I almost started sailing when I was ten, but I didn’t, and here’s why:

My Dad was an avid smoker, and Kool cigarettes tended to be his favorite brand. So, as it turned out back in 1975, Kool cigarettes ran a promotion and if you filled in your name and address on the back of one of their cartons and returned it to the company, you could win something.  My Dad did just that, and much to everyone’s unsuspecting surprise,  he won fourth place.  One can probably guess his prize, a small bathtub sized sailboat.

He was ecstatic.  It instantaneously became his pride and joy.

Dad didn’t know how to sail and it likely didn't occur to him to care.  To him, more importantly, mechanically, he figured out how to hoist and strap that sailing bathtub to the top of his car.  Thereafter, when he needed to unwind from his job and family of five children, he loaded up snacks and beer and headed to the local lake to find peace on the water, some fourteen miles away on Lake Thunderbird in Norman, Oklahoma.

“The Kool Cigarette Floating Bathtub” – a sister ship

 

Of course he wanted company.  He literally begged us kids to go along with him, but the truth is - no one liked that he smoked, and spending time in a sailboat which advertised smoking just didn’t excite anyone except him.  So I tended to stay home.  Plus, I hated the big orange life vest he made me wear the whole time, it was bigger than me.

But after two years something really good happened:  His sail ripped. 

I’m pretty certain it was a mishap with a bungee cord he used to attach it to the hull, which in turn was attached to the roof of his car traveling at 55 mph.  Of course it doesn’t matter how it ripped, all that matters is: it ripped bad.

As hard as he tried, he couldn’t replace it with another Kool Cigarette sail… only a plain white one.  Well, while he was disappointed, I was happy – after all, I was the youngest of five children and getting away from the other four bigger kids and heading to the lake seemed like a fine idea... and of course now the sailboat looked like a real sailboat. SWEET!

So instead of age ten, I started sailing when I was twelve – with my Dad.

I’ve heard it said there are two types of sailors - racers and cruisers, and in all honesty, Frank Miller my father, didn’t care too much about making his sailboat go fast, or even the fine art of sailing per se.  He cared about relaxing, which I suppose would put him squarely in the cruiser category.  He enjoyed the challenge of rigging the floating bathtub with shock chords so it would sail itself while he reclined and enjoyed a smoke.  With a certain amount of pride, he even told me of a time when he had rigged the boat and dozed off only to be awaked over an hour later by running aground on the shore of the lake.  “Best nap of my life” he said.

No, Dad didn’t instruct me on how tie a bowline, or which point of sail is optimal, or the advantages of curve in your sail, perhaps more importantly, he taught me how to sit on a sailboat and simply enjoy myself.  He and I probably covered every square foot of water on Lake Thunderbird, all while he told me stories of his childhood, courting my mom, his army career, and his college days.  That man loved to talk, and looking back, I realize he had a very genuine gift for telling stories with humor and vigor. 

So now after many years gone by, out of us five kids, I consider myself the lucky one. My siblings were all older and had their driver’s license, on the weekends they were in their cars driving around town, and I was in a tiny boat sailing on the local lake, hand on the tiller, hoping we had enough wind to get back to the car before the sun went down and it was completely dark.

Lucky me.