We covered a lot of ground and had a very productive four days this past weekend. We left early Friday morning for the little town of Perkinsville in western New York state, the town that Susan grew up in. Susan had to take care of a few things prior to the sale of her parent’s home. Both her parents have passed on and their home had been rented for the last few years. It was amazing visit for me.
The house that Susan's Dad built -We went to the cemetery to visit and plant flowers on her parent’s grave. From that spot we could see the house her father was born in, the red brick school building where he was taught by the nuns from the first through eighth grade, and the church where he was baptized, served as an altar boy and was laid to rest; all were in view. Just down the road, about a quarter of a mile away was the house that Susan grew up in. Her father had built that home by hand with lumber that he and his brothers had cut themselves. He must have been a remarkable guy and I wish I could have met him. On our way out of town we stopped by the town historical society to see two memorials, a new Veteran's Memorial that included Susan’s father for his service in WWII and a recently completed memorial dedicated just to him in appreciation for his support of the historical society. They certainly thought a lot of him.
While we were at the cemetery we ran in to Susan’s aunt and her husband who happened to be there cutting the grass. They invited us to spend the night at their home but we had so much still to do back in Connecticut we declined their kind invitation. So after a picnic at the grave site we turned the car around and headed back to Susan’s house in Connecticut making for a long (almost 700 miles) and productive day. We spent most of the next day finishing Susan’s kitchen in preparation for putting that house on the market.
Our next stop was the marina where we were surprised by how many boats had been launched in the past week. We headed directly over our mast to check on the new rigging and ran into our rigger. Jeff was installing the new roller furler and gave us some pointers about what we’ll need to do if I ever need to take it apart. He had already installed the new inner forestay bracket, tangs for the running backstays and turning block for the storm jib halyard. All the new shrouds and stays were attached at the head of the mast too. He just needs to install the spreaders and rout the shrouds through the end caps to be ready for launch. Once the mast is up he’ll finish the inner forestay and install the running back stays.
159 days...
