking, then turn it over, jump up and down on the bottom while some kids were underneath, King of the boat, pushing each other off, paddling home sitting in it, up to our chests in water.
Somehow my mother always knew when to bring the sodas and sandwiches. We spent hours catching crabs with chicken legs. One time we laid an extension cord all the way down to the beach, set up tables and we had all the neighbors and friends over for an evening crab feast with Christmas lights, in the summer; – it was like a dream.
We all had model airplanes; we bolted airplane engines into model boats and they would fly! We would chase them with our boats and they were faster than us!
My friend Rick had a 13 ft plywood runabout with a Mercury Hurricane 10. It was hard to start so after we both had blisters we could water ski behind it, for hours.
My boat was not that fast but his next door neighbor, Mr. Kittinger had a boat he wasn’t using. One day I asked him why, He said he just didn’t have time to get it all fixed up and running. I said well I do, I could get it running for you. Wow, that would be great, he said, come up to my house and get the engine. So Rick’s mother drove us up there in her `50 Dodge that day. He gave me the Evinrude 15, a full tank of gas, and a big WWII tarp to keep it under. Rick and I turned the boat over and it was a lot like his, mostly ¼ inch plywood and varnished decks. The engine ran great, and our boats were almost exactly the same speed. Now we could explore every cove on the river and take our friends along.
We used innertubes a lot. Ricks dad got us a huge bus innertube, we would sit opposite and rock until we would flip over, come up laughing; we spent more time underwater than on top.
Dad bought a 19 ft. Century Resorter with a big red engine and lots of varnish.
Sitting in the back you couldn’t even hear the parents talking way up front. When we would go to Sappington’s to get gas, they would give us money for a soda; We would get Yoo Hoo, chocolate drinks, in a bottle, loved it. We also collected bottles to return for money; our neighbors would give us bottles just to get rid of them.
I knew my mother was sick sometimes, in August my father had to take her to the hospital. Then she was in or out, we still had the Cub Scouts to our house but in December she was in the hospital again. My father came to pick me up at school. He said, “How, – Mother died, today“. We walked out of school with tears streaming down our faces.
Things were never the same after that. He said he couldn’t stand me because I reminded him of mother. He bought fiberglass boats; once I found out about the itchy fiberglass I didn’t like them; I got it on me every time I was on board.
So I kept the old wooden ones, Lyman, Cruisers Inc., Thompson, Whirlwind, outboards, – inboards were too expensive and too hard to fix. But I did learn about them too; the Severn River, in the sixties, offered kids with their father’s boats that didn’t run and I could do the points, adjust the carburetor or tell if there was fuel.
So I got to help others and to ride in their boats! This one old Chris Craft had a modern engine in there, an Olds V8 with a leaking transmission with a pan and a power steering pump rigged to put the leaking oil back in the reservoir. It worked so well that the leaking trans seal never had to be fixed. Years later, I came upon the now derelict boat in a junk boat yard, and saw it all, – now, old and filthy. We had moments of thrill and excitement in that old thing. Somehow the wood aspect of it all made it unique and special to us and also somehow – more fun! We had to deal with our cranky old boats but they made heaven, when going right. You see the joy and all the treasures of Mother Nature, and God. Nothing could explain how it all could be possible, God and Nature making millions of miles of earth, that men can love and enjoy and no other planets have it. These are all the blessings we found, and now, years later they are all still out there, the beauty, the sounds, the scenery, sweet air, rich aroma of the wooden hull and power of buoyant water, on each outing, all enrich our heart, soul and mind, – until the next time.
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