Full circle

A chance meeting, a link to my parents, a boat that returns from the past

Ronda, left, and Bruce Ebling, right, with Brian Ehrich, the Utah man to whom the Eblings sold the boat.

LAST MONTH, I’d just pulled my sailboat out of Fern Ridge Lake when a guy about my age pulled up beside me in his truck.

“I’ve seen that boat out here for years,” he said as I was preparing to lower the mast on At Last. “I have a Catalina 22, too.”

His name, I learned, was Bruce Ebling.

“I inherited it from my folks,” I said. “Maybe you saw them out here.”

“Wait. Is your mother, Marolyn?”

“Yeah. She passed five years ago. And my dad was Warren.”

“Oh, my gosh. We sailed with your folks for years. We were part of the same fleet. We’ve had dinner at their house in Corvallis.”

“Well, then, you’ve seen this boat for more than years, you’ve seen it for decades. Dad died in 1996.”

“My gosh. I guess it has been a long time. I think I last saw your mom a few years back when they had a little party here to dedicate the rebuilt Richardson docks. Your mom showed up with a friend.”

“Yep. I remember her telling me about attending that celebration.”

Along with a friend who was helping me “take down” my boat, I helped Bruce and his wife Ronda get their 22-foot Catalina, Full Circle, out of the water and onto their trailer. I was so intrigued by this rare connection back to my folks — nearly all of their friends are gone — that I met with the couple for breakfast the next week.

“Your father wasn’t a naturally born sailor,” Bruce said.

I laughed. “True that. Self-taught. To start he built an 8-foot pram and they sailed it with a bed sheet at Cultus Lake.”

“But he was clever,” said Bruce. “He could fix things. And your folks were kind people, easy to talk to. They had everyone in the fleet to their house in Corvallis for dinner once. Everybody back then was very close — people from Eugene, Corvallis, Salem.

“We’d all pull up our keels and motor through Coyote Creek on what we called the Jungle Cruise. When your folks would arrive, we’d be anchored and people would say, ‘Lookout. Watch your boats! Here come Marolyn and Warren.’”

As sailors, Welches have always been more passionate than proficient.