Looking back, I remember. I could see the pond from my bedroom window. It was just down the hill in the cow pasture, below our front lawn where the big one-hundred-year-old Box Elder tree stood.  In February, every February, male Red-winged Blackbirds came and sat in the Willow tree that grew at the edge of the pond. They sang and fought each other over nesting sites in the reeds that grew around the edge.

Back then, I was living life in a big old farmhouse. Out one window was that pond in the cow pasture. Out the other window was the large vegetable garden. To the north of the garden was an orchard with apple, cherry and plum trees.

I remember the day all my cousins came to visit. We have a lot of boys in the family and they all fancied themselves to be engineers, sea-worthy adventurers, conquerors of the wild. When they saw the pond, they were not willing to stroll on the path around it.  They had to build a boat and cross the water’s depths.

Digging around in the barn, they found an old inner-tube from one of the old trucks. It held just enough air to bear the weight of an old door that they found leaning against the pig shed.  They found a metal pipe in the garage and turned it into a boom and a sheet of canvas that made a good mainsail. These items and some binder twine from the hay mow—enabled them to put together a ship of grand magnitude like nothing seen by either the British or Spanish armadas.

We girls watched as the noble vessel was taken down across the cow pasture and set sail with two boys aboard, one as captain and one as the mate.  The crowd on the shoreline cheered them off. “Bon Voyage!”  The captain and mate clung to the boom and tried to hold open the mainsail.

It was a sunny day, with only a light breeze.  Frogs leaped from the edges of the pond into the deeper water. A great egret spread its big white wings and took flight. One brown and white “polled” Herford lumbered up to the pond’s edge for a drink of water, but seeing a bunch of humans, she paused and looked back at her calf. Was it safe to approach?  She stood and watched as the calf came to her udder and took a sip of her milk.

Shortly after the launch, the ship listed starboard due to a shift in the load of the hull. But with no strong wind it was soon “dead in the water.” Had no one thought to load paddles before getting underway?    This ship’s design did not even include a rudder or a keel.  How were they going to get across the pond?  

One tall boy with long legs ran back to the barn to retrieve some pitch forks, “Can these be used for propulsion?”  The crowd roared and laughed.

“We need something!” said the Captain.

The tall boy leaped into the water and wadded to his knees until he reached the boat and handed over the forks. “It’s the best we can do,” he explained. 

With captain and mate thrusting and heaving the ship was underway.  The waters parted and waves rippled across the glimmering sea. Then the ship drifted peacefully along with the captain and mate clinging to the boom and waiving to the multitudes who had now run around to the other side of the pond.  Port to starboard. The ship drifted toward the shoreline. It was such a success! They had crossed the pond.

I sit here now, years later thinking back and looking ahead.  From the 43rd floor of an office building in lower Manhattan, I gaze out at New York Harbor. A plane is gliding across a clear blue sky toward Kennedy Airport. It’s a British Airways flight. They too have successfully crossed the pond.  I look into my coffee cup and realize I need to get a re-fill.