“Jeff, I’ve got a gig for you this Labor Day,” whined my friend Stu Ingersoll in his ponderous yet always welcome voice.
“Terrific, Stu!” In the early 1990s, I played 10 steadies a week (with Monday off!) so happily I was available. “What’ve you got?”
Stu had a gig on his 1906 oyster boat, Flora, in the middle of Long Island Sound hosting members of one of the most prestigious yacht clubs on Long Island. We’d anchor at 4 pm and the guests would arrive in their boats between 4:30 and 5. The early arrivals would tie up to Flora, with subsequent guests tying up to them and so on, creating a spreading flotilla with our boat as the “Mother Ship.” The visitors would clamber across the yachts between them and us until they reached Flora’s deck, where Stu on tuba, our mutual friend Art Doran on banjo and I would be waiting to regale them with tunes of yore while they ate and drank supplies of expensively catered goodies. It sounded like a marvelous adventure, AND our trio would also partake of the gustatory delights!
“I’m in,” I exclaimed.
“If we set sail from the Boat Works around 10 am, we should be there in good time. Wear the usual.” The “usual” was vintage New England summer garb: khaki trousers, light blue Oxford shirt, suspenders (no clips: real braces with buttons on the outside of the pants), a patterned red tie and a boater hat—sennit
