Subject: Rowing merrily along in Michigan

Hi Marie:
...I never related my favorite story from this summer about my Whitehall Spirit to you guys.

My wife and I and our two daughters (6 and 8 this summer) row down to the local waterfront bar/restaurant for lunch one day and we are sitting at the table outside by the docks perusing the menu and a pretty, new Sabreline 36 or 38 or whatever length they come in pulls up and its an older guy by himself that I recognize as a patriarchal auto baron of the past 50 years and a man of substantial wealth.

So I know him slightly and I say hello and comment on his yacht which by the way is an awfully nice boat, and he launches into the story about how he went to Maine and supervised the construction and all that blah blah stuff. So we end the niceties and everyone goes back to lunch and we finish up and start to get loaded back into the Whitehall which takes a little while with me at 250 and two little kids etc.

Meanwhile here comes the old fellow down the rickety dock to get back on his yacht and he stops to watch our act and he's like "Where did you get this handsome little boat?" so we tell him its from BC and all and he was kind of crestfallen about the whole exchange because we knew - and he knew - who had the cooler boat.

So we went our separate ways down the lake and we were laughing to each other and he just kind of pulled his hat lower and motored off. Not that anyone needs to feel sorry for the old boy. But that day on the dock our little rowboat held its own in a pretty tough league.Anyhow that's my story.

I have attached a scanned picture of my daughter Amy and me rowing our Whitehall Spirit. Actually I'm rowing and she's holding the Beanie Baby. The picture is probably kind of fuzzy because its a .bmp file. I'll keep an eye on the web site.

Rowing Roy Martin.