The long Day, Towing the Old Lighthouse Boat

 It was my first summer at the Lighthouse.The year was 1969.  Many things come to mind when I recall those days. One of the fondest memories I have of that first summer was the friendship that I made with one of the boys. His name was Ricky Banning. Ricky came down to a lighthouse shortly after I did. He had been in some kind of trouble with the law up in the Dallas area. I never knew exactly what he had done. I suppose I never really cared. Ricky was a stout and chunky young man.  He was a little older than me, he had dark hair, dark eyes, and he was fair skinned. Ricky was about 5 foot and 8 inches tall. 

I was pretty much Ricky's opposite. I was almost 6 feet tall, and lean. I had an olive complexion, blue eyes, and blond hair.  Ricky was all about doing everything full blast, while I, though not exactly a wallflower, was a bit lower key.

I will never forget my first encounter with Rickey. The day he arrived at the lighthouse, happened to be a big day. It was the day that we were to tow the big house boat we called the Lighthouse, from which the Lighthouse got its name, 12 miles further south from the main pier. Brother Roloff wanted to establish a new outpost further south on the canal. Rumor had it that the fishing was better further down the canal, and Brother Roloff wanted to take advantage the chance to increase our yield of Speckled Trout, while at the same time creating a more isolated outpost from which we could more effectively work with some of the more difficult boys. I think Bro. Roloff also liked the idea of having a remote place on the canal to go when he wanted to get away and take a break form the rigors of the ministry.

So we proceeded on the long voyage, towing the big ol' houseboat, almost 12 miles. I believe we left on a Thursday morning, for our extended “boat ride”. You may be wondering how a 12 mile boat trip could be considered a “long voyage”. But the Lighthouse was a very large houseboat, and it was also very heavily built. As such, it could only be towed safely at speeds of between one and two miles per hour! You can do the math. Twelve divided by, closer to one, than two, equals between a 7 or 8  hour trip! We could have literally walked the distance faster, minus a 3 or 4 ton houseboat, of course! But it was a long, very slow trip!

The 20-foot Power Cat was the boat chosen for the heavy task. So we harness the Lighthouse to the Big Cat, and made ready to tow it to its final resting place. (more on that later)
We began the long slow journey at around 8:30 am, and we would finally reach our destination probably between 3:30 and 4:30 pm late that afternoon. Filling out our crew that day was Dad, Sid Haynes, Mike Haege, Ricky Banning, myself, and a boy from Ohio named Don. Sid Haynes was a lifelong friend of Dad's and our family as well. Sid was also a great Christian man. Mike Haege was a former City of Refuge boy, who had spent a lot of time supervising the Lighthouse, and had gotten married the previous summer of 1968, having met his wife, Maewin, where they were both attending Tennessee Temple University, in Chattanooga Tennessee.
Then they returned to Corpus for that summer of 1969, where Maewin was working at Brother Roloff's downtown office, while Mike spent most of his time, managing the Lighthouse, to oversee the boys there, and to manage the prolific fishing operations there.
It was largely Mike's influence that had caused me want to accept Christ. Then, over that summer, Ricky Banning, Mike Haege, and myself, were to become a very close-knit trio.

