<< back to Talent page
The following story was written by Hank Rempel, a senior living in B.C. He is hoping to have these and several others he has written published. Does anyone know how he might accomplish this? Email him at rempel@island.net with any suggestions.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Mr. Fibreglass
The kid showed up on the dock one day just as brother Pete & myself were about to leave on our daily patrol searching for logs & picking up any debris that floated within the bounds of Nanaimo Harbour on the east coast of Vancouver Island, B.C. I had a contract to keep the harbour clear of flotsam & this was just another day like all the rest or so I thought. He said his name was John & since there was no school that day, he had come down to the docks. He loved workboats & said that he was going to own one someday. Could he go out with us?? Please?? I said o.k. since we were only going out for a little while. Pete was running a little 27 ft. boat that I had built the year before. "Reliable" I had named it. I was running "Eveready", a 27 ft. Manly tug. Pete shot me a warning glance that I should have paid attention to. I learned later on that this was to be a big mistake. Pete was right. That kid became such a nuisance!! It seemed that he lived by our tie up rail and no matter when we showed up there he was. My guess was that he was about fourteen at the time. It wasn't that he was a bad kid. He was just so full of B.S. & he jabbered away incessantly. This went on for a few months and then much to our relief, he disappeared.
The next August, I was putting a new roof on the wheelhouse of "Eveready". I had just begun to apply resin to the fibreglass matting covering the roof. The mast lay on deck. The stovepipe from the galley stove lay up in the bows. It was the very most inconvenient moment to be interrupted let alone entertain someone & who struts down the dock?? John!! He had some big story about where he'd been. Yap! Yap! Yap! All the while I'm trying to concentrate on rolling the fibreglass over the edges of the roof & around the mast hole in the center of the roof where all the wiring comes out to feed the mast.
I had just finished telling him to stay off the boat as he would get resin on his clothes. He was talking about the super deal that he'd got in buying a new Mustang floater coat & was going on & on about how he had bartered the guy down on price. I was grunting the occasional uh-huh every now and then while concentrating on my work. I slopped a good size blob of resin around the aerial hole just as the kid walked beneath it. SPLAT!! "Sh---t!!" says the kid. "I've got some on my new coat!" "I told you to stay off the damn boat." I said. "There's a can of acetone & some paper towels up forward." I said. "You'd better clean that up right away". For once he did as he was told & stood on the dock as I worked. I was once again applying liberal amounts of resin, as I really had to soak up the matting to make it stick. Just as the kid walked by again, my roller
went over the edges on the port side and squeezed out a glob of resin. PLOP! A big gob landed on his right ear & ran down all over his new coat. I let out a string of cusswords at him that would have made a Longshoreman blush. "You're dumber than a stump!!" I ranted. "Why do you keep walking beneath my work??"
The kid walked up on the foredeck, took off his coat & laid it on the roof of the trunk cabin. He was grumbling but not really saying much. Then he moved the stovepipe & soot ran out all over his now well resined coat. The look on his face was absolutely priceless!!
At that point I dropped my roller & was shrieking with laughter at the stupid pissed off look on the kid's face!! I told him to phone me at home before he was going to come down to the boat the next time, that way I could get a movie crew together. I figured I could maybe make some good coin just filming his daily routines. With that the kid stomped off & I never set eyes on him around the docks again. From that day on, Pete & I called him Mr. Fibreglass.
Advertising Information 
