A trip to the past. A trip to one of the greatest nights of my life. A trip that's triggered by the music of Boston of all bands. A trip I would like you to take with me...
It's the summer in between my sophomore year in college and my junior year. I've just taken the ferry over into Connecticut and I'm waiting for my friends Tom and Lauren to pick me up. I believe the game plan for tonight is to go to the dock where Tom's parent's have their boat and party over there. It sounds like a good time. The ferry docks before Tom and Lauren get there so I hang out in the parking lot for awhile. It's mostly empty and just a tad bit creepy. Luckily they arrive before I start to really freak out.
Before we head over to Mass we stop at a local hotel so Lauren can pee. There's a wedding going on so the three of us seem really out of place but we don't care. We haven't seen each other since the semester ended so we're pretty excited. We drive all the way to Mass after the peeing adventure blasting music, laughing, and just talking. We're hungry though and that's a problem. I took the late ferry so nothing is really open at this point and we're closing in on midnight. We drive around the area where the dock is for a minute looking for a place that might be willing to serve us. As chance would have it we find a place (Tony's Clam Shop... it would take me two years to finally get the t-shirt I want from this place. A t-shirt I still wear till this day) and the cook agrees to make us three sandwiches. It's awesome and I fall in love with a bright orange Tony's Clam Shop t-shirt. We're in a rush so I don't buy it then. This proves to be a mistake.
When we get to the boat there are a bunch of our friends waiting for us there. It's late and we try playing cards on the boat but that proves to be a problem. It's windy so the cards aren't staying stationary. It doesn't look like the boat night is going to be a sucess. The girls have to go to the bathroom so we all decide to make a road trip out of it because it's a bit of a hike. As we're walking we pass a boat with like five or six older pirates on it partying it up. They ask us to come back and party with them, and we give the "maybe we will" response with no real plans of doing such. Our friend Diane is pretty sure she spotted a cross dresser on the boat. This is never confirmed.
Upon returning from the bathrooms we pass the boat again, and again the pirates ask us to party with them. We say maybe and head back towards Tom's parent's boat. One of the pirates follows us though and basically forces us to come back with him. We grab some beers and agree sort of reluctantly. Tom and I hang back as the girls walk towards the boat and agree if things look shady we're going to bounce. It's just him and me for guys and about six girls in our group so we don't want this to turn into anything bad.
We get on the boat and they invite us into the cabin. Again we go in but cautiously. As soon as we get in there one of the pirates closes the door. Immediately Tom and I share a look that says "oh hell know" and open the cabin door up. What follows is... one of the greatest nights of my life! We hang out with these old pirates until six in the morning. Blasting Boston and Sublime. Singing songs, telling stories, laughing, smoking cigarettes, and drinking beers. Every time we try and leave to get more beer the pirates go into what seems to be a bottomless fridge and slide one across the table. The night is epic on so many different levels.
The girls leave close to seven and as we're walking through the marina the bread delivery guy throws us a thing of rolls. They are the best rolls in the world! We say good-bye to the girls and Tom and I return to his parents boat to clean it off. I fall asleep in the cabin while Tom hoses it down. We listen to No Woman No Cry about nine times but I keep falling asleep at different parts of the song and waking up to tell Tom to play it again, but it seems like one time to me.
This is the story of Scotty's Boat, all of it is true, and every time I listen to Boston or Caress Me Down by Sublime this is my immediate thought. It's just one of those perfectly awesome nights that become the story of legend. Years later we try and re-create Scotty's Boat with another boat at the marina. This proves to be one of the scariest nights of my life, and is a story for a different day.
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