Yes, it was an unusually warm day in March for Michigan.......I think up in the 70's. I had completed the work on my car and was getting ready to pick Mary up from her high school in Birmingham. Although it was Saturday, her drama class was practicing for a spring play. I have never really been a "car" guy, always boats. I purchased my first boat when I was 12. 3 years later I purchased a 1956 Chris Craft Ski boat from a guy that owned a restaurant by Cass Lake. This is when I realized boats were the E- ticket. Girls may want a guy with a car, but they will line up in bikinis for a guy with a boat even if he was 15. I met Mary, who was 2 years older than me while mooring my ski boat on Walnut Lake. She was waiting for her friend who had been out on the lake with me......and when I saw her.......she looked at me sideways revealing a bikini wrapped profile to take my breath away, if not all the oxygen from my brain. Her beautiful dark eyes and smooth olive skin...... We spent the rest of the summer skiing and floating around Walnut Lake....We would anchor at dusk and under the warm Michigan stars I would search for hidden treasures.
Fall came and she started her senior year at a private Catholic school and I went back to my high school. Bored out of my mind...... I needed to work on my ski boat. Perhaps I should have studied more, but I had two interests and they were not in the class room. Over the winter I decided to rebuild the transmission and put a new head gasket on the 6 cylinder Hercules. I had very little idea how to do it, but with a manual and tools where could I go wrong?
I had the boat in our heated garage and spent my weekends working feverishly on her. Every Saturday night that winter I would pick up Mary for a date and end up back in the garage, Mary reading the manual out loud as I worked away on the blue marine engine. As the evening got later we would throw a couple of bean bags on the back bench seat of the boat and place a little black and white TV on the engine hatch. Watching Saturday Night Live until time to take her home. It worked out well......we shared our dreams.....she wanting to go to college and make movies in Hollywood. I wanted to travel up the Amazon in Search of El Dorado.
The plans for Saturday night of the 20th were no different, except that I was anxious to get the boat done as the warm weather seem to be calling for an early launch. I hit the gas and felt the 396 roll as Segar's "Katmadu" played on the 8 track, heading east on Quarton Road.....with the windows down and the warm air and sunshine bathing my face. Life is good at 16 in SE Michigan.......
I picked up Mary and we headed over to her house in West Bloomfield. Her Dad was always great with me.....she said he drove a beer truck. I didn't understand how you drive a beer truck and have a big house on the lake and new Cadillacs in the drive and 3 daughters in private schools, but hey my interests were on something else. Her Mom always had a million hugs and was the best Italian cook......you never left her house hungry. Mary's dad always asked me what my plans were after high school and what college was I going to apply to. I always told him I was heading to Brazil and searching for El Dorado. He would smile and put his arm around me, looking me in the eye and tell me....."Always do what you love Chili and you will be a rich and happy man. Never work for anyone but yourself, never". I never forgot that my father, who was a Charter Captain and killed by the Cubans in the Florida Straights told me the same thing when I was very young. Mary's dad knew I had been working since I was 10 with a Pontiac Press, then Detroit News paper route. I started cutting lawns at 13 with a 21" push mower. By the time I was 15 I had 50 customers a week at $25 a crack and no car, but 2 boats. I walked and pushed my mower up to a mile to the jobs and worked my way back home. Many years later Mary's dad introduced me to a guy that owned one of the largest sanitation companies in the area. This guy had bought a 50 foot boat that ended up with the starboard hull side splitting apart at the waterline after a trip down from Mackinaw. I discovered her almost sinking at JB after his arrival. I took her up to Beardslees to be hauled and repaired. That was one of many events to turn me off from a very popular make of boat in the St Clair area. Stories for another time.
Mary's mom normally had dinner for us, but that spring evening they were going to an event so it was up to us to get something to eat. We always had Italian food on Saturday since her mother was from Italy, I suggested to Mary lets get a pizza and go over to the Orchard Lake boat launch and eat there on the rocks with the sunset. Normally I would order Pizza from Maria's on Walnut Lake Road, but since we were going to go over to the launch we decided to call the Galley on Orchard Lake and 15 mile.
While I was at Mary's, my mom called and asked If I would stop by a friend of ours and pick a item up. They had an 8 year old son named Robert and I took him out on the boat often as our families were close. Robert was a great kind, always ready for adventure. My mom told me Robert had a babysitter over, but to please stop buy and pick the item up tonight. I told her sure thing. Now Robert, according to his mom, had had a late lunch at The Big Boy, next to Farmer Jack. They lived just Northeast of the shopping center. At any rate, my little friend Robert put down 2 bowls of Big Boy Chili and a largeStrawberry shake.......earlier in the day. As the storm hit, something in his stomach hit and he told his baby sitter he had to run upstairs to use the restroom.
It started raining and thundering violently as we headed to the Galley, I had the windows cracked and the defroster on trying to clear the windshield. The closer we got to the Orchard Lake Road the stronger the storm and winds were. As we pulled up to the light at Orchard Lake, the storm was intense. I could barely see the traffic lights and I looked over at Mary, she looked at me as lighting flashed and thunder cracked on top of us, I could tell she was frightened. I remember the Eagles "Take it to the Limit" was playing on the radio as I turned into the Galley parking lot......
Mary decided to stay in the car because the rain was coming down so hard, with lighting crackling all around...I leaned over and gave her a kiss........I opened the car door and quickly ran into the store, looking over my shoulder I could not see Mary in the car through the down pour........I had no idea that was the last time I would kiss her in my 68 Chevy Malibu......
