Simplicity Class was over for the night, and as always there was a few hangers on that wanted to talk more boat talk. I understand. I'm the same way myself. One of the class members was considering building a boat for his sons and the discussion was about what to build. Grown men, with spare time and an unlimited supply of coffee, can really work over a subject like this, and the plans were becoming more grandiose by the minute. One more pot of French Roast and the boys would be able to sail this summer project around the world. That's when I remembered my very first boat. School was just over for the summer and long months stretched out before me. It was 1951 and we had just moved to Coon Rapids close on the banks of Coon Creek and only a few short miles upstream from the Mississippi. The town didn't really exist yet; the area was still unincorporated, but by the end of the summer Mom and the neighbor ladies had gone from door to door and gotten enough signatures to incorporate the place. I was bored. Too much summer ahead, the new kid in the street (there was only one other) and nothing to do. It was one of those wonderful Minnesota June mornings, warm and bright and blue, and Ma says�?"You need a boat." A boat! What an idea! For me? Where's it coming from? The entire concept was so outrageous, so flabergastingly wonderful that it was almost beyond the imagination of an almost ten year old boy. Ma said, "we'll make one." From somewhere she had gathered all the materials. The plans came right off the top of her head. Doubtless she had seen her brothers build dozens of duck boats and crick skiffs as she grew up on a hard rock Polk County, Wisconsin, class-B dairy farm in the 1920's and 30's, and that information had been laying there dormant until she had a son of her own to lavish it on. She started hauling stuff out of the garage. Two ten foot 1 x 12's and a couple of short hunks of the same stuff. One 2 x 4. Some shiplap boards of random length that came off the new house that was going up across the street (that impressed me because if knew those carpenters over there we watching those boards like hawks) and a bucket of roofing tar. She had a tin can full of nails, a crosscut saw, a hammer, and a hunk of clothesline and a white fold up ruler. In a space alongside the garage she found a level spot, cut a point on the 2 x 4, and drove it into the soft spring grass. She kicked it plumb, picked up one of the 1 x 12's and setting it up against the post, nailed it on. She put the other one on the other side and nailed it on too. So much for the Stem. She unfolded the white ruler and marked off a 32'' hunk from one of the short 1 x 12's. Then she folded the ruler into a shallow triangle and marked the resulting angle on each end of the 32" piece. She cut those with the crosscut. So much for the flair and the transom. Then she cut another piece of 1 x 12 a little bit longer than he transom and laid it down between the two long boards and right down on the grass. She took the clothesline and figured-eighted it about the back end of the boat. With apiece o f broomhandle she twisted that rope until the stern started to come together. She nailed on one side and then twisted the other into place and nailed that on too. I was impressed. We took a break. I was into it now and it seemed like it took forever for her to finish her Pall Mall. She started up again, nailing shiplap across the bottom. She began in the middle and worked both ways, cutting off the overage with the cross cut as she went. I didn't take her long to finish off the bottom. She opened up the can of tar and with a stir stitch she started smearing the whole bottom with it. She went about three inches up the side too. When that was done smoked another Pall Mall and told me we would have to wait until after lunch to let it "set-up." Lunch took forever. When we finally go back at it she took the left over 2 x 4 and pried the stem post out of the ground, flipped the boat over and cut it off flush. Then she nailed a seat-spreader in place on cleats about three inched below the gunwales. That was it, no paint, and no varnish. We hauled it down to the creek. She gave me a pole of peeled Aspen and told me to have fun. Oars she said would have to come later when we could get up to the new Coast to Coast store. For now the pole would have to do. It's been fifty years since that wonderful summer and I've poured a lot of water out of my boots since then, some of it salty and some of it fresh. Ma is 86 now and we laugh when we remember that summer and all the adventures that little boat had, and of all the boats I've ever had or been on, none ever gave me any more pleasure than the one that Ma built.