When was the first time you felt grown up?

My long hair is pulled back across the front, and is put in a beret.  It is my hairstyle every day.  My Mom does it for me once a day.   We have arrived at Ormond Beach.  It is a road that runs alongside the Ohio River outside of Louisville.    My Dad and Uncle Paul own a lot there.   They have had a three slip dock built.   There are camps on either side, and up and down the street, on the river side of the street.    We just have a lot, there is no camp.   The cars park along the middle in the grass, pulled in straight.   

We have carried all of the groceries and bags down to the dock.  I can smell the tar of the wood.   I walk carefully down the ramp, and to the middle slip, to the Equity II,  keeping an eye peeled for the wasps.   There are lots of wasps.   They chew on the wood to build their nest.   We each, my sister and my Mom and I, make several trips from the car down to the boat.  My Dad has carried the case of beer down when he went.   We always stop on River Road and buy a block of ice to put into the cooler.   It is carried out to the car by this metal handle, that has two forks on a hinge, that when you pick up the ice, the sharp forks dig into each side of the big block, and you can carry it.   

Dad has stayed down at the boat and begins to open it up.   The back hatch door, the windows on the side, the front hatch.   He lets the stuffy hot hair and mildew smell out to dissipate as it can in the hot summer sun.   

Mom begins putting away the groceries, and the bags of clothes, and organizes things.   Dad is sweeping off any debris off of the cockpit and the side decks.   My sister, Jamie and I get some paper towels, and the glass cleaner, and we begin cleaning the windows.   That’s our job.   We stoop down, bent over and I walk backwards along the side of the boat, cleaning the windows on one side.   She does the other.   We have to make sure we get the corners really well.   Then one of us goes up on the top and cleans the front of the windshield, and one does the back of it. 

My sister will not clean windows to this day.   She hires it out.   I like a clean window, and still do it.   I always notice whether I can see out of the glass.   Probably why I never want anything sitting on my dashboard when I drive.  

We are ready, everything is put away.

And then my Dad is ready to start the boat.

This is the moment.  I have to give the okay.  He asks me to open up the engine compartment.   He asks if I smell any fumes.   If there was a gas leak and he starts the engines, any kind of spark could blow it up.   

This is the biggest moment in my life.   It will be my judgment at this moment.   It will be my sense of smell that could save us, or destroy us.     I lift the engine hatch, and fold it onto the back transom.   I get down on my knees on the teak deck next to the engine compartment.    First I take a breath of  fresh air.   Then I lean way in.   It always smells like engine, like oil, like grease.   Is it gas I smell, or just the engine?   I am perplexed and second guess myself.    

“All clear” I yell to him.   I am 95% sure.    I shut the hatch.   The left engine starts, whew, the right engine starts, whew.

No explosion.   We are safe.   I did not make a mistake.  I am 9 years old and I did not blow the family up.