“Where were you tonight, Marsha?”

“Askanaz, for dinner.”

Going to the coffee table, she took the two pennies from the handful of change and bills that her father purposely left there each night before going to bed.

Cotton balls between her toes to keep her freshly lacquered toenails from touching, reclining on the sofa watching NBC’s pioneer late-night show Broadway Open House with Jerry Lester, “Kind of late to be getting home if you just went for dinner.” Rhea’s legs were stretched across the coffee table.

“Yes, I know. But I met a boy there that I used to know from the country.”

“Another one of your winners, I suppose. What’s with this one: blackheads, pimples or just a schlub?”

Going to the dining room, opening the green, imitation lizard overnight case that was on the floor alongside the dresser, taking the change from her pocket, separating the pennies from a dime and two quarters, Marsha threw her four, along with the two she’d taken off the coffee table, into the case.

Returning to the living room, sitting on the edge of the sofa, “Oh, I don’t think there’s really too much wrong with Mitchell.”

“Yes, I’m sure, Marsha. But knowing you, I wouldn’t make book on it.”

“Well, Mother, one of these days you might get the opportunity to meet Mitchell.”

Said with mock enthusiasm, “I can hardly wait!”

“Me, too, Mother. Me, too.”

“Fend off!”

Sitting forward, Larry reached to Friendship, breaking the dinghy’s forward momentum and preventing the bow from scraping the white-hulled boat. Backwatering, Walter moved the stern closer as Mitchell, grabbing hold of the gunnel, pulled the dingy alongside. Larry scampered aboard, followed by his older brother. First handing Mitchell the heavy ice chest, as Walter stepped onto the coping, Larry pulled the dingy forward where it was secured to the buoy.

As the lowest ranking “mate” on Friendship, Hey, what else is new? Mitchell thought as he carried the ice-chest below into the cabin, then brought the floatable cushions and life preserver topside. As Walter unsnapped the canvas boot that covered the furled sail, and Larry attached the jib to the forward guy wire, dipping the swab into the lake, Hey, what else is new? Mitchell swabbed the deck.

Hoisting the mainsail at 7:47 a.m., Walter at the helm, Larry secured the line to the cleat on the brightly varnished mast as, lying on the bow, moving the dingy to leeward, “slipping” the buoy, he said, “Anchors away, Skipper!”

Once upon the boat, until they returned and hooked up, the word “Dad” was dropped and Walter was called “Skipper”—and he loved it.

Holding the helm in his left armpit, Skipper drew inward on the sheet—the line that controls the reach of the main-sail boom. The boom moved inward and, trapping the light wind, the white sail bellied gently outward, and Friendship moved past the buoy and tethered dingy.

Sitting on the bow, calling out and using hand signals, Mitchell directed Skipper past boats and empty buoys that he might find hard to see from his position aft, in the cockpit.

Skillfully working his way past “rag baggers” and “stink pots,” Skipper steered Friendship out of the harbor, past the breakwater, “Hoist the jib!” and into Lake Michigan.

Taking up on the line, “Aye, Skipper!” Hoisting the thin triangle of canvas upward along the cable, securing the line to a polished brass cleat by means of a turn and two half hitches, “Jib secured, Skipper!” Mitchell called, then went aft.

Larry took up on the starboard line.

In the slight breeze the jib furled outward along the outer edge and inward along the inner.

The helm moved a point to port. The bow sluggishly turned a point to starboard, but, the jib filling with air, Friendship picked up speed and, three minutes later, wanting to take a different tack, to sail “closer” to whatever wind there was, “Coming about!” Skipper called, as, throwing the helm to starboard, he took up on the sheet, moving the boom from starboard to mid-ship where, hesitating, the sail “luffed” until, catching the breeze, it shifted to port.

Forward, the starboard jib line was released, and the port “taken up.”

Tacking—taking angled legs into the wind to move forward—Friendship tacked five times in the next half hour.

Five nautical miles off shore, taking yet another southerly tack, Friendship followed the Illinois-Indiana shoreline for fifteen minutes, then, “Coming about!” Skipper called, and tacked once again, setting a visual east-by-southeast heading.

The sky was clear, the sun was brilliant, and even this far onto the lake temperatures were in the low eighties.

