The summer after ninth grade was the first time my father handed me the keys to the airship.

�I�ve always hoped I could pass my ship down to one of my boys,� he said, eyes gleaming. �Nothing would make me prouder than seeing you or Harry behind the helm.� He�d said this all my life, and I remember as a little boy I'd scare my mother to death by climbing up to the bridge and racing around the bow all by myself. I was scared of my own shadow when I was outside at home, but for some reason I�d always been comfortable on the ship. Dad used to hold me up so I could reach the helm and run my pudgy youthful hands along its polished wood and tight strips of leather, pretending I was steering the massive floating palace. Dad still had a fair amount of business back in those days. I would miss him when he was gone for more than a week at a time, so after I was about eight years old he started taking me with him to the non-U.C. trips. I loved it. I don�t think any eight-year-old ever knew more about the aeronautical world than I did.

Dad had been saying for years that he was going to teach me how to really pilot the ship, but he always added �when you�re older� or �when I have the time� at the end. I used to nag him whenever we were sharing a father-son moment, because I truly wanted to try my hand at being a pilot. It seemed fun, manly, and impressive.

The first day of summer vacation, he roused me from my bed at 7 in the morning (which is FAR too early a time to be roused on your first day of summer.) �You�re fifteen years-old, Arik,� he declared as I rubbed my eyes and grunted incoherently. �And I think it�s about time you learned how to pilot the airship. Get up and shower quick, we�re going to the boatyard!�

Our family�s airship is a grand masterpiece of a vessel, indeed. It�s so old it�s nearly retro, so it�s mostly wood, whereas nowadays most airships are made out of other materials because airship wood is so expensive. At eighty-five feet it�s not a particularly large airship, certainly nothing next to the gargantuan ocean liners I�ve seen in the docks of Japan and San Francisco. However, it�s lightweight because of its older design, and Dad souped it up with some state-of-the-art engines, so our little �Sugar can fly. And I don�t mean that in the literal sense�although it can do that too, and very well; it�s an extremely speedy little ship, one of the fastest around. It�s this big beige-painted craft built and tinkered to near perfection with love from my father. It purrs like a kitten, sails like a swan, and flies like an eagle.

The name sucks, though. What kind of cutesy girly name is ReddeSugar?

Dad was indignant about it. �Well, an airship�s a �she�, you know that! And it�s not a dumb name�it has meaning to your mother and I. You just wait until you fall in love with a girl�someone you�ll call �sugar�.�

�That�s so lame, Dad,� I remarked, grinning to myself.

�You�re lame,� he replied.

I spent most of that summer with my father. With each day he taught me more and more about the ocean, the sky, and the engine room. I doubt I was ever completely dry or �unsalted� the entire summer; my fingers were stained black from tinkering in the engine room (and with a ship as old as the ReddeSugar, you do an awful lot of that.) The Band-Aids that wrapped my fingers were likewise blackened with grease and oil. The klutzy, thick-fingered oaf that I am, I ended up bleeding at least once a day.

I daydream constantly and it�s not easy to hold my attention for more than five minutes. My father and I would be on our hands and knees in the low stern, him explaining the wiring system for the AC, and my mind would drift off to white sand and teal seas. �Arik!� Dad would bark to regain my attention, and he would have to re-explain whatever he�d been saying.

�For Christ�s sake, Arik, could you pay attention for just one minute?� he�d snarl, and I would feel lowly and mope, ashamed, quiet, and eyes downcast until he accepted me back into his good graces.

My father was everything to me. I saw him as the model for what a real man was: brave, emotionally and physically tough, morally sound, faithful to his God and his wife, devoted to his family, equally clever and wise, and always ready to laugh. He was a strict teacher, more apt to criticism than praise, but when praise came it was genuine and as warm as the sun on our bow.

I remember eating lunch every day with him on the bow, both of us already shirtless and sweaty from working all morning. Sometimes, if we were tired, we�d simply watch the swans float past in their busy, snippy little fleets. More often, though, we talked. He told me stories about when his first years as a pilot and all the crazy adventures he had, and I would always grin because I couldn�t picture my balding and bespectacled father as a spry young buck. He�d ask about me, sometimes, about my thoughts on school and my life and what I wanted to make of it. Often then he�d turn to lecturing, but I tried not to mind it. He only wanted me to know all the things he wished he�d known when he was young. That�s what he said, anyway, when I looked bored.

He was proud of me. �Good job, Arik,� he said after I first docked the ship into a slip by myself. �Good job.� And he put a hand on my back and I smiled because I was his eldest son and I made him proud. He would show me off to the other captains at the boatyard when they strolled over with a beer to see what we were working on.

�My oldest, Arik,� he�d say, his hand on my shoulder. �I�m teaching him to follow in his old man�s footsteps.�

�He�s your spittin� image, Addison,� they�d gargle with a laugh. �If he�s anything like his pap, he�ll be a hella� a pilot!�

I always smiled sheepishly, glowing, cheeks flushed, and would try to meet their eyes and seem smart when they quizzed me about the ways of the aeronautical world so as to live up to their praise. I figured if I could be half the man and pilot Addison Redde was I�d be happy.

That summer any time not spent at the boatyard was spent at soccer camp. Soccer camp, read: quality time with Roger O�Donnell playing the sport we both loved. For two weeks minus Sundays it was nothing but games and drills with Roger by my side for 7 hours. We both lived for it; we owned this game. Sometimes after camp Roger would be invited to swim in his neighbor�s pool, and he�d bring me along as well. We became best friends in the few weeks we spent virtually attached to each other, and now I knew what it was to have a platonic soulmate I�d always craved.

It was a wonderful summer.

Chapter Five...