Somewhere off Scituate - By John Kimball

2 weeks prior to Stuart's initial diagnosis he and I took an afternoon off to go fly fishing for striped bass off of Scituate. We had talked about doing this for awhile -- Andy Bonzagni had hooked Stuart and Bill Kelly up with Fly Casting Lessons for one of their 50th Birthdays - I think it was Bill's. They were taught by a guy named Lou Tabory who is a legend in Saltwater Flyfishing (Bill may have to weigh in on this as I am sure it was an interesting weekend).

Having essentially lived on the water physically and in spirit all of his life, Stuart was a "Sailor" and apparently "Sailors" do not fish and definitely raise their noses at those of us who do. But saltwater flyfishing sounded snobby enough even for Stuart to try.

Stuart arrived that afternoon in his newly restored MG convertible. (Doug would later surprise Stuart by having the MG newly painted while Stuart was undergoing treatments) As he drove up the driveway I just got a big smile -- silver hair and shades - here he was in yet another car. I half expected him to step out with pipe and ascot!! "Where's the Porsche?" I asked -- he just gave me the Stuart grin and said that was long gone.

We put my little outboard boat in on the Cohasset Harbor ramp and Stuart was psyched to see several Herreschoff 12 1/2 sailboats on moorings. This was the boat that he was working on building in his garage so we pulled up alongside one so he could see a detail inside the boat that he was trying to figure out. If you aren't familiar with these boats, they are works of art -- Stuart was building the Haven 12 1/2 (designed by Joel White - son of E.B. White)which has the exact above water lines and intricate details as the Herreschof but replaces the keel with a centerboard so that you can trailer it more easily and sail it in shallow water. (By the way, I learned all this from Stuart!!) He had pictures of the progress on his hull - it was beautiful - he said that one of his dreams would be to live closer to the water so that he could take this boat out for evening sails after work. Anyone who has worked with wood would really appreciate the beauty of this boat and the difficulty in building it..

We hung out on the water for a few hours -- it turned out that Stuart could have probably used a refresher on fly casting -- his was a kind of up and down cast as opposed to the ideal forward and backward motion! He admitted he had not picked up a rod since the lessons! But he and I were having fun and we caught ALOT (really!!) of small schoolie Stripers that afternoon. As Alison said, Stuart would try anything.
At one point we pulled into a little cove and just drifted and had lunch -- we caught up on family, work, hobbies and life in general. I asked him how he knew how to restore the MG and he said he just bought a manual on the internet!! Stuart at his best. We both agreed that our lives were pretty good -- I asked him if there was anything else he wanted or needed in life and strangely (but I doubt prophetically) he said he would like more time. That day he meant more time for things like boat building, sailing, traveling etc...

Another weird thing that day -- as we were moving along in the boat his hat flew off -- it was a WoodenBoat hat with the name "Whisper" on the back - it was the name of the boat he was building. We went back and never found the hat -- later, following the diagnosis, Stuart decided to change the boat's name to "Hope" and Karen bought him a new hat.

We had dinner and a couple of beers at a little downtown tavern -- when we got back to my house he said he wanted to come in and say hi to Heidi and the kids. As he climbed back into his car to head home he laughed and said he hoped the MG would hold up on the highway! My son Jack told Stuart he loved his race car!

I will remember that day forever - I feel so lucky to have had that carefree afternoon with him while he was still well.

John Kimball