Sitting on floatable cushions, Walter and his sons watched as Chicago’s beautiful skyline became smaller… smaller… until even the tips of the tallest buildings disappeared from sight.

Shortly, whatever breeze there was all but died and Friendship moved lazily over the still water.

The three aboard were now bare-chested, with the brothers wearing only the bathing suits they’d worn beneath their jeans.

Larry holding a bottle of Coke and Mitchell a Pepsi, Walter drank from a tin cup that was held in one of the compartments under the aft cushion that was kept there for scoping and drinking of the fresh Lake Michigan water, once far enough away from shore.

“Hey, Skip, okay to go for a swim?”

“Doesn’t look like we’re going anyplace fast. Sure, why not.”

Standing on the coping, with a spring that caused the boat to rock and the mast to sway, Larry dove off the side.

“How’s the water, Squirt?”

“You old fart! Come in and find out for yourself.”

“Old fart, huh? You little shit, I’ll show you who’s an old fart!” As Larry, using the coping as a springboard, diving, almost landing on his brother, grabbing an ankle as he went down, Mitchell pulled him under. In a second or two both boys came up sputtering and laughing.

In a well-remembered whine, “Mi-tchie,” Larry said, “I’m tel-ling! Daa-d, Mitchie called me a little shiiit!” Surface diving, it was his turn to pull Mitchell beneath.

“Hey!” Their horseplay interrupted, “Cat’s paw!” Standing, pointing to a far off patch of rippling wind on the water’s calm surface, “Wind’s on the way!”

Swimming to the boat, pulling themselves aboard, standing in the cockpit dripping, all three watched the water for signs of the rapidly approaching wind.

In the calm, the sheet had been hanging loosely. Now, not knowing what tack he was going to take, or the wind’s velocity, Skipper held the sheet in his right hand, and the helm in his left, waiting…

The wind hit… Friendship began to move.

Judging the wind’s speed, Skipper moved the helm to port and, “sweating” the sheet, dropped a hitch over a small, clicking capstan bringing the boom inboard, causing the sail to snap full and puff outboard. “Jib to starboard!”

“Aye, Skipper!” Larry sweat the starboard jib sheet, tightening the narrow forward sail that, straining against the guy wire, now began to billow.

Faster… Creaking, the mast angled to starboard as, faster… Friendship began to move, faster.

Looking aft, now they could see bubbling wake.

Seating themselves, Larry and Mitchell sat on the port… the high side.

Heeling now, surging green water “buried” the starboard coping.

Allowing the sheet to play out, spilling wind, Friendship ran on a somewhat, even keel, till…

Skipper hauled three “clicks” on the capstan and, churning water racing beneath the edge of the coping, the starboard gunnel slanted sharply downward once again, and…

Another click…

The outer, luff, edge of the sail furled inward as the force of the wind thrust the “belly” of the sail outward, propelling Friendship forward…

Heeling, one inch of coping buried in the rushing water… Two inches.

Abandoning his stern position, Skipper joined his sons on the high side.

As the port gunnel elevated, the starboard gunnel submerged…

As three inches of coping buried, the mast angled closer to the bubbling, rushing water.

Their legs stretched across with their bare feet braced against the low side cockpit, their buttocks hiked over the high side coping, Skipper now manned the helm by means of a tiller extension, as…

Chuting by, green water cascading into the cockpit drained out through the aft scuppers.

Letting up on the sheet, Skipper moved the rudder a point to starboard, turning the bow minutely out of the wind. The billowing sail “spilled” wind, allowing the drastic heel to straighten slightly, and from where the three sat, looking to starboard, what they saw was the boom—the foot of the sail—and foaming, rushing water.

Mitchell looked over his shoulder: Slanted out of the precipitous water, counterbalancing the wind’s driving force, the anti-fouling, gold painted keel was at an even angle with the mast.

Grasping the guy wire in both hands, standing, bracing both feet on the outer edge of the coping, leaning backwards, unheard, he screamed back at the screaming wind, as, holding steady, Friendship knifed through the water.

“Hey!” Letting up on the sheet, allowing wind to spill, and Friendship to level, somewhat. “One’a you guys get your skipper a beer! Anyone hungry? I’ll take a sandwich, too.”

Hanging on, going below, having done this before, hanging on, opening the cooler, Larry handed three cans of beer and sandwiches topside.