A Thanksgiving Tradition

November 24, 2022, Thanksgiving Day, Throwback Thursday

More than several years ago, I decided to write a detailed story about one of our family Thanksgiving days in the mid-1970s and how difficult it was to get to my paternal grandparents' house for early afternoon dinner that year.

This is a rather long account of our struggle that day, so I am not sure how many of you will read it all the way through to the end. I just wanted to share it again with you as I do every Thanksgiving Day, so please enjoy it.

"The End of a Thanksgiving Tradition" (revised, 2022) by William Santos

5 a.m., Thanksgiving Day, mid-1970s, West Islip, Long Island, New York

The alarm clock cried out that it was the morning of Thanksgiving Day, even though it still seemed like nighttime. I awoke with a start, the adrenaline coursing through my teenaged arteries, much faster than on any other day of the year, because I knew that in about an hour, I would board my dad's 30-foot-long fishing boat and experience yet another nautical adventure. As was our tradition, we were getting ready to embark on our annual Thanksgiving Day fishing trip. The codfish were out there just waiting to be caught.

Dad and I loaded up the boat with our fishing gear, food, soda, and beer, and impatiently waited for our usual group of fishing buddies to arrive. All aboard, Dad cranked up Engine No. 1 (port side), then Engine No. 2 (starboard side), unhooked the lines from the dock a few feet from our house, and we were on our way.

Dad piloted the boat out of the short river (Willetts Creek, which is more like a canal, but wider) where we lived, across the Great South Bay, and into the Atlantic Ocean. Then, Dad gave it the gun, and we sped, cutting through the waves, the sea spray blasting in our faces, and the bounce of the boat agitating the recently eaten, and traditional, tuna salad sandwich on white bread within my stomach. Dad had already eaten his traditional Western omelette sandwich. He always called it a "Westren" omelette sandwich.

Back on dry land, my grandmother -- I called her Nana -- was preparing the Thanksgiving feast in anticipation of our arrival around 1 p.m.

Dad slowed the boat to check the display on the depth finder. When the ocean, at a cool 57 degrees, hit 200 feet deep, we knew that it was only a short matter of time. We would just have to continue until it rose back to around 100 feet deep, and we would be set to drop our lines into that mirrored, undulating, somewhat-sullen water and start pulling out some fish.

There it is: 200 feet deep. Now for the agonizing anticipation: 197, 184, 175, 163, 159, 144, 137 ... hurry up ... 123 ... I can't wait ... 118, 103 ... Dad clicked off the port engine, and then stopped the starboard engine, relative silence, and the boat continued to rock back and forth, up and down, on yet another cold, pristine Thanksgiving morning.

We had finally arrived, about two miles from land, just like we had done on this day every year for many years. We had everything we needed: rugged camaraderie, lots of fish just waiting to be caught, and, of course, tradition. Nothing could possibly go wrong.

We fished for several hours, pulling rather large codfish out of the brine. OK, they weren't all that large, but this is my fish story, right?

Then came the inevitable. It was time to head home. We had to get to Nana's house by 1 p.m., just as we had done, like clockwork, in prior years. Oh, well. Every Thanksgiving, I never wanted to go back, that is until I remembered that there, waiting for us, was turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and red cabbage thickened with corn starch and mashed kohlrabi (my favorite) and apple pie and ... OK, let's go back.

Dad cranked up the port engine. Success. Then Dad cranked up the starboard engine. Click, Click, Click. Dad tried again to crank up the starboard engine. Click, Click, Click. Dad then opened the hatch to that starboard engine and, to our horror, we all saw what we really didn't want to see or even needed to see: Both inboard engines were waist-deep in three feet of water. The electric bilge pump had failed, and we were sinking in rather cold water, 100 feet deep, and two miles from land.

Needless to say, a contagious shock of panic pierced us all, well, all except for Dad. Being a Commander in the Navy who spent much time aboard ship in the North Atlantic Ocean, and, at one time, the youngest Eagle Scout in the United States who could maneuver a mean canoe, my dad was able to keep a level head about such things. He said, "We have to call the Coast Guard. Where's our (ship-to-shore) radio?" He slid open the black-tinted plastic door of the cabinet under the steering wheel on the flying bridge where we usually kept the radio. Empty. Where was the radio?

Dad flew down the ladder and into the boat's cabin, found the radio (phew) in a wooden cabinet, flew back up the ladder, plugged it in, and spoke in calm tones for the Coast Guard to save us. The life jackets were a little easier to find than the radio.

In short order, and to their amazing credit, two brave souls clad in diver's wet suits aboard a Coast Guard cutter arrived beside our boat. One guard, rather young and with a somewhat-unsure look on his face, flew through the air, jumping several feet from his rocking boat into our rocking boat. Then, the other guard dropped a four-foot-high, rather wide, orange-and-white-colored, metal barrel into the drink, and we pulled it to our boat with a rope.

We all then pulled the barrel aboard and, to our surprise, it contained a gasoline-powered water pump with two four-inch-wide black hoses. With one pull of the starter cord, the pump rumbled like a lawnmower, and soon water was spewing out of our bilge and over the side of our boat.

Simultaneously, a Coast Guard helicopter was hovering overhead. My immediate thought was: "Wow, we're going to be airlifted back to land. Cool." But, it was not to be.

We were escorted a long two miles back to land, at a snail's pace, making sure that our one working engine wouldn't overheat. When we reached land, Dad just about had enough excitement for one day, rather for one boating season. He threw up his hands and said to a marina worker, "Just put it in dry dock," and walked away disheartened. I was not to see that boat until the following spring.

Needless to say, we were late for Thanksgiving dinner. Dad and I arrived at Nana's house at 5 p.m., yes, four hours late. There were no smiles, just worry, on the faces of our family members, who had already finished eating dinner. I'm not sure how the other members of our crew fared with their families.

We told everyone our rather implausible story as we ate the Thanksgiving feast that Nana had kept warm for us.

We never again went fishing on Thanksgiving Day, and while a tradition ended rather abruptly, the memory of that fateful day, and of my dad, who passed away in 1997, will forever fondly linger within my mind.

Oh, I forgot to tell you why our boat was sinking. We found out the next day that the vibration of the boat had loosened a quarter-inch-wide screw on a metal plate that secured one of the propellers to the back of our boat. Sea water was slowly seeping into the bottom of the boat during our carefree hours of fishing. As the old saying goes, Dad said we were "fat, dumb, and happy" as our boat was slowly sinking in the cold water of the Atlantic Ocean on that particular Thanksgiving morning.