Saturday, July 30, 2016

ROW, ROW, ROW YOUR BOAT...

…gently down the stream.

Or not.

This isn’t a stream.

This is Linnekin Bay, East Boothbay, Maine in the summer of 1900 or so, and the two boys in the dinghy are my great uncles. I think it’s Richard and Allen, although I can’t be sure—they all look pretty much the same in the summer outfits: shirts, pants, crusher hats and rubber-soled shoes.
         
There’s an old dock in the background and seaweed-covered rocks in the fore; I can tell that it’s low tide. The ground slopes up from the rocks and I can barely see the bottom of a house in the background; now, one hundred years later, after too much erosion, there’s a seawall along the shore there.

I think this photo was taken in front of what was called the Red Cottage—it was where the Gould family went each summer to get out of the smothering heat of the Boston area—later on, after my grandfather married, they summered in her family home just down the road.

My guess is that this little rowboat is the one they used to run back and forth between the shoreline and the family sailboat, moored out in deeper water—Allen’s weight has left the bow high and the aft end very close to the Atlantic! I’ve got lots of photos of them in the sailboat (they’re wearing shirts and ties in some of them, for goodness’ sake!).

Ahhhh, summer!


Hope yours is going well, and that you’ve got secure oarlocks to get you through!