The Strangest Dream - Good Go Boats and Fishing for Bluefin Tuna

Last night I had the strangest dream…Oh wait a minute. That was a Simon and Garfunkel song. I did have a dream last night. It really wasn’t so strange, more like a nightmare. As is often the case when I wake up early on a Sunday morning to tap a kidney, going back to sleep is a subtle delight. Warm and comfortable I drift off into dreamland. This cycle of sleep seems to be the time when dreams are easiest to remember.

In my dream I was at a fishing tournament. The location was not specific but it looked suspiciously like Gloucester. The folks milling about were all young, enthusiastic, and were eagerly preparing gear to get out on the water. The small boat harbor was filled with white Good Go boats. The Sun was shining brightly and reflected off the pure white hulls and the decks of the boats gently bobbing in the swell. I was excited too and memories of many experiences running these same boats in Alaska and other places danced in my head.

The folks that were administering the event were assigning captains and crew to the boats and I was looking over their shoulders looking for my name. I was assigned as a captain to one of the boats and I looked to see who my crew was going to be. To my surprise after a low conversation among the admins, the guy with the clipboard scratched out my name from the captain slot and penciled in another fool’s name.

I was shocked. I was an old-timer on these boats. I had built them at the East Sun building in New York. I sea tested them in the East River and Long Island Sound. I caught nine giant Bluefin tuna from these decks. I ran them in Alaska. I had more experience than anybody here including the guys with the clipboards. I asked them why they scratched me from the captain’s slot. At first they didn’t answer. I asked again and they said because I was sixty years old. They wanted a younger guy. Now I was pissed. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. They busied themselves with their paperwork and dismissed me.

I was devastated. I wandered around the yard looking at the boats and the youngsters excitedly waiting for their boat assignments. I had lost all my anticipation. I felt ashamed of my loss of face. All the feelings of being misjudged and underestimated my whole life came flooding back. Then a guy from the city showed up asking if there were any veterans in the group. Somebody said I was a vet and the guy approached me and showed me a flyer about some vet’s group that was doing a performance at city hall. He showed me the flyer with a photo of seven old white haired guys and said they need one more vet. He gave me a red ticket and said I was invited to participate. I wasn’t at all happy being placed among these old guys. I felt like I was being shuffled off to the old folks home.

Then I woke up. It may have been a dream but the resulting blackass was real.