Remembering birthdays past and a trip on “Timberwind”
By Kathryn Ross
This is my birthday week. Nowadays people celebrate their birthdays for a whole month. I’m not going to do that. I’m only going to recognize it for a week and celebrate the day of, Friday July 25.
The last birthday party I had was at Music On The Lawn and that was a surprise and a week late because I’d gone on vacation to Maine. For a long time, I had wanted to wake up on my 50th birthday on the ocean. So, not one to like ocean liners, I booked a Windjammer Cruise off the coast of Maine that year.
The schooner was named Timberwind and she sailed out of Rockport harbor. I drove out the day or two before the cruise to check out where I was going to be for four days.
We boarded the next morning. The captain was in his mid-40s and most of the six-man crew were in their late teens or early 20s. Timberwind is on the US National Registry of Historic Places. She was built in 1931 to serve as a pilot boat in Portland Harbor. During World War II she served as a spotter and cruised the shoreline looking for Nazi vessels. In 1969 she was converted to a schooner and became part of the Windjammer fleet. She is a two-masted, wooden hulled ship, 70-feet long and 14-feet wide with oak framing and yellow pine decking.
Including the crew of six, there were eight passengers on the cruise. Because I was the only single passenger on board, I got the captain’s quarters in the stern. It was a single wooden bunk with a 3-inch foam mattress, a washstand and metal basin. My door was a curtain. I loved it.
I woke up on the ocean for my 50th birthday and it was a dream come true. We spent four days cruising the coast of Maine. We saw whales. During the days we reclined on the roof of the cabin and read, played Scrabble, watched picturesque fishing villages glide by, took photos and turns at the wheel, hoisted or lowered the sails and ate great food. At night we sang songs, stargazed, told stories and fell asleep to the gentle rocking of the ship and the waves lapping the hull. One day we stopped to tour a lighthouse. Another day we had a lobster feast on a beach. I can still taste the memories.
I was always spoiled on my birthday. My mother and sister would go all out. I think it was because it was summer and there was nobody to take cupcakes too.
When I was born in the late afternoon my mother’s roommate was Ginny Williams. She had a son, Jimmy, on the same day. For years on our birthdays, I would get dragged to Island Park to celebrate Jimmy’s birthday. Even though Wellsville is a small town, we dien’t know each other, he went to Brooklyn School. and I went to Washington School. So, while our mothers had a great time, we didn’t
Finally, I would get to go home where my sister had kept busy decorating and putting together the surprises for my party. One year they rented a pony from a farm in Andover. Funny thing is, many years later for my great nephew Chris’s birthday (three days after mine) I rented a pony. It was the same pony.
The night before my 21st birthday, I totaled my ‘68 Mustang at the Shangri-La entrance. I was turning left when a car came over the slight rise in the road and rammed into the back of my car. My wheels were cramped. My car spun around and wiped out a pole. When the spinning ended my sister was in the back seat on her hands and knees. I got a blood blister from gripping the steering wheel. Those were our only injuries. The next night after my birthday party, my friends and I went to Cuba, where I bought a horse. It was something I had always wanted. A week or two later I got a ‘69 Cougar with repeating taillights. No one was ever going to run into the back end of my car again without seeing it first.
This year I keep thinking, I never thought I’d be this old. While for many years, my birthdays haven’t been what they once were, that’s ok, because I know you can’t expect a pony at my age.
