He'd spring into the boat, cradle our little heads in his hand below the swinging boom, maneuver the boat back and forth across the narrow channel where boats are launched, and then - joy! We were free - free of the land, flying through the water, dragging our hands and feet in the shimmering waves as the sea spray flew over the bow. As we soared past Gooseberry Island in that brilliant little boat, a new world opened up before us as the boat transformed the landscape. The people on the beach under their bright umbrellas became small and insignificant while the distant island loomed large before us. The great sea swell of the ocean crashed magnificently on the far side of the island and we caught a glimpse of the world that existed beyond the promontories that normally enclosed our horizon. How we loved that little boat!

At ten I started sailing lessons and after 2 or 3 summers, I could sail pretty well. So, I grabbed a friend, went to the beach, rigged up the boat, scrambled aboard and then - in short - it was a disaster. The sail didn't fill. The mild waves kept pushing the boat backward. Eventually, frustrated and humiliated, we gave up.

Feeling discouraged, I went to my father and told him how I had failed to launch the boat. And he began to teach me the subtle art of sailing.

Together, we went back to the beach. As he had done time and again, he pushed the boat into the water and we were off. Only this time he pointed out how he carefully dropped the centerboard and quickly pushed the rudder down deep into the water. This was an important lesson for me, because a boat without a rudder is aimless and a boat without a centerboard can't stay on course, but drifts.

With this lesson fresh in my mind, I found another friend and went back to the beach. But again, disaster ensued. This time it was the wind.

In Rhode Island, the wind is steady and sure and almost always from the south. Hazard's Beach opens to the south which means that in order to launch a boat, you must sail directly into a strong headwind. Sailing a course into the wind can only be accomplished through a series of short, quick steps that zig-zag back and forth and gradually move the boat forward by crossing and re-crossing the direct and easy path that you would take if the wind were with you.

My early attempts at this were floundering and unsure. Try as I might, I often found myself in a boat with an empty sail, pointed straight into the wind, drifting backwards.

And so my father took me back to the beach, time and again, and showed me how to sail into the wind; how to use a force pressing against me in order to propel myself forward. It's a delicate task, requiring a concentrated focus on the ultimate destination and the nerve to follow a winding course past reefs and other dangers. To master this requires practice and patience, determination and perseverance. Those of you who knew my father well, understand how good he was at this.

He applied these qualities not only to his sailing, but also to his life's passion, my mother. In their courtship, he pursued her. And in the almost 40 years since she agreed to go with him to a Sly and the Family Stone concert at the URI gym, he always considered himself the luckiest man alive.

I could tell you how, as my father's condition deteriorated, my mother became a stronger and stronger advocate for him. I could tell you how she worked tirelessly to make him well and happy. But instead, I will share with you this. In these last weeks, as I read to my father from all his favorite writers, he made only one request. He asked me to read him a short passage from Joyce, which my father described as one of the most beautiful in literature. In it, the protagonist admires his wife at the end of a long evening spent with friends.

Like the tender fires of stars moments of their life together, that no one knew of or would ever know of, broke upon and illumined his memory. He longed to recall to her those moments, to make her forget their dull existence together and remember only their moments of ecstasy. For the years, he felt, had not quenched his soul or hers. Their children, his writing, her household cares had not quenched all their souls' tender fire.

My father was a passionate man. His other passion in life was the relentless pursuit of social justice, which inspired him from an early age.

Among my father's papers, I found a letter which my father received when he was 15 and just starting his junior year of high school. The letter, lovingly preserved in its blue and red-edged airmail envelope, is dated August 26, 1965, and postmarked Istanbul, Turkey. The writer, a young Peace Corps volunteer, was greatly admired by my father. At the close of his letter, my Uncle Michael writes:

You really don't appreciate what an education means, until you see how hard the kids over here, who really want one, have to work hard and sacrifice, because an education is the only way out for them.

Imagine how I felt, discovering this letter more than 40 years later, knowing that my father dedicated his life to improving education for children, especially improving it for those for whom education is their only way out.

Several years ago, my father worked on some legislation that sought to expand the availability of school breakfast so that children in poverty could get a decent meal at the start of their day. The effort was initially defeated in the legislature and that wounded my father greatly. There was an undercurrent of anger in his voice when he told me about it: "My children never had to go to school hungry. No child should ever have to go to school hungry." And for him, it was as simple as that. Despite the long hours and often thankless work, my father could never retire from the legislature because he couldn't live passively in a world in which there is no justice for children.

My own children are just barely old enough to begin to swim. But in the summers to come, I am going to get myself a bright little sailboat. You shall find me, with my children, at Hazard's Beach. I shall teach them how to launch a boat into a strong headwind, through a narrow rocky channel so that they may discover the joys that it brings.

Meredith Crowley
September 27, 2007
Email: mcrowley [at] frbchi.org