How To Build A Tin Canoe: Confessions Of An Old Salt

by Robb White

Overview

While still a young boy, Robb White built his first boat, hewn from the tin roof of an abandoned chicken coop in the backyard-stamping and primping it into shape, then testing it out in the back creek. Today, without any formal training, White constructs some of the most sought after small wooden boats around. This colorful portrait of the author's life invites readers into his special world-a world uncluttered by computers, telephones, and rush orders. With chapters such as 'Seagull: In which I learn not to be so gullible' and 'The canned ham incident: In which I did not participate, so hurrah for the other side,' White shares some of his wisdom gained from boat-building. Here as well are tall tales of a childhood spent exploring the Gulf of Mexico, and lessons learned from having his own family. Both wise and entertaining, How to Build a Tin Canoe will find a place on the shelves of readers who love Bailey White (the author's sister), Roy Blount, and Garrison Keillor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781401300272
Publisher:	Hyperion
Publication date:	05/14/2003
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.62(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

Table of Contents

	The Boat in the Coach House in which I sink as far as possible	1
	The Tin Canoe of World War Two in which I begin a lifetime of building eyeball designed boats	9
	The Reynolds in which I learn the true meaning of life ... when I am young enough to make some good use of the knowledge	18
	The Reynolds Crew Discovers St. George Island and saves the day with a brave rescue	26
	Another Reynolds Rescue in which I escape formal education but become educated nevertheless	43
	A Few Recipes of the Reynolds Crew in which I begin a lifetime as a gourmet	53
	Sailfish in which someone else learns a lesson ... well, almost	62
	Storm Boat Motor in which, due to the onset of puberty, I foolishly expand my compulsion to include machinery	68
	How I Became a Boatbuilder in which I take a wife, turn professional, and learn a lot all at the same time	74
	Terrible Torque and the Floorboard Man in which there is a terrible tragedy, so you might want to skip this one	88
	Monkey Island in which I leave my young bride for ... monkeys	97
	Seagull in which I learn not to be so gullible	104
	Prams in which I become a successful, professional boatbuilder first shot out of the box	111
	Pleistocene Creek in which I almost give it all up and quit the boatbuilding business for good	115
	Sheephead Head Soup in which there are the natural histories of two fish and a worm and ... yet another recipe	123
	Sea Turtle in which I learn my lesson about being so presumptuous ... well, almost	134
	Cobio in which I save my children from starvation but almost freeze to death in the process	138
	The Giant Catfish of Mobile in which I meet an astonishing transvestite ... and cook breakfast	148
	King Tut in which I prove the disclaimer that none of these stories could possibly be true	155
	The Slave's Recipe in which I do a little more tugging, get involved in a criminal conspiracy, and get locked up for murder ... and learn a new recipe ... and satisfy a lifelong curiosity ... a long story	158
	Islands in which I reveal yet another obsession	174
	The Canned Ham Incident in which I do not participate, so Hurrah for the other side	179
	Dead Man's Boat in which I reveal two morals	190
	The Old J 80 Johnson in which I help a man recover his long-lost self-esteem	196
	The Sailing, Commercial Fishing Felucca "Bullet" # 9999 in which there is a poem	200
	The Caribs and the Arawaks in which I figure out economics, but too late to participate in any of it	215
	An Analog Mind Stuck in a Digital World in which I finally, in the twilight of my life, figure out what the hell is wrong with me and effect a complete cure	219
	Cooking Up Opinions in which I finally set aside my peculiar ways and start acting like all the other old men in the world	224
	Acknowledgments	227

Editorial Reviews

Most readers will never need to build their own boat, tin or otherwise, but this memoir rarely fails to delight and sometimes even informs. White passes his days building boats and his nights writing for publications like Wooden Boat and Messing About in Boats-not surprisingly, there's plenty of talk of keels, sterns, tumblehomes and beam ratios here. Mixed in are his observations on how television rots children's minds, and the ways in which the Enron scandal resembles cannibalism in the Pre-Columbian Antilles. Like many skilled storytellers, White wanders a bit. His childhood, which he spent building boats, getting into trouble and exploring the South's swamps and ponds, resembles his adult life, with the latter boasting deeper and more treacherous waters. In the chapter "King Tut," for example, White tires while waiting for his tugboat to clear the Mississippi's locks and decides to swim across the river to see a King Tut exhibit at the Sugar Bowl. After nearly being run over by an oil barge and losing all of his clothes, he does. There's no telling, of course, how much fact there is to these tales. According to the book's disclaimer, "none of these stories is true... not a single word." (May 14) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

White, owner of his own boat-building company and a contributor to WoodenBoat and Messing About in Boats, has put together an interesting collection of stories about his life in, under, on, and around boats. Ranging from his idyllic childhood exploring Florida's Gulf Coast and his native Georgia rivers to his navy stint in Puerto Rico to his North Gulf Intracoastal Waterway barge days, White offers stories that can be humorous and self-deprecating, as when he swims naked across the Mississippi River or "rescues" an ill-tempered snapping turtle. Although White possesses a degree in oceanography and points out the appropriate scientific names for most of the flora and fauna he encounters, his writing voice is conversational. It's also riddled with terms only a boating enthusiast would understand. There isn't an epiphany, and White certainly doesn't use his humorous escapades to delve into life's great mysteries, but he does instruct the reader on how to build a tin canoe. Recommended for public libraries where there is interest and for fans of Bailey White, the author's sister.-Margaret Atwater-Singer, Univ. of Evansville Libs., IN Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

White's debut takes (and gives) sheer delight in charting his evolution as a wooden-boat builder. Not on the Maine coast either, mind you, but down in the red hills of Georgia, among the ponds and little rivers, with excursions to the Gulf coast. This infuses a certain flavor to the proceedings, but White's brand of slow wisdom has core values that would puncture pretentiousness no matter what end of the Eastern seaboard he inhabited. It all started, he explains, during "those old wonderful wild and naked days" of youth, when he poked about in doubled-ended duck boats owned by his rich Yankee cousins, who would come to summer in the long-leaf pine forests of Georgia. Things really took off when the Navy stationed him in Puerto Rico. San Juan boat building was a matter of an axe, a machete, and wood, and the product's elemental purity bewitched him. Not that White is a purist-he is happy to tinker and try all sorts of boat stuff . . . well, maybe not fiberglass, but certainly outboards and metal screws-but he knows what gives him pleasure, and boats made of wood are central. Financially, such work is punishing, so he had to take employment elsewhere, often enough on water. The stories of his aquatic adventures provide him with so many asides that they pretty much make up this recounting: these tales are as tight and trim as his boats, paced to observe and reflect upon such curiosities as courting rituals in the Caribbean, building a tin canoe, teasing a Mississippi catfish with "toilet-seat-sized lips," or pulling a snapping turtle into a boat by mistake: "Eating the front of the boat up, she busted her way out from under the seat and headed aft." A graceful primer on life and how to sailthrough it with character, easy grace, and personal priorities all in a row. Agent: John Silbersack/Trident Media Group

Kirkus Reviews

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