AHOY MATEY!

“…we all came from the sea. And it is an interesting

biological fact that all of us have in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean…

And when we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to

watch it, we are going back from whence we came."

President John F. Kennedy,

at the Australian Ambassador's Dinner for the America's Cup Crews,

September 14, 1962, Newport, R.I.

I sailed for the first time this past Saturday.  I hardly slept Friday night because I was so eager to learn how to sail.

I’ve lived in the Land of 10,000 Lakes my entire life. 

You’ve got to understand that I’m Minnesotan through and through. 

  

 

As a kid during the winter I skated on an ice-rink in my backyard.  In the summer I often canoed in the Boundary Waters.

In true Minnesota fashion I’ve always referred to the school I graduated from, which is also the place where I work as, “The U”, assuming that people throughout the world would know I was referring to the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. 

In the summer the Chicago White Sox are the enemy. 

In the fall I think Floyd of Rosedale belongs in Dinkytown NOT Iowa City.  Winters I curse the weather gods when the cold fronts move in from Alberta, Canada.

I’ve had a belly full of spring flooding thanks to the overflow of melting snow from the wasteland called North Dakota. 

Wisconsin?  Except for my relatives, and a few close friends who live there, those people just rub me the wrong way 12 months a year.  (Badgers? We don’t need no stinkin’ Badgers!)  I’m your typical Gopher.      

Despite the fact that I’m as Minnesotan as a person can be, I have managed to pass the half-century mark in age without ever setting foot on a sailboat.  I’ve been on pontoons, speedboats, rowboats, and canoes; a lot of canoes.  I’ve even ridden the log flume at ValleyFair!

I suppose it makes sense that canoeing came easily to me as an enrolled member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.  It had to be either the Native American blood coursing through my veins, or the fact that Mom and Dad instilled in their children a love of the north woods by taking us camping and canoeing in and around Ely Minnesota on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

I’ve long wanted to sail though too, if nothing else, just for the romance of it.  Mankind has harnessed the winds for centuries to travel about the seas.  Sailing was one of the first means of opening the world to global travel, commerce, and discovery.

Homer wrote of sailing in The Iliad.  Melville explored, whaling, obsession, and sailing in Moby Dick.    Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his 1870 work,  Civilization, referring to sailing and seafaring, said, “The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the most.”  How could a person NOT want to learn to sail?

Presidents Bush (the elder), Carter, Ford, Johnson, Kennedy, and Nixon, were sailors.  So were entertainers Humphrey Bogart, Johnny Carson, Bill Cosby, and Kirk Douglas.  Athletes Yogi Berra, Bob Feller, Stan Musial, and Roger Staubach took to the high seas too.  An august group, to be sure, and one I’d like to be included in.

I had a great time on the lake Saturday, but, there was very little wind that day.  We sailed a bit, but not enough that I’d consider myself anything more than a novice sailor.  I did, however, secure an invite from our friends who hosted us, to try sailing another time when the winds might be greater which would provide a better learning experience.

 

So, until schedules can be coordinated, I guess I’ll need to, as President Kennedy said, “Go back to whence I came…” but not to the sea.  I’ll just be going back home to Minnesota, taking encouragement in the words of Mark Twain,

“Twenty years from now, you'll regret the things you didn't do, rather than the things you did do. So cast off the bow lines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."

An old guy like me still, exploring, dreaming, and discovering.  Who knew?