My dear wife and I just got back from the lawyers office regarding updating our wills. Now.. why am I telling the world this? Well… near the end of the routine visit talking about who and where the Woody Boater empire goes, I added a small alteration to my wishes. The room fell silent. My darling supportive wife looked at me like I was from Mars, saying I had lost my mind…Of course I would be dead, so my mind would of course be lost. The lawyer looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eye that I will later explain and his associate lawyer just looked at me like I was an idiot… So… I am putting it out there, so in the sad event that I croak..that the Woody Boater community will rise up and make sure that my plans are fulfilled. My request is simple. I want to go boating for eternity. Not be planted in a field with a bunch of strange people, or even buried for that fact.. Being under ground is not my cup of tea. I don’t want to be sprinkled into the ocean.. or in a field.. I want to go boating… Woody Boating….So here are my plans for you if need be to make sure they get done!
My plans.
My instructions are for the family to find a 1958 Classic boat… It has to be a 1958.. like me.. Something outrageous.. Something fun.. Then, this is where it gets a tad wacky.. I am to be cremated… big time.. After the results are boxed.. I am to be put into a smasher of some kind and made into a fine dust. A very fine dust. At which point the boat is to be restored to a 100 pt boat. ( If I am lucky I will have a slow death and can pick out the boat and start the restoration… Not a debilitating slow death or Alzheimer’s. I want to remember what I am doing…Something painless, that allows me to work up until the end.) Now, my dust.. I am to be mixed into epoxy and into each and every part of the boat. Yes including the varnish.. Yes it will look rough, all my varnish jobs look that way anyway. The varnish part I realize I will sluff off over the years. But in the epoxy and bottom, bilge paint, interior.. I will be there for a while. I will in fact be a boat. My sons and wife can take me out to go boating anytime they want to be with me. I can still go to shows, and still feel the cool fresh air mixed with exhaust and feel the water splashing on me. I can still bring people joy with the roar of the engine.. So.. that’s the plan. Here it is. It all sounded silly when you started reading it, and now. It kinda makes sense.. Live with it for a while… Mr I want to be put in a jar and put on the mantle… Think for a minute.. Would you rather go boating with your kids, grand kids and great grand kids… or sit next to a candle stick, and some stupid figurine….
At the end of this conversation with the lawyer. My wife just looked at me… You know the look.. its the same look you get from your spouse when you pull into the driveway with a new something hitched to the back of the car… but the lawyer.. he excused him self and returned with a framed photograph… It was his Glen L runabout that he had spent the past couple of years building in his garage… HA! He is my lawyer for life, and death now!
What a way to go. Put your remains in fiberglass and you will be fiberglass MATT. Put your remains in clear penetrating epoxy and you will be SMITHS. Great idea Matt I think I will do the same.
I was thinking that a silver arrow might be cool. Something cool with varnish would be nice. Darn Cobras stopped being built in 57
I LOVE IT! It parallels, in a way, my own expressed desires for a Viking funeral – well, at least for part of me. You see, I know the wife look well, so have compromised to split my ashes evenly. She gets her half to do with as she wishes. The other half goes to Woody Gal to be incorporated into a Viking funeral replete with a Mardi Gras marching band and followed by a celebration party! I'll have her send you an invitation!
ARRRGH!
Love it! You can leave an eternal message on the transom in gold leaf, "WooHoo!" or "Dead in the Water" come to mind. Or have several that change when you get a new coat of varnish.
WoodyGal
Did you set up a trust for your eternal maintenance & travel expenses?
JD
Oh, I failed to mention – drinks will be provided and it will be a covered dish party! Use your imagination!
ARRRGH!
That is one restoration I would be honored to be a part of. I think I would put most of your ash up towards the bow right on the deck so you could be free in the wind and the waves. Kind of like the dog when he rides in the car with his ears flapping and drool all over the back window. With you mixed in it would be a 110 point boat for sure. Mike Green
If you ask Danenberg, if you are mixed with 3M 5200 you'll last longer than epoxy.
Great year and idea!
I know a few years back that the reproduction Hackercrafts had a heck-of-a lot of green ash problem. Seems the ash led to some pretty significant bottom failures. Since then, this is always the first question I ask, "Does this boat contain any ash?"
Do you think that including your ash in your boat would create structural problems? Or is this just true of green ash?
Well, I guess this really wouldn't be a concern of yours anyway…
I always thought having a little dust sprinkled into the fuel tank would have been a cool ride and the I just assumed the rest would go over the transom. You have got me thinking now……Mike M.
Being your son and all, I find this a weird thing to post on the internet. Also I'm still going to get a 1958 Porsche 356, and do the whole cremation deal. Plus I've been telling you for years, once your on the boat we have to sand/varnish it again within a few years, than rather than being apart of the boat, your ashes will be in a dumpster in southern Virginia. So I'd hate to disagree but seeing that I'm the only one likely to do this for you, the boat thing isnt gonna happen.
have a nice day dad.
Your Son, Hank
See.. SEE what I mean.. I am going to wind up leaking oil all over the place.. See, MY SON! They are all against me!
Fraxinus pennsylvanica is not the ash of dead boaters. I rather be burnt with Quercus alba, tyloses and all.
Oh God! Joe martell is that you?
It's not Joe, his dry bones are being processed into a new ink compound to be used exclusively in future issues of Classic Boating Magazine.
Did you get this idea from American Pickers????? They recently had an episode where a guy was holding an old motorcycle for the grandson of his best friend. Grand Dad was in a tube strapped to the handle bars of the bike so the grandson could go riding with "Pop" when he came of age. I thought it was pretty cool. My wife rolled her eyes. Yeah, I get the wife thing, too.
I have had this idea for about 10 years. As you can tell from my son it was supposed to be a Porsche that can be driven but a boat seems like more fun.