The Mast-Head: Growing Pains

With my kids in school once again and summer’s end this week, I have had a nagging sense of urgency about getting everything in. 

Adelia, the oldest, has been away at boarding school since before Labor Day, and, anyway, for her, summer was all about hanging out with friends when she was not working in a juice shop in town. She is a teenager but not old enough to have a driver’s license, which meant her interactions with her parents centered mostly on getting her to and from places, as opposed to sharing activities. 

I tell parents of younger children how soon it will be that their babies will be ready to learn from the world rather than from them. For the most part, they react with disbelief. No matter; they will learn soon enough that by the time their children are 14 or so, much of our work already will have been done. I see this now with Evvy, who is 12 and becoming rapidly more independent, though she still howls from upstairs when she is thirsty and needs a drink of water, for example.

Ellis, at 6, can read and do all sorts of things for himself, but he is still at an age during which his parents are the largest part of his universe. While Adelia is off at school doing who knows what with her friends and Evvy is in her room working on a craft project, Ellis is still willing to do things with me, like go fishing. And that gives me endless pleasure. Sunday was a day to get out on the boat together, and we invited my old friend Geoff Morris along. 

Geoff and I had been out at Gardiner’s Island the day before, tangling with false albacore and then porgy fishing. He had caught two very small sand sharks, which, after I made my report at home, drove Ellis nuts. He had to catch one of his own, which he did the following day.

The strong west wind that morning compelled us to motor up into the lee of the bluffs at Cedar Point, where we drifted out successively toward deeper water. Ellis got his shark and a number of porgies, though all the big ones that we had found earlier in the season appeared to have moved on. 

It was a successful day, but for me as a dad, the best thing was when Ellis said he wanted to do it again tomorrow.