So, as we set out on that long voyage, time wise, everyone was exited, and jovial! I think we all sensed that it was going to be an enjoyable, albeit very slow ride.The makeup of the old houseboat made the long slow trip at least bearable though. It was a large enough vessel that it gave us some freedom to walk about, take a nap, or to climb onto its large flat roof for a better view - of, not much of anything, but water and sand flats.
But clambering all over the huge vessel like a bunch of water monkeys, was something to do to help keep the potential monotony at bay. What the two new guys did, for the most part, was to sit on the wide flat bow of the low riding houseboat, legs hanging into the water, to enjoy the sensation of the cool saltwater cascading up onto our legs, and splashing on up to our stomachs, and then up onto their chests! 
And after two or three hours, when the new wore off, the boys began to settle in and get relaxed. Dad, Mike, and Sid were on the towboat, conversing and enjoying themselves in more of an adult fashion. The Cat was being taxed very heavily by its 4 ton - plus, load. The Lighthouse, meanwhile, ever stubbornly lumbered along, about 15 feet behind the Powercat. The Cat bore up well though, her engine throbbing ever steadily. The ball of bubbling, churning, prop wash soon became tight, deep swells, rolling one behind another between the Cat’s stern, the Power-cat's prop, kicking up a respectable two-and a half foot or so mound of a washboard like wake, behind it's transom, and between Lighthouse’s bow. It was largely that prop wash that served to provide that constant, cooling fountain of water, that was so pleasant ant cool to us, as we sat there on the bow of the houseboat, with the Seagulls periodically gathering about us, I suppose curious as to our doings. But more likely they were hoping for a free lunch, as they called out to one another, with their shrill cries, while gliding and darting, swirling about overhead, and then disappearing for a time, only to reappear as suddenly as they had departed.

 One of the characteristics of nearly every new lighthouse boy was, that they seldom took friendly advice or, friendly suggestions. Or, to be frank, they seldom took any advice or responded quickly to any orders. ha! ha!
Most of those boys, during their growing up years, had largely been unsupervised, and unaccountable to anyone, which was for the most part, why they were in trouble, and why they were down at the Lighthouse in the first place. If you wanted one of the boys to do something, you pretty much had to form your “request”, as a direct order, and then see to it they followed through with their  instructions. Thankfully though, most of them began to change their ways, shortly after getting introduced to Lighthouse life.
We shall see the significance of this usual stubbornness, directly below.

Because Don, the Ohio boy had no shirt on. And to say that he had fair skin would be a huge understatement! I don't know how best to describe his complexion, but I remember that he was exceptionally fair, so his skin was of the almost transparent type that, when looking at him without his shirt on, you could faintly see the fine network of pale blue blood vessels, lying just beneath the pale skin of his chest.
Rickey's complexion was not much better, but he at least did have a thicker and tougher looking “hide”. So, as we churned down the canal we noticed that the shirtless Don, and also Ricky, who had a pair of short cut off blue jean shorts on, were beginning to turn that tell tale, pre sunburn, light pink. Don's chest, most noticeably, was starting to radiate with a rosy pink hue! Rickey's legs were also beginning to change from a stark white to a “pretty pink".
This is where my prior comments about the boys tending not to take advice come in. Dad, Sid, Mike, and myself all began to urge Rick to put on some long pants, and we all tried to get Don to put on a shirt. Both of the boys were totally resistant to those ideas. But they both seemed very unconcerned about their condition, believing that they were perfectly fine! Though none of them said so aloud, likely they figured that we were all just a bunch of fuddy-duddy's trying to see to it that they did not enjoy themselves, and certainly not to the fullest! I will never forget seeing Don sitting in a semi reclined position on the bow of the Lighthouse, with the cool the water splashing up on his chest, giving him a false sense of well being. Again, someone noticed his plight and, and again they warned him,” Don, you had better get a shirt on!" But Don, still partially reclined, and still under the influence cool water’s spray, sleepily answered, "I never burn". Even as he was speaking those words, “I never burn”, he took his index finger, and ran it across his chest, as though to see if he could feel any sensation of sunburn. I watched incredulously, as when he stroked his finger across his chest, a distinct bright white mark appeared under his finger, behind where he had just dragged his finger. Then it lingered for several seconds afterwards, before it faded back from a white streak, slowly melting back into a soft pink hue. Yes, I am sure Don didn’t burn, back in Ohio! But this was not Ohio! This was South Texas, and not just any old place in south Texas! This was South Texas on the Intracoastal canal! This was where the summer sun is very brutally intense! But, Don, in the end, found out that he did indeed burn! I suppose we could have forced him wear a shirt anyway. But then, he would not have really learned his lesson. Our laying down the law would probably only put have off the inevitable. So that night, Don ended up spending it and three more painful night's and day's immobilized laying in his bunk, while shivering with the cold chills, all sad, sick, and miserable!  Even the most hardheaded of the guys usually learned something on the canal!  They learned that suggestions, and friendly advice, should be at least thought through, before being ignored!

