This is a true story.  The year was 1989.   It was summer.  I owned a small boat, a fifteen footer.  It was small runabout with a 65 horsepower engine and it wasn't always reliable but I was happy it worked the times I put her in.   I always enjoyed using it for freshwater pond fishing but it was a fiberglass tri-hull suitable for ocean or bay fishing. 

I named my boat the Malaise after a car in the Speed Racer storyline.  The Malaise (Ma Lahz) was also known as the X-3 and it was a car that when it showed up, other cars crashed, like a bad omen.  And I remember some bad luck with my boat so I thought the name was appropriate.  Not until this moment did I realize what it also meant as I pen this story.

My best friend from high-school Keith Wright and his friend Earl Parsons were with me this day.  Keith and I had been toying with the idea of forming a band.  That time had no yet come, but we were good friends that did a lot of fishing together and we went as far as to buy motorcycles so we could pal around and do day trips on them.

I had begun to use my boat to meet girls and I'd float around a lot on my own too.  It was a great time in my life.  I didn't realize it so much at the time. I recall using my boat a lot on the upper Chesapeake.  I'd put in at the Perryville Fish market which is now gone and replaced by condo's.  Kinda sad I thought when I saw it happen one summer.   No more easy access to the Susquehanna flats and no more playing volleyball ...   more »