MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1962 - Wisconsin Years I

Sailing

The summer before Charles was born, I bought a sailboat. The sailboat was 16 ft long with a 6 ft beam. The mast was 19 ft in height with 2 sails, a main sail and a jib. We joined the yacht club so I could rent a floating plug in the harbor near Neenah’s water front park. When not in use, the sailboat was tied to this floating plug. The yacht club provided a dingy with which you could row out to your sailboat and tow it to the dock where you could rig it for sailing. We would sail out of the harbor and into Lake Winnebago. The lake was about 30 miles long and 8 miles across. The lake was ideal for sailing. The lake was quite shallow in places with a maximum depth of only 20 ft. The sailing season was from April 15th until October 15th. That winter I stored it in the landlord’s backyard. Before Charles was born, we had selected a girl’s name also. (Back in those days the gender of the unborn was not known ahead of time.) The name we had chosen was Margaret Ann. Since we had a boy and since boats are often given female names, I painted Margaret Ann on the back of the sailboat.