A WHALING ADVENTURE

To celebrate the new year, I want to retell a true story that I wrote many moons ago.

In 1978 we felt flush enough to be able to buy a new car. The Volkswagen Rabbit looked good.  It was little and only had four cylinders.  But it was bright red!  We bought it!

To break it in, we packed up for a trip to New England to visit relatives. My wife Elaine and I sat in the front and my eleven-year-old son and teen-aged daughters were crammed into the back seat which didn't have seat-belts.  This was an ideal set-up for our children to be able to fight and hit each other on a hellish eleven-hour trip.

After a pleasant week-long visit with relatives and friends, it was time to pack up for the trip home. When we were ready to leave, my amazing Uncle Allen showed up with a birthday gift.

A seven-foot-long exact replica of a whaling harpoon. Allen had spent over a year crafting this gift and I was extremely pleased to accept it.

However, this posed a problem. Where would we get the room in that tiny Rabbit to carry it and the kids back to Maryland?

Our solution was this. We would send our two daughters home on a train and our son would occupy the back seat by himself and the harpoon.

Ah... but the harpoon was seven feet long and the Rabbit was about four feet wide! This was a problem but we solved it by laying the harpoon over our son's knees, over my shoulder with three feet of the barbed front sticking out of the driver-side window. Off we went!

I have never been a very fast driver and my license plate spelled out my nom-de-plume AHAB, so this gave overtaking cars' drivers and passengers ideas for clever phrases to use as they passed by.  Some could not be used in polite society, but some were OK, like:

"Did you catch the white whale yet?"

"Ahab, are you an Arab?"

"I love your spear!"

"Thar she blows!"

"Is that Ishmael in the back seat?"

Halfway home, around Binghamton, NewYork, we obtained a room at a two-story motel.  Our room was on the second level, overlooking a long blue-water swimming pool.

After Elaine and Chris were situated in the room, I went back to our car to close the windows, lock the door and rescue my harpoon so that it would not get stolen.

As I started back up to the second level with my trusty harpoon at the ready position, I turned a corner and bumped into a housemaid carrying a load of nicely folded towels.  The sight of me and the barbed harpoon startled her, and she screamed as the towels flew down into the pool. 

However, from then on, things went relatively well and we continued home.

The harpoon is now prominently displayed in the basement with my other whaling memorabilia.

Thank you for the great gift, Uncle Allen! 

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Go and seek the white whale!