Every Thanksgiving since 1998 everyone in my family has made a little boat of some kind and floated it in a body of water. There have been many styles of boat and many bodies of water. The Susquehanna river, fishing creek, my grandfathers pond, and the branch if the reedy river running through my aunt and uncle’s property, to name a few. An early boat style was a milk carton on its side with a bamboo skewer holding a construction paper sail. In a modest year we used half walnut shells as hulls with toothpick masts to float in my mom’s garden pond (I think we were all sick that year).
The boats got quite elaborate this year. A cousin brought power tools and premade wooden hulls. With nearly 75 relatives across three generations we made quite a flotilla this year.
