Got a reminder from Jeff Porteous of a long ago boyhood dream: my first submarine command. Remember this ad on the back of your favorite comic book?
My buddies and I spent hours in our knocked together clubhouse (made from a door propped over the fence beside David MacDougald's garage) dreaming about the exciting adventures we'd have in our very own submarine. I scrounged an old electric drill to drive the propeller. We even dug a hole in the ground in David's back yard where we could dock our boat when not in use.
Like most things, all it took was money. Unfortunately, $6.98 was an insurmountable sum without an allowance or employment. Besides, candy was cheap and comic books were $0.15. What little we could scrape together usually fell victim to those overpowering temptations.
And so we never got a sub. The years rolled by and I wasn't too scarred from the loss. Until Jeff sent me this:
Now, I don't know who the young lad at the helm is, but he sure looks happy. This was apparently taken days after the initial shock of receiving a cardboard submarine wore off. It's funny, I poured over that ad for hours but the note about the boat being "sturdily constructed of 200 lb. test fiberboard" never sank in. The power of the image, and the promise of "hours and hours of adventure", were just too overwhelming I suppose.
Looking at the genuine article I have to admit it had possibilities. It would have fit right over the hole we'd dug in the ground for it. And while our first generation fantasies would have been sent straight to Davey Jones, I'm sure the gang and I could have logged significant adventure time stretching the test depth afforded by 200 lb. fiberboard construction.
Ah, what might have been...
