~Mark Twain

One empty plastic milk jug on the kitchen table, a bottle of grape juice, pineapple juice, ginger ale, orange juice, five lemons and a fifth of Gin sitting on the counter. This is what would soon be mixed together in a flourish of activity that ended at rest in a Styrofoam iced chilled cooler. Back in the late 60's, my Uncle Ed's "Recipe" also known as "Purple Passion" by some, is what the Judge liked to travel with on his way to the Rivah.

"Jimmy, Perry, are y'all ready to go?.... Come on! Get out here and get in the car!" My dad's voice was rather pronounced and large. Booming may be a good way to describe it. The voice of authority. Both a mental health judge and an attorney, my dad had a way of making you listen to him with respect and dignity.

Anaheim Nathaniel Baugh, nickname, "Nate" also known as ... The Judge. Son of Emanuel Dawson Baugh, also ... a southern Judge, liked nothing better than to throw us boys in the car and haul ass down interstate 64 East to spend each weekend of our young lives on our boat in the York River.

Heading out of Charlottesville towards the Interstate, I was tucked away in the back seat with a bag of Cheetoes in one hand and a root beer in the other. I was one happy kid. Nothing brought me as much joy as going to the Rivah with dad. On the way out we would pass this huge building with a big sign that said, "Belleview". This is where I would sometimes visit my mother.

A 23 foot wooden Owens may not be considered a yacht by today's standards, however to a six-year-old boy it was the only boat in the world! York River Yacht Haven in those days was a paradise for us kids. Along with a cast of characters that would make the "Rat Pack" look tame. Boats, Booze and Booty is what captains on the dock were all about.

"A" dock is where we kept our boat and that pier was the one with always the most action. There was also B dock, C dock, D dock E dock, and then there were also the covered boat sheds. It seemed like on Fridays and Saturdays the entire marina swarmed to "A" dock and the crabs on those pilings were monsters!

At the end of "A" dock was a tee pier that was only about 50 yards away from the inlet and beach. Us kids would get a running start and jump off the pier and swim to the nearby beach. There waiting was always a bunch of our buddies in tin boats and Boston Whalers. Jay Jack, Bruce, Duck, and Skipper all had Whalers with 50 horsepower's and were the biggest outboards available at that time. These kids ruled Sarah's Creek. Those guys with the Whalers were the coolest kids on the water.

Starting around age five my life was lived in sullen suburbia during the week, and weekends at a crab catcher's paradise the York River and Sara's Creek. That is about all I did once Dad pulled into the parking lot on Fridays at the Marina was to swim and catch Crabs. We had plenty of buddies our age to hang around with, running down the docks screaming, "Look at the size of this one!"

Meanwhile the Judge and his buddies were sipping on what was left of their tasty toddies and cooking up grilled mammoth steaks above the plank wood docks. Fresh Backfin Chesapeake Bay blue crab meat thick steak and salad, is usually all we ate on the weekends. It was a wonderful cheerful exciting life and one I desperately did not want to go away.

My brother and I made a good team on our little tin boat. We had painted the hull red and the boat leaked like a sieve. I had taken one of the Judges empty milk jug containers and cut it in half to use as a bailer. We did not have anything fancy like bilge pumps in those days. I would yell,

"Hey Perry! Lets jump in the boat! You grab the tiller killer and I will start bailing!" Off we went. Venturing off in our Leakey red tin boat with our monstrous 1966, 9.5 outboard having more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

My brother and I always kept straw grass in the boat. Back in the day those engines "pissers" or cooling system were always getting clogged. We would use a strand to keep the exhaust lines free of debris and also stuffed the straw in the leaky rivets of the tin hull.

As a child one Christmas in Charlottesville my brother Perry and I had opened all our presents under the tree and were happy as two clams and a stick of butter when my dad asked, "Did yall boys look outside the window?"

Pulling back the shades in our little brick ranch, there was a colossal, gorgeous, gleaming green Glastron 16-foot ski boat! I ran outside in amazement and simply just could not believe my eyes, never forgetting the first thing I asked my dad.

"Dad love it, but ... where is the engine?"

The Judge said, "Oh don't worry that little 9.5 will push it until we get a bigger one".

Dad was quite the horse trader. He had legally represented someone who couldn't pay his fee but did own a used 50 horsepower outboard. So after putting around slowly with that 9.5 for a month or so, we finally got the 50 installed and began to run up and down the river like a Mexican border patrol. After our weekends at the marina I hated the fact that we would have to go back to school on Mondays.

I did a lot of growing up on the docks of Sara's creek.