congratulations, it's twins

Here is a wonderful post about my friend Barry "birthing" two melonseed skiffs.  Beautiful photographs and words, do yourself a favor and scroll through all the images and read what the proud father has to say.  I particularly like his passage about the James River so I will copy that here....

During the final stages of construction I realized an odd little fact. I’ve lived in Virginia most of my life, in a dozen different places spanning well over 100 miles. But all of them were within walking distance of the James River, the same river that runs through our home town now. I was born within view of the James. I went to school in Williamsburg, and often rode my bike to the river to get a break from classes, or took the Scotland Ferry past Jamestown to Surry if I needed to feel I had actually gone somewhere.

My daughters were born in Richmond, where we crossed the Nickel Bridge every day on the way to their school. They learned to swim in the James, floating downstream face up through the rapids and chutes – long hair floating around their smiling faces like little Ophelias – until I snatched them up and set them on the rocks where they would hop and skip back upstream to do it again. This river, I realized, has run through my whole life.

So the first water to touch these boats had to be from the mighty James. They both got a generous dousing, scooped from our own Scottsville Landing, where we swim and fish; and where, if I chose to, I could launch a small boat and float downstream past all those landmarks from this life, to the Chesapeake Bay, and the Atlantic beyond.

Barry tells me he may have his twins down in my area this fall.  I hope so.

steve