This story is about the christening of a new boat, First Hope One, a fifty-footer, built in Bayou La Batre, Alabama. Father wanted to take out the boat for a fishing trip. The boat was a long line boat, which means we can put out a line many miles long with up to seven hundred additional lines and hooks attached to that main line. The weather was very, very rough, so rough that even Father was seasick, but he kept on going. I was seasick too, extremely so. Actually the boat was leaking in places, and in my delirious state of mind I thought the boat might go down, but I was so out of it I didn’t care.
There is a big difference between being on land and being on the ocean. One difference is that refrigerators don’t attack you on land! But we had an attacking refrigerator, with its door swinging open on every crash of the ocean’s waves. We were trying to sleep with each other’s feet in our faces, plus the attacking refrigerator. At one point, I saw Father’s boots right in front of my eyes, and he was putting things back into the refrigerator and closing the door.
From I Am in This Place, pp. 90-91.