Sebastion's Folly

It was late afternoon by the time the regatta was over. Timmy's team had loaded their boats and equipment on the trailer and into the vans and the medals and trophies had all been handed out.  Timmy's eight took gold but the team was a distant third overall - good enough for them to pick up a team trophy and be happy. Last years squad was fifth overall and the eight was a distant fourth.  Later on we all reconvened at Timmy's folks place. Eight rowers and a coxswain and four "others" - myself and three boys who helped cary equipment earlier. So thirteen 12 and 13 year old boys - left pretty much to ourselves in the pool house while Tim's folks went out to a restaurant and our kid brothers had their own sleepover in the house. The housekeeper, Kay, was the only "adult" person around and I think she was just there to keep the house from burning down.  When I took my overnight bag to the back Tim greeted me. A big kiss on the lips and a hug. I guessed t...

Winter training had gotten underway - it was just after Thanksgiving and not exactly the "dead of winter" just yet but it was cold and wet and gray. The rowing team had participated in the last regatta of the Fall season and now we just got ourselves ready to take on the last weeks of the semester - grades were first priority but working out, conditioning, rehabbing sore bodies, became our emphasis.  Recruiting was another priority. If the fellas knew anyone who might be interested in joining and might actually want to sign up they would bring them to the student gym/field house and see what we could do to hook them in.   The squad worked out hard - sweat dripping, huffing and puffing, the occasional collapse to the floor - it was an odd sort of recruiting dance that the other coaches would watch and shake their heads. "I don't know how the hell you get away with torturing these boys this way and still keep getting them to join!"  "It's my sincere smile...

 My brother and I looked like brothers only he was, clearly, a couple years younger than myself. My cousin Timmy and I were the same age and we looked like twins.  We'd known each other from afar for many years. He lived in Ohio and I lived in Texas and we'd only see each other during short visits in the summer - when my family would travel north to our summer home.  Timmy went to the same school my father went to and he was rowing there also. It made me horribly jealous because rowing was just a summer activity for me and, of course, Timmy was living the family heritage and I could only read about it, hear about it and watch it from afar.  None the less we liked each other a lot. One summer we traveled through town and Timmy's rowing team had a regatta downtown. We got up early and went down to the boathouse and watched the team warm up and prep the boats. They won the first heat easily and then the second was close to start but they pulled away about halfway throug...

I met Peter in the gym in late December. The rowing teams "Holiday workout season" was pretty much done but we had caught his attention. He approached me one day as I was finishing up my personal workout. We chatted about crew and about how things were run - the fact that we'd be breaking up for Christmas and then coming back in January and doing a lot of hard core workouts - conditioning, strength, strategies - race and competition etc...   We quickly established he was a coffee lover and we'd gotten together a few times in the evening to compare notes. A lot of flirting and teasing went on and he had me wondering if I had misread the signals. He worked out with me a few afternoons in the last week before I left town - he wore short black shorts and a dark gray, long sleeved, shirt that zippered up the front.  "Are these the kind of shorts you want us to wear in the boat?" he asked with a sly smile on his handsome, boyish, face.  "Yes - those would do ...

 It had been an early Spring. Lots of sun and warm weather and since we had plenty of time before the first regatta we had an easy going practice week. Going over fundamentals and a little speed training and sitting up the boat and such.  We started the day out in sunny, darn right, hot conditions and so most of the boys were stripped down to shirts and shorts. We warmed up quickly and went pretty far up river and that's where we were when we noticed that there was weather headed our way.  We lined the boats up two to a row and sent them back towards the dock. "Make hast young man!" I laughed and sent the first two boats off and then the next two - the guys loved rowing fast and hard so everyone was still ok.  About half way back we connected with the rain. It was a solid, cool, rain but not much wind - it was going slowly up the river soaking us. There was no wind - no lightening - just this soaking rain that had us all looking like we'd been swimming. As fast as th...

 Billy had had a really tough day on the water. He wasn't hitting the catch with the rest of the boat, but then all four of the guys were hitting at will, he was going too deep and ended up catching multiple crabs and he buried his calves into the tracks so hard, and often, that blood was running down his legs and soaked his socks.  The boat was so badly sit up that all the guys came away with busted knuckles and deflated spirits. They were angry and embarrassed  and couldn't wait to get away. The rest of the program had seen the chaos and they pretty much stayed away from the guys - it was pretty much silent running for anyone around them.  I thought everyone was gone but when I walked into my office there he was. Sitting on the bench along the back wall. He was sort of hunched over with his face buried into his arm.  "Billy. Billy are you ok?" "No." He looked over at me and it was obvious that he'd been crying.  "That was a pretty shitty day out t...

 Over the years several of the boys used to come over and borrow my study when they were working on big projects for school. I didn't have a dress code and I usually had a good supply of snacks on hand for when they wanted to take a break.  There were those times when the guys would just declare "study day" and come by with a book and they'd lounge around the place - sometimes outside on the balcony if the weather was good - and read and chat. They always showed their appreciation and a few of them, more than a few, would stay over night because once it got late they didn't want to disturb anyone going back to the dorm too late.