What a brilliant column. Who wrote this?
My gosh, I’m still sweating from the ordeal of hiking out to Pennant Point a week ago Sunday with the small boat containing dad’s ashes.
And, though I mentioned ‘I read a paragraph my dad wrote’ before tossing the small Walnut into the Atlantic, I did more than that.
I had a volume of stories (some of which my dad authored) with me, read quite a few passages for old time’s sake, and before giving the boat the old heave ho I had to fold the book double, shove it down the back of my jeans and jam one boot into a crevice so I wouldn’t follow the boat out to sea.
["The Walnut's last minute on dry land": photos GH]
["Poor footing for a man in motorcycle boots"]
["The Walnut sets a course, hopefully for Scotland"]
["I took one last look before hiking back to my bike. There it is!"]
The favourite passage, at the time, turned out to be this one, from dad’s longest story about the Walnut:
“I feel certain that when the time comes for the great sail past of all ships, the Silver Walnut will stand tall, as well as the merchant crew who sailed her, for they were all part and parcel of an ailing ship which had a lot of heart.
“We Canadian sailors became very attached to her as well; her engine room misfortunes became our good fortunes as we enjoyed many hours in Cape Town and Durban, while our comrades suffered from dysentery in navy camps in the desert where temperatures dropped to near freezing each night.”
I thought they were good words. He was on an ailing ship but saw a silver lining.
There’s a lesson in his words for me.
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