This essay is a work in progress
One summer when I was 7 or 8 years old, my dad purchased a boat from a small dealership just outside of my hometown of Dubuque, IA. I imagine I’d spent that day jogging up and down the lot, filled with the belief that I could convince him to splurge on one of the several large, glossy speedboats that towered over the one he ultimately ended up choosing.
The boat he brought home was unremarkable and humble in every way. It had a dull matte white finish with worn vinyl seating and no awning to retreat from the unforgiving heat of the sun. Storage was sparse and could accommodate an intimate group of four. My dad must have sacrificed one amenity after the next until he had found himself in the part of the sales lot that didn’t contain working motorboats.
Looking back, I think its state of disrepair is why he bought it—not to take advantage of the steep discount the salesperson had offered to get it off the lot once and for all. The additional labor it required could qualify the purchase of something he considered so luxurious and perhaps rid him of any overarching guilt.
I think like many working class parents, mine lived with the fear of failing to provide for the family. And without question, I’d consider my dad a workaholic because of this.
I became aware of this fact at a very young age as I’d witness him leave for work at 8pm and often not return until the following day, just in time for dinner. On the rare event he had time off, he would spend it in his wood shop building custom furniture, picture frames and triangular boxes to store American flags on his eBay store.
The summer he bought the motorboat was no exception; nearly all of his free time was spent repairing it with the hope that we could be able to take it out to the beach before the weather turned. My mom would tell me later that she sincerely doubted he would even be able to relax on these imagined beach trips—he could never fully sever himself from his work.
He completed the repairs a few weeks before school started and the following weekend we departed to the river just as the sun rose. To our surprise, these day trips to the beach created a rare sense of stillness in him. He would spend the afternoon floating in the river, lazily staring up at the sky in silence.
Sometimes, when I used the word ‘beach’ to describe the sandbars along the Mississippi River, friends and acquaintances that grew up along the coast would scoff. They would explain, usually with the bravado of youth, that river beaches not real beaches and that I would have to go oceanside to have an authentic ‘beach’ experience. There was a time when I felt a great sense of shame for only knowing the beaches near lakes and freshwater.