The Liberty Bee
–– Chapter Two —
About twenty years ago, the old man said, brushing a tussle of thin white hair off his sunburned forehead, there were two men, who had been good friends since childhood and they decided to build a magnificent schooner. They wanted to build it with their own hands, with their own time, with their own sweat, from plans the two of them had drawn from childhood dreams and sail it all they way across the Atlantic to Spain, just the two of them, together, sailing a dream.
It was a dream that they had kept alive for a long, long time.
It had been a dream of theirs since they were grade-school friends: To draw the plans for a majestic schooner, build it themselves, and sail it across the ocean. And when they reached the coast of Spain, celebrating the realization of a childhood dream come true with a festive dinner, get a good night’s sleep, then board the schooner once again for the long voyage home. And when they returned home, their dream fulfilled, they would find another dream another dream, and another, until they got so old they could never dream again. They were friends and they shared dreams. This is how they had always been, and they knew they would always be dreamers – and doers too – for a dream has no value at all beyond its own gossamer evanescence – unless they made the dream come true.
After years and years of working in their spare time, many times toiling deep into the night, they finished building the schooner that began as a wispy, ethereal dream: the dream of two childhood friends.
In a world of dreams, only the ones that come true really matter.
It was a 32′ foot schooner with two tall elegant masts. The entire boat was painted white with delicate red and blue trim. They called her “The Liberty Bee” and the name was painted on the transom in elegant blue script, thinly and beautifully outlined in red.
But building the boat was only a part of the dream. The building of the schooner was the heart of the dram, but the voyage to follow, was its soul.
So, in the weeks that followed, they began the careful planning of the voyage; they planned the voyage of a lifetime.
When they were kids in grade school, their imaginations built that beautiful schooner in hours, and their voyages took them to the world’s most exotic ports in mere minutes. As children they never considered the challenges, the details, or the planning such voyages required. They never thought about navigational equipment, provisioning supplies, emergency equipment, or any other of the many smaller and more mundane details such great odysseys demand.
In reality, as adults, they realized that sailing the Atlantic Ocean on a such a beautiful, but small craft, requires dutiful and careful planning; each day may bring with it unexpected perils, both dangers from the world above, and from the world below.
So the childhood friends, now grown men, carefully planned and double-checked their plans. Making dreams come true is often harder work than many are willing to do.
It’s easy to dream big, but it is often very difficult to make such dreams come true.
What a charming piece of literature!! Can’t tell you how much I enjoyed the whole story. Since I’m getting close to 80, it brought a lot of vivid memories of my youth and dreams to mind.
Love the way you write and express thing and look forward to many more to come in the near future!
A wonderful story of childhood dreams. We have all had them. I achieved mine by continuing to focus on the distant goal set, regardless of how long it took to get there, that is what makes it all worthwhile to the human spirit in the end. I’m now 84 and contented with my lot.
Perhaps they should have named the story… “A Ship That Never Sailed” — since it never got out of port. Everyone is a dreamer…and some dreams come true while others remain….. only a dream. A wonderful story it was….
Ah but two chapters do not a story make.