Chapter 2


  I did not see Dave again for several weeks. Until as before, he appeared at the building shed door and just stood there watching us. Again it was just about quitting time and the same ritual of a brief chat with Les and Alf and then me driving him to the marina. This time we had more to say to each other right off. Les had kept his promise of taking me around to flea markets and second hand shops to 'get me some boatbuilder tools'. I described to Dave some of the fine tools I had been fortunate to get so far and the conversation got around to making tools.

  Dave's philosophy was simple, if he could make it he would, rather than buy a tool from the store. To put this into practice he had purchased a 250 pound anvil, a Fisher Norris, from junk yard in Ballard. He had been searching for such an anvil for months and since he did not drive, heck he didn't even have a drivers license, he rode the transit system all over Seattle with the ever present canvas satchel at his side. But that satchel would not bear the weight of a 250 pound anvil and one bus driver when asked said he would not let Dave on the bus with the thing, too dangerous said he.

  I volunteered to take Dave to Ballard on the following Saturday to pick up his new toy.  We got to the junk yard about 9 AM the following Saturday and Dave went to double check the condition of the anvil before paying for it. It passed his inspection and the two yard helpers used a fork lift and choker chains to bring it to the scales outside the office. Anvils are sold by the pound. The scales said 263 pounds and Dave and the yard owner went inside to finish dickering whilst I brought my pickup close to the scales for the transfer. Dave came out of the office just as the yard workers were re-arranging the choker slings prior to transferring the anvil to the bed of my pickup. They were grumbling about dealing with that weight and were not moving fast enough for Dave who was very animated now that he had his anvil. He walked up to the fellows and said, 'oh don't bother with those chains'.

  He squatted as a weight lifter would do, and grasped that 263 pound anvil beneath the horn and pritchel end, and just picked it up clean as you please.  He strode over to the truck and gently set it down on some planks we had brought to spread the load in the bed. The yard workers, the owner and I just stood there with our mouths hanging open at what we had just witnessed. There was no huffing and puffing it was just one smooth movement and it was done. I don't recall if he was even breathing hard.

  Our return trip included a stop at Ballard Fuel for a couple of hundred pounds of good Cumberland Hard Coal for his just made forge. Then back to the marina we drove. All the while I am thinking how the heck is he or are we going to get that bloody anvil down to his boat?

  I really shouldn't have worried. For as I quickly learned about all things Dave did, he had it planned  well in advance. Even to trying out his method with a 300 pound anchor to make sure it would all work.  Back at the marina he moved his boat over to the marine railway, set it on the cradle and waited for high tide which was about 2 hours away. Meantime, he with me stumbling along, carried those several hundred weight of Cumberland Hard Coal down to his boat and carefully placed the burlap sacks on the stern deck along side the yet to be fired homemade forge.

  I went over to the soft drink machine and when I came back Dave had rigged a beautiful home made A-frame crane on the bulkhead right over the stern of his boat. The boat was by this time about 12 feet higher with the incoming tide.

He went to the truck and picked up the anvil just as he had done at the junk yard and carried it underneath the A-frame rigged up his slings, told me to get aboard the boat and just guide the anvil on to the block he had prepared for it on the stern. It took less time in the doing than I am doing in the telling. Easy as you please that anvil swung over the stern and gently descended to its new home without a bump.