Reservist

ISS1 2017

Reservist Magazine is the award-winning official publication of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. Quarterly issues include news and feature articles about the men and women who comprise America's premier national maritime safety and security

Issue link: https://uscgreservist.epubxp.com/i/780957

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With my pending retirement in April, my time as Editor of the RESERVIST is drawing to a close. Depending on how the hiring process goes this could very well be my last column. So, with that in mind I would like to share the philosophy which has guided me during my tenure. I will attempt to do so by sharing an experience more than twenty years in the making. Upon assuming the duties of editor my first priority was to 'do no harm.' There is a certain joy and satisfaction to be found in the responsibility of constructive stewardship. The Coast Guard, more specifically Chief Boatswain Mate Tom Branco, taught me to always leave things better than I found them. By embracing this simple wisdom, I'd like to think I have enjoyed some success in this regard. A number of years ago I was fortunate enough to have a neighbor lady, Miss Charlotte Kent, bequeath me an old rowing dory she owned. The dory had been sitting in her boat house unattended for many, many years. Miss Kent, then in her eighties, and her sister had used the dory as young girls growing up at Kent's Point on The River in Orleans, Massachusetts. Having spent countless days roaming the point and on The River as a child, it was really special to be entrusted with this piece of local history. According to Miss Kent, the dory was built by a local man in the early 1900s. It has a keel and ribs of oak with white cedar planking...lots of both can be found on Cape Cod. My brother Jim and I tried to refit the dory but she needed more than we could offer. We found a local Boatwright who got her fit for the water. That was some twenty years ago. Then life happened and the dory, now rightly known as the MISS KENT, was stored away...out of sight, but not out of mind. Last summer I met another Boatwright, Penn Colbert. Penn represents what has always been so unique and endearing about the Cape. After a brief conversation he agreed to take a look at the MISS KENT. Sometime later I got the two of them together and it was love at first sight. Penn spent the winter of 2015-16 ever so lovingly bringing the dory back to her glory days. I am very grateful for the care he has taken to get her ship shape. My dream has always been to have her back where she belongs, on The River, where she, and I, can help a child experience the simple wonder of rowing a small but majestic vessel in one of the most beautiful places on Earth. Thanks to Penn that dream has become a reality. And, like the MISS KENT, hopefully the RESERVIST is, in some small way, better for my time as its helm. Ultimately that is for you, the reader, to determine. What I can say is that it has been a privilege to play a small part in the magazine's long and impressive history. There are not many publications which can say they have published continually for 64 years. To my relief I offer my sincerest best wishes for continued success and share Chief Branco's simple advice: always strive to be a good steward of what you have been entrusted. As always, thanks for reading. Anima est Bonus! Jeff Smith Rese R vist Magazine F R o M the edito R L e FT: e ditor and Helmsmen- in-training, Brady and Kendall Smith, launch M ISS Ken T for the first time in twenty years. B o TT o M, l. to r.: M ISS Ken T planking being refit. Getting closer to "launch" day. The M ISS Ken T under oars. 2 RESERVIST � Issue 1 • 2017

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