by Rolynn Anderson
When I was a high school principal in
a suburban, predominately white neighborhood, my teachers would come to me with
a concern: Why do the African-American
students always group up? I’d usually
come back to them with another question:
Why do white students group up?
Grouping is an interesting phenomena,
something I’ve observed in education and in my summer lifestyle, boating. As some of you know, Steve and I live on our
trawler, INTREPID, for the four summer months.
We’re alone in anchorages often, but we also enjoy meeting up with other
boaters.
Steve and I
usually make fast friendships with people who own boats the same make as ours-a
Kady-Krogen. Even tighter
is our tie to owners of 42 foot Krogens, the size of INTREPID. Boaters with single diesel engines have more
to say to others with the same power plan.
INTREPID has a Ford-Lehman engine…you guessed, it: we have deeper chats
with F-L owners than boats powered by some other engine.
Advance that
concept: we get along well with vessels cruising a similar speed to ours. When we owned a twin-screw, gas-powered
Tollycraft, sailboaters gave us the finger as we raced by them at 13 knots, our
wake causing havoc to any boaters going the same direction as we traveled. Today, in our round-bottomed trawler, sailors
send us friendly waves as we chug past at 7.5 knots to their 6.5 knot
speed.
Of course, this
affinity pattern is common in any social structure, a matter of not so much
keeping-up-with-the-Joneses as sticking-with-the-Joneses. All in all, it’s a comfortable place to
be. When boaters have so much in common,
friendships gain a head start, and in no time at all, you’ve made friends with
owners of a boat similar to yours, and because you cruise at the same speed, and
have a similar draft/beam, you end exploring a new bay together. More fun.
Safer.
As I think of it,
maybe this ‘grouping together,’ is more of a preservation technique than a ‘I
hang with boaters like me,’ thing.
Perhaps, down deep we’re keeping up same-boat relationships, because one
day, when INTREPID is in trouble, it would behoove us to have a similar boat
around to borrow a much-needed part.
Will they help? Absolutely. Because another day, when their boat
founders, we’ll have a part they need.
Now, back to my
grouping-up scenes in my high school cafeteria or during a dance. Are humans smart to group up? Absolutely. We writers group up for all kinds of good reasons!
Want to find
INTREPID? Here she is on our SPOT
locator:
SUSPENSE SPIKED WITH ROMANCE
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2 comments:
Great post, Rolynn. As goes the say, Birds of a feather...
We are attracted to people with whom we share things. Look at the group blog...
Interesting, Rolynn. I believe that writers group up to support one another. No one else understands the solitary, sometimes lonely, life of a writer.
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