The following text was sent by Dad in an email on Feb. 18, 2014.
"Sammy Builds A Boat" by John S. Walk
In high school, I enrolled in the FFA course (Future Farmers of America), more for the fun anything else. Our teacher was Lester Smith, who to my knowledge never lived on a farm; but seemed to his agriculture stuff. I've told stories about some of the humorous occurrences in the class and while on field trips, that you seemed to enjoy. Well, here's another one. Part of our class was shop work and learning how to use various pieces of shop equipment. It was much like arming a group of children with knives and telling them to play tag. The actual shop had been constructed for WWII vets who were learning skills to rejoin the work force. Most of the equipment was even dangerous for adults while we were unskilled high schoolers. One piece of equipment I only used once, was a lethal looking router machine. It had a whirling blade on it that would gouge out a grove in lumber. One afternoon, Mr. Smith took the entire class over to that particular machine and showed us a man's grey and lifeless finger sitting on a nearby window sill. The operator had become careless and the spinning blade had torn his little finger off. Figuring the finger couldn't be sewed back on, they displayed it for all to see how really dangerous the gouger machine could be. Thus, it was avoided like a leper colony.
Another very dangerous piece of equipment was the powerful lathe machine. For instance, you could put a length of cedar post on it and actually shape it in a bat, or a lamp post, or whatever one could imagine. If you put too much pressure on the hand blade used for shaping the wood, or when the blade would hit a knot hole, it could break and go spinning off into the shop ricocheting off one thing and then another. It immediately became a lethal weapon hunting for something to embed itself into; hopefully not a human being. I shunned that "man crippler" too.
For my class project I finally decided to build a flat bottomed boat we could use in the Bosque river. For my copy, I used a boat one of the vets was building at the time. I didn't have the money to buy top grade lumber like he was using, so I had to make some modifications. I laboriously constructed a frame from 2X4s and covered it on the sides and bottom with plywood (the vet had used lumber all the way around). While my classmates were making lamps, cutouts, small tables and things of that sort, I was laboringly away on my little titanic. Everyone was impressed with my dream of constructing a boat, even the highly skeptical shop teacher, Mr. Lester Smith. First, I tried nailing the plywood to the 2X4s, but that didn't work...so I went to screws and it held together.
I worked on that boat every day for three weeks (about an hour per day). I'm sure the vets, during their night classes would look at it and laugh at my efforts to take on such a serious and detailed project. After the boat was finished, and grades were handed out, I don't recall what my grade was, but I was very happy with the results. I named the boat the the FFA. The very next Friday Billy and myself tied the boat to the top of my 1941 Chevrolet and headed for our favorite spot on the Bosque river. After parking, we had to carry the dang thing for a mile or so to reach the river and it just about sapped all our strength.
Even my brother, seemed proud of my finished project and was as anxious as I was to put it in the river and start paddling. There was no crowds, bands, dignitaries, or champagne to celebrate the occasion, but we proudly lowered it into the river, anticipating cruising up and down the Bosque in our very own boat. We climbed in and right off hit a huge snag. I hadn't tested my home made craft for leaks. My brother suddenly exclaimed, "Look out; she's taking water!" In a panic we paddled the five or so feet back to the river bank and secured my boat half full of water. My first thought was go pagan and just burn the dang thing, but I'd invested too much work and time constructing it to take the easy way out.
As I sat on the bank dejected, Billy suggested, "Let's put some tar on the leaks;" which seemed like an excellent idea. We pooled our money and drove to a local lumber yard and purchased a gallon of "quick set" tar. By that time, it was too late to go back to the river and apply the tar, so we scheduled it for the next afternoon after school. R.L. Clark joined us as we hiked back to the boat the following day. We diligently applied tar to all the seams that would be under water. Now, it needed to dry so we agreed to come back the next afternoon and once again launch the little gray colored boat; I had painted the boat grey, knowing that all U.S. Navy ships were of that color. After a restless night and extremely long day at school...the three of us met at the boat and slid her back into the old Bosque. We slid the sleek craft back into the river and I climbed in sat down, It was immediately apparent to the three of us that she was once again taking water, but not as much as the initial launching. We hauled the boat ashore and commenced to re-apply copious amounts of tar to the areas that leaked.
The next day we once again returned to the launch site to see if our efforts had born good results. Into the water, the U.S.S. FFA went, and once again I gently climbed in and sat down. Much to our satisfaction there were only a couple of small leaks that we immediately applied more tar to. Billy, then climbed into the boat with me, and we began to row down the river. I had constructed the oars out of 1X6 lumber cut to proper length with carved hand grips on them. Overcome with excitement and the thrill of achievement, I commenced rowing like a "shackled oarsman" in the heat of battle. Suddenly, to my embarrassment, my oar handle snapped off floated down the river. R.L., opined that his dad had a couple of store bought oars we could borrow.
We had us a winner! For two years, we ran trot lines, pole fished and paddled up and down the Bosque river in the FFA. After using the boat, we'd securely chain it to a nearby willow tree. Now comes the really sad part. After a bad rainstorm that caused the Bosque to overflow its banks. We nervously waited a couple of days and anxiously went to see how the now famous FFA had faired in the storm. The only thing we could find was a piece of the 2X6, off the front, still chained to a willow tree; I was sad to the bone! Billy tried to console me, but to little avail. For the first time in my life, I realized how a captain must feel after losing his ship. (One positive note, I didn't have to go down with my boat.) I never owned another boat; and we were back to bank fishing and wading the river running our trot lines and fighting off water snakes, but the fun we had with the U.S.S. FFA, will never be forgotten. Best of all, I had lived my original dream of owning a boat.
THE END
He included this photo which he no doubt scoured the internet for:
Under it he wrote: "Not my boat, but rather similar."
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