Читать книгу Canoeing with Jose онлайн

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I looked at a grainy color photograph on the wall. It was an image of a covered one-man canoe rigged with a sail, beached on the sandy shoreline of a large lake surrounded by pine trees.

“I designed that boat,” Hal offered half-heartedly. He went on to explain that the guy it belonged to had passed through Saint Paul recently. He was paddling from Patagonia to Alaska in stages.

“He came to me and asked for a canoe he could sail on the big waters up North,” Hal continued. “The guy takes winters off, but apart from those breaks he has been paddling constantly for four or five years.”

This seemed like a real achievement to me, but Hal quickly discredited the effort. “He’s a rich man and his kids are out of the house. He isn’t married. No pets. No one to take care of but himself. What the hell else does he have to do?”

I thought about what I had to do. I took care of my three daughters and my son four days and three nights a week. I was constantly struggling with my ex-wife for custody of the kids. I had to figure out what I was going to do now that my three-year graduate program at the University of Minnesota was nearing completion. And I had to get a job in order to begin to repay my $30,000 student loan.