Aryea

Thanks for all of your replies. Unfortunately there isn’t a Chevra Kadisha society where I live or else I’d ask them. What I needed to know was if I could use glue (natural rabbit hide glue used to make musical instruments and traditional cabinetry decays quickly in the ground) or plywood. There are a number of woods that rot very quickly when placed in the ground, such as white pine, alder, hemlock, beech, yellow poplar or sweetgum to name a few. I knew about the bottom and I’d planned on cutting a number of 4″ holes in the bottom with a hole saw.

Lior: Actually, I was a little concerned about that as well, and I asked what he was going to with it until he needed it. Without batting an eye he said he’d use it as a coffee table. He was trying to keep a good attitude about what life he had left. He said don’t think of his path as coming to an end, to be accompanied with weeping and wailing and gnashing of the teeth. Rather think of him as starting on a new journey to be celebrated with a hearty “bon voyage”, and songs, stories and memorable parties.

Lior: Yes, I’ve read a good number of them. I’ve got them on my computer. (Not much room for hardbound books aboard. The best investment we ever made was for a 30TB hard drive that we copy everything onto. (Because we read a lot and listen to music all the time, and analog books, movies, pictures and music take up a LOT of room.)

Golfer: Well, living near those places are nice, I’ll admit. But nothing can beat the view I wake up to every morning, or being rocked to sleep by the waves at night. We’ve managed to keep kosher all the time we’ve been aboard. Oh, and we’re always floating in a kosher mikvah in one form or another..(It’s certainly a natural water source.)

Funnybone: I retired from the Navy after 30 years of service as a mustang Lt.Commander. (That’s an enlisted man that advanced to officer.) Right now, I’m a free-lance graphic designer. I think I mentioned earlier that my wife’s a luthier. (She builds and repairs stringed instruments of all types. From mandolins to bouzoukis, from violins to double bases. We have examples of these hung all about the boat (and had a heck of a time keeping the kids off of them when they were little). When we’re out on an excursion she shows them to folks and takes orders that she’ll build in her shop. We have a permanent home berth that we purchased several years ago where she keeps her workshop.

And yes our kids were home-schooled for a bit. But being kids in a military family, they were also bounced about from school to school, too. But we don’t really have to worry about that too much now. One son’s a sophomore in college, and the other is a senior in high school. Our daughter’s 10 month’s old, so we’ve got a few years before we have to worry about her. (We never thought we’d have to worry about midnight feedings at our age.)

The best place to vacation? That’s a tall order. In our opinion is anyplace on the water of course. 🙂 You can get an entirely different view of places from the water. There are some place I’ve seen on the Missouri river where sheer cliffs tower over the boat and fall straight to the water. Other places on little tributaries of the Ohio ricer where the river closes in on each side of you and you can’t hear any road noise or other sounds of people and you can imagine the river as it was before any people had set foot there. One thing we do is find out where tourist season is at it’s height in an area where we’re going and make sure we go there when it’s over. Since we live way down below the Mason-Dixon line, we go north in the summer. You might laugh, but this summer it got up to 106deg. here at 100% humidity with a heat index of 112deg. And that temperature lasts for months.

Actually, some of the nicest little towns we stopped in were along the Erie canal. Upstate New York reminds me a lot of New England. When folks there heard my southern accent (which I can switch off at will) they were even nicer and went out of their way to be accommodating. Something which does NOT happen in the city. When I used my southern accent there, most people automatically subtracted 30 I.Q. points. One fellow even offered to hail a cab for me stating, “You’ll never figure it out for yourself.” What? I think the most condescending attitude of all came from our fellow Jews. Most just couldn’t grasp the idea that there were Jews here in the south. (The shul in the town where I berth my boat has been here almost 200 years. It’s true that most of the orthodox left during the depression, but there are still plenty of reform and conservative congregations.) I think they figured I should be dressed in a tin jacket, bib overalls and clodhoppers. One yutz going so far as to say you’ll have to explain this to your husband later during the kiddush after services. Again, what? Yes folks, there are rednecks here in the south, but guess what? I’ve found just as many in my travels up north. The only difference I’ve found is the accent. (Sorry about that. My wife is reading over my shoulder and thumbing me in the ribs and told me to mention that. 🙂 ) Actually, most of the folks I’ve met up north have been really great. One funny thing though. When I graduated high school, and before I went in the Navy, I had a job as a telephone market researcher. (We invited folk down to give their opinions on new products for money. Or we conducted research over the phone. When I used a flat mid-western accent I didn’t get near as many opinions completed or confirmed invites as I did when I used my southern accent when I was callung folks in northern areas. I’ve always wondered why.

Lior, Goq, since I’m new here, I don’t know if you’re being factious or serious. So, I’m going to assume the latter.

I do all of my own maintenance, as most plumbers wouldn’t know how to service the piping aboard a boat as it can get fairly complicated.

Goq, I use the ship’s wheel to steer her. If you mean how do I keep her kosher, well that’s a little harder. As I said we daven aboard when we can’t get to a shul. Once, after walking for over 8 miles to get to a shul one Shabbos (I know- far beyond the 2000 paces), I was talking to the Rabbi after services. He asked why we didn’t ride bicycles. I thought, “Ride bicycles? Is that allowed?” He assured me it was. Since he was a Chabad Rabbi, I figured he would know. He did caution us that we could not repair the bikes, so make sure they were in good condition before erev Shabbos. So whenever we’re away from our home berth, we locate a shul (if there’s one around), within at least bicycle distance.

The lights are on timers that activate just before Shabbos. Our galley (kitchen) is dairy, and most of out meals are dairy. When we do eat meat, it’s prepared on a covered gas grill that attaches to our forward railing. It also has a burner, so we can also make stews, chilli, and soups. We can also turn the flame down low and it functions as a blech. We have a large stock pot that we wash our meat dishes in so we don’t violate our dairy sink. We also fry whole chickens and turkeys in it. (I did mention I was from the South, didn’t I? We fry a lot of turkeys down here.)

And all of our doors have mezuzahs on them. If we’re anchored offshore, I and my sons liked to daven out in the open on our upper deck. Interestingly, we’ve had a number of boats come alongside and ask if they could daven with us. (We never got enough for a minyan though, except when we had a party back at the boat. You know any Yidden to ever turn down free food?) 😉

And, well, that’s our home. We’ve lived aboard her for over 20 years now, and we almost can’t remember any different.We have two staterooms aboard, one for us, and one for the boys. (Well, just one boy now. The other’s in college now. But we do have a new baby daughter who’s less than a year old. I’m 52, and my wife’s 48. Let me tell you, we weren’t expecting this. So we call her “Our Little Surprise Package”. When she graduates high school, I’ll be hitting my 70’s. OY!) :0

Popa, no, she’s not a troller. She’s a aluminum mono-hulled houseboat. When we were looking for a boat, I wanted one that my wife could feel comfortable on board, and I’d heard good things about the sea-keeping abilities of the Lazy Days.. I retired after 30 years in the Navy (20 active, 10 reserve), so I could take anything, but she had never been on anything other than the occasional tour boat or ferry. We weren’t able to find one in our price range, but we did get this one at a bargain because she’d had a fire onboard and the insurance company had total-lossed her. After about a year of rebuilding her she was ready for relaunching.

147, that was one of the arguments that I used on my wife to get her to move aboard. Hey, where else can you walk to the back door and catch dinner?