It Ain't a Cathedral

For those of you who remember, a story about the original Community Dock Debate of yesteryear.

In 1968 Bill McCauley and I had a great idea for our last summer in Skaneateles before going to college and growing up [which neither wanted to do]. Indeed, we built a Tom Sawyer version of a "house raft" and spent the summer sleeping on it. Too bad there are no archived photos; it was quite the vessel; 12 x 36 feet she floated on used oil barrels and boasted an enclosed cabin and 12 masthead. Christened "It Ain't a Cathedral" in the spring of '68 a friend of my father [who owned a working woman's lingerie store] supplied us with a selection of very unusual women's undergarments which we proudly flew from the masthead.

At the end of each Hard Day's Night at Morriss we would invite whatever women were still standing to see our craft. We then rowed out in Bill's extremely leaky rowboat. So leaky that if the girl's decided they wanted to leave, the boat had sunk. Ha! Too bad, we said. Guess you will have to take off your clothes and swim to shore.

Here is the rub: The mayor's office [still does] overlook where we moored SS "It Ain't a Cathedral" and the mayor was a retired General [Marine, I think] and he was almost entirely without humor. The Mayor called the Sherriff to run us off, but it turned out we wern't breaking any laws.

The StoryBook Village was torn apart in the Great Civil Debate of '68. There was the "Boy's-Will-Be-Boys" Faction and the "I-Am-Agast" Faction. No-one was nuetral, and Bill and I spent all summer staying one step ahead of the Law as they vainly tried to catch us doing something wrong. In the End, faced with college and growing up looming, we scuttled and burned her in the tradition of the Steamboats of last Century.

Here is the Story: At the Community Dock Vote, one concerned citizen raised the issue of how the committee would control the problem of "Chinese Junks tied to the dock like we had some years ago". About half the audience and at least some of the Trustees knew perfectly well that I, a keynote speaker in behalf of the Dock's, was indeed Captain Emeritas of that "Chinese Junk".

There were some snickers, but nobody said a word. Ha! Whew! We got our Docks.

Curt