However, it was the boat that electrified Harvey's dedication to a more dutiful task, one seemingly impossible in the course of common earthly events, and which brought us together in a bond beyond mere comradeship. Indeed, it was the boat I'd cursed and complained over; that danged old boat, and the miracle that was about to transpire -- a task of unattainable earthly exertion.
As we were pruning his fruit trees, Harvey inquired, "You say you're making a trip to Victoria next weekend with your big blue van?" I suspected something hard was coming.
"I wonder if you'd mind fetching up my boat from my sister's for I'd like once more to take a shot at angling. As Pastor Fox remarked last Sunday at the Foursquare, 'It is said that time spent in the art of fishing is not counted against our span of life on earth,' and so I desire once more to get back to it in my own solid launch."
"No problem, Harvey. No problem at all."
Somehow even then I suspected this 'no problem' task would take a monstrous turn, a suspicion that elevated into dead certainty as I pulled onto the Sooke shore property, and laid eyes on the item of concern.
Though Harvey's kin were in their eighties and nineties, I was mildly surprised to learn they maintained a world-class Christian travel agency, run largely through a Chicago branch office. After lunch we walked the beach to visit Harvey's boat -- twelve feet of decaying leaden wood."Years back I told that man just to make a bonfire from it, but you know my brother. Parsimonious would be a kind word for a fellow too frugal to cut a back door in his own home."
Returning to Royston, I dragged it onto some logs while Harvey cried, "Hallelujah! Praise God. In no time we'll have her born again!"
For a month then Harve scraped, sanded, filled and painted. And caulked caulked caulked. One afternoon he tapped on my door: "We're ready. Please help me get her to the water." With tremendous groaning we carried that burden two hundred feet to the runway and shoved it in the chuck where it gave a couple of gulps and promptly sank.
"Well I reckon it's back to the drawing board," he quipped. "Let's get it home. I think the problem is that God won't let her embark without a Holy name. All boats have to have a moniker, don't they?"
A few weeks later he chirped up, pointing to the black lettering across the bow: "Lazarus. That's a great handle for a boat brought back from death. Come, lets get her floating!" But Lazarus was not ready it seemed. Sinking had become a habit with that monster. Oooh, my aching back!
I lost count of how many futile reincarnations took place, but the process continued through Elijah, Joseph and Mary. Meanwhile Harvey came in bursting with the news that he'd re-joined the Salvation Army and was to become the top tambourine man in the Courtenay Brigade. He even sat his new hat on my head in a humorous attempt also to recruit me. "I've joined the Army what fights the devil!" he beamed. "Come march along, why don't you?"
Easter Sunday before church we gave it one last go. To my utter amazement, just as the eastern sky exploded, crackling under a blazing sunrise, that ancient clunker ebbed out through the water with Harvey joyous as a freshly winged angel. Gleaming amber like some mystical vision, glowing with inner light, a new-born lifeboat sailed the morning ocean, just as Harvey's trust had predicted.
Oh ye of little faith, I reflected in self-chastisement.
"It's the name," cried Harvey. "Hallelujah, it's the name. See here!" With the paddle he pointed out the newly painted words: Sally Anne.
Must be, I thought, nothing else seemed to work, did it?
Thus each passing Easter I joyfully meditate upon Hallelujah Harvey's launching of the Sally Anne, though I failed to keep track of the number of fishing hours he enjoyed before finally crossing the Jordan with his tambourine a-jingling, dapper in that navy blue and red uniform for which he was so thankful.
I suspect both he and the resurrected Sally Anne are up there this very moment challenging a stormy sea, netting souls and giving the devil the fight of his life.
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