Blue Blazer

On Tuesday night the Portland Yacht Club had its new member reception, where new members were welcomed and introduced to the club, officially.  It was my first official function as a board member.  I wore the uniform -- grey slacks, a white silk blouse, and my new blue blazer.  Board members have badges with an insignia, the yacht club burgee (flag) in the center of three loops of gold braid, all in a circle of gold braid.  My badge has the initials "RC" on it, too, indicating that I'm the Racing Chair.  Or maybe it's "Race Committee."  Anyway, that's what I was wearing. 

I got my blazer at Brooks Brothers (although mine was way less expensive -- I guess I hit a good sale.)  It's the right size, but the cut is not particularly flattering.  I got the single breasted kind.  The double breasted one was actually a nicer fit and shape, but I am not really a double-breasted blazer kind of person.  All those buttons?  It just looks too silly, too falsely nautical.  I know, I know, I'm on the board of a frigging yacht club and I'm wearing a blue blazer with a badge and a flag insignia, who am I to resist the nautical look?  But somehow I felt that by resisting the double breasted cut I was making a statement, and staying on the "hip" side of ridiculous.  Right.  Hush, I don't want to hear it.   (One of the new members, at a table with three of us board members, said, "I feel like I'm at the airport and I've just gotten in trouble with the Transportation Safety Administration, with all of these blue blazers surrounding me.")

We mingled for a while -- there's someone who's now in my law school who was one of the new members, and she tells me my Civil Procedure outline is still making the rounds among the 1Ls -- and then proceeded to the dining room for a recitation of the club's history and comments by each of the board members about the club.  The club historian (who WAS wearing a double-breasted blazer) talked about the club's past.  I think we're the second oldest continuously running club in the country.  We were something like the 16th or 19th club founded, but a lot of the others shut down during the depression.  Anyway, he also brought one of the club's yearbooks, from 1966, and passed it around.  It had pictures of club members' boats and descriptions, plus articles and pictures of awards and committees and events that happened in '65 and '66.

It came to my table and I was lost in it, looking at the pictures and reading about the boats.  My grandfather had two boats that year, although as I write this I can't remember their details.  There was a 17' boat whose name I didn't recognize, and Sequence, which I think was a Hinckley Pilot.   The board was pictured, and there was my grandfather.  In the minutes of the junior yacht club, I saw my dad's name and my uncle Ben's name.  My aunt Ellen won the best sportsmanship award in the summer of 1965. 

I was looking at the pictures and seeing much younger faces of so many of the sailors I know around here when I heard my name: It was my turn to stand up and introduce myself to the new members and talk about the club and the racing program.  I stammered through that, gesturing to the yearbook and saying how important the club has been in my life, how becoming a member represented adulthood to me, more than anything else -- more than graduating from law school or buying a house or being in court -- because the members were the people who took care of the place I had grown up and learned to love the water.  I told them about the different ways to race, or to be on the water with or near a race, learning about different kinds of sailing and sailboats, meeting people, sitting on the water on a breezy day watching the racers heading upwind as a nearby lobster boat pulls up a trap.  Well, I didn't say all that.  I'm not sure what I said, exactly, because I was nervous, but a bunch of folks came up to me afterwards and asked me questions about the club, so I guess I came across as friendly at the very least.   

Okay, and the corniest, dorkiest part is this admission right here.  Please don't tease me too much.  As I sat there at the meeting, listening to the different board members stand and speak about their dedication to the club and their role in its stewardship, I looked over at the club historian's double-breasted blazer.  I thought about how he puts on that blazer every year to come to this, and to the other official club events.  I noticed all his buttons.  They had anchors on them.  I looked down at my blazer and thought about how long I will be wearing it.  I'll be coming to these events as long as I am on the board, and someday maybe I'll be the commodore.  I love this place.  I started to look forward to putting on this blazer year after year.  I fingered the Brooks Brothers standard-issue brass buttons on my blazer and decided I would buy some special buttons.  I know, that's about as silly and preppy as you can imagine.  But still.  I want this blazer to mean something to me.  I mean, it does mean something to me, because being on the board means something to me.  So I don't want just any old buttons.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for some kind of really cool buttons. 

Comments

[Anthony]

Hie thee to Ben Silver:

http://www.bensilver.com/fs_storefront.asp?root=4&show=67

(I wish I could recommend J. Press to a New Englander, but they don't have on-line blazer buttons.)

[wab]

I would have voted for the double breasted blazer especially as that way you get more neat buttons.

[Paul kennedy]

You see, you really are a Hinckley type - it is in your blood! Perhaps you can put buttons on with talaria ensignia on them?
You see I am a complete stranger teasing you. but not really because I am a sailing lawyer too. And I kinda like my Blue Blazer(s)(four of them - used to be Five but the Double Breasted one got too tight (ya can't move the buttons on those like you can on the singles)

So I was googling "Hinckley Pilot" (we have one) and came across your Blog. Your Grandfather owned an older Pilot? If so, do you have any details, or know of someone who might. I am a involved with the Hinckley Pilot Association and always love to gather information about Pilots. If you have any info please drop me a line.

Thanks Paul