And then there was a Ricky! Ricky Banning was one of the toughest, most determined young men I have ever known! I believe if he had decided he was going to eat a box of nails, he would have done it, or died trying! Actually, though, Ricky ended up with a worse sunburn by far than even Ohio Don did. Because Rick's legs got burned very badly. So, in a few days his legs swelled to the point that they looked like they did not even go with his body! Because of the tremendous swelling, the skin on his thighs and knees cracked wide open, leaving bright pink oozing fissures that ran helter-skelter in jagged patterns across, around, and as well as up and down his legs, somewhat resembling the dry parched, cracked earth during an extended drought. From about the upper calves of his legs, to well above the middle of his thighs, those cracks ran! They were not pretty to look at either! They were about the color of pink that you might see the in the meat section of your local grocery store! The fissures started towards the top of his thighs, wider at the top, then became narrower the further down his legs they went. I suppose another description I could give of this hideous site is, the cracks resembled jagged pink lightning bolts, starting at about 1/8^th of an inch wide at the top of his thighs, and trailing of into just about nothing as they ran a little ways below his knees!

The amazing thing about Rick’s condition was, that it hardly slowed him down at all!  He was forced to walk with his legs distinctively stiff and held widely apart. He walked with a herky-jerky, stiff motion, resembling a cross between a penguin and a zombie! The Lighthouse had steps going up from inside it, and leading down into it. In order to go in and out, they had to be negotiated. But because of the swelling of his legs, Ricky could hardly bend his legs at all. So his solution to getting up the stairs was to grab one of his legs, just above his knees (cracks and all) and hoist it up over a step. This he did climbing the steps one at a time, alternating from grabbing one leg and hoisting it up, to grabbing and hoisting the other, as he slowly ascended the steps, painstakingly working his way upwards. We were all highly amused at Rick’s antics, and especially his maneuverings up the steps. His constant display of inhuman toughness and determination was to us, nothing short of incredible! We just shook our heads in amazement as Ricky, even in this state of handicap, continued undaunted by his painful condition going about his daily business, waddling around hardly breaking stride, except for his slow, agonizing, stair climbing routine! By and by the swelling in his legs subsided, and new skin began to grow. I think, however, it was then that Rick’s legs looked even worse than before! The old skin began to flake and peel away, sloughing off and in large sheets, and crumbling away in whitish brown flakes. The new skin looked almost as disgusting in appearance as the raw pink oozing cracks had been!  The new skin was also a bright pink, and it contrasted greatly with the loose brown of the old dead skin, still clinging in patches to Rick’s thighs. Any visitor seeing Ricky in this strange condition might have concluded that the Lighthouse was actually a leper colony! I suppose in a sense it was! For all men are lepers spiritually, as plainly shown to us in the scriptures. But at the Lighthouse we were in the business getting “spiritual leprosy” cleansed, as well being cleanses spiritually ourselves! 
So, by and by we got to the place Bro Roloff had personally picked out, and we staked the old Houseboat parallel to the channel. Then a temporary floating pier was moored a short ways from it, and that became the furthermost outpost from the main cam, until the following year, when the # 4 cabin was built, just a hundred and fifty yards or so, further south, on the same west side side of the channel the Lighthouse was on. 
I mentioned this was to be the final resting place of the Lighthouse. Because sadly, the winter following the summer of 1970, it burned to the "ground", so to speak, even though it was actually sitting in a bout a foot of water at the time.
You can read a little more about the particulars of the Lighthouse, in my post titled "The Old Original, Lighthouse Houseboat". 
So ended a very memorable day, in the summer of 1969, way down south, at a place called, "The Landcut".