Houseboat Lives

Part 4

I decided not to go to Spokane for Christmas, 1963.   I was having a great time in Seattle. 

The dock where our houseboat was moored was the central path through a colorful community.  Across the dock from us was the locally infamous “Alaskan logger” in a tiny, tiny floating cabin.  Because the logs that held his home up were so water-logged, his ramshackle houseboat  listed severely, as did he.  A big-bellied, friendly man in his fifties, he was usually roaring drunk by early afternoon and passed out by early evening.   At one time he had worked as a logger in Alaska, but he didn’t work at all now.

Next to us was a youngish man who was totally nuts.  He painted his houseboat screaming purple–and this was long before the color wildness of the ’60s and ’70s.  He was ahead of his time aesthetically.  He also took a sledge hammer to his own convertible sports car one Saturday afternoon in a rage about something or the other.  He came and went and I don’t believe I ever knew what he did for a living.

A couple of houseboats beyond him was a very tidy floating home occupied by several Seattle firefighters.  They worked different shifts so one could sleep while another worked.  They saved money by renting a small houseboat.  What they really loved was boating and skiing.  They had a small boat tied up to the porch at the back of their houseboat and were often gone on ski trips for days at a time.   It was at a party at this home I met the man who I would later marry. 

At the end of the dock was a couple in their forties who gave great parties.  Interesting people.  Good music.  He played bass  in a jazz band at one point.   His wife, after she had a lot to drink,would dance on the table.  It was shocking to me then.  By the time I was in my forties I understood her eagerness to disregard societal norms.  

At one of their parties I met two young men who lived on houseboats in Vancouver B.C.  They told me about a group they had formed with several friends.  Some of them were opposed to the whaling that was going on in the north Pacific.  Others were against war and for peace–”peaceniks” they were called then.  They were planning to go out on a commercial fishing boat and confront the whalers at sea.  The name they had decided to call themselves was “Greenpeace.”

I encountered Greenpeace people again twice in my life.  Once in the late 1970s when one of them showed up in Southern California.  It was at a party with some music industry people. Greenpeace had run out of money and the Greenpeace guy was looking for help.  I wrote a fund-raising letter for him, pro bono.  I don’t know whether or not they used it. I know he received financial assistance from music biz execs.  Later, in 1986, a smarmy ad executive at an agency I worked for claimed he had worked on the Greenpeace account and told us it was started in London, England.  I told him otherwise–happy to embarrass him.  He was such a jerk.

Meanwhile back to living in the Seattle houseboat community…

One other group fascinated me: the kayakers who came paddling around on weekends when Spring sunshine finally arrived.  Some lived on houseboats, some didn’t.   It wasn’t until the 1990s that I would finally take kayaking lessons on Alamitos Bay in Long Beach, California.

Most of the other people living on these floating houses along Fairview Avenue had ordinary jobs, lived ordinary lives, and simply enjoyed living on the water.  However, in the houseboats on other side of Lake Union and further west toward the ship canal were residents more like the Alaskan logger–a fairly rough crowd.  That reputation colored all the houseboat communities for another decade or so until houseboat living became desirable. 

Next time: 1964, changes are a’comin’ including an earthquake…

(This post is part of an experimental memoir.  I teach memoir writing and will edit your memoir to make it better.  Learn more at www.onedaymemoir.com)