The Journals of Constant Waterman: Paddling, Poling, and Sailing for the Love of It

Boats and life

This is an unforgettable collection of ninety short tales about the boating Matthew Goldman has done in his life—in sailboats, canoes, rowboats, and other floating craft. All these memoirs deal with the water—from the puddle to the sea. They wander, as reflective as a sandy-bottomed brook. They linger, as wistful as an idle boat in summer. They revel, as jubilant as broaching porpoises.

Who will want to read about Constant Waterman? Anyone who’s ever paused to watch a water strider; anyone who’s ever stood and listened to the sea; anyone who leans when they see a sloop heel; anyone who hopes to find a message in a bottle. Here is that message. Unfold it carefully, read it aloud.

Read about boats; read about passages; read about islands; read about the rain. Learn about a murder in the woods by the river; learn about restoring a wooden boat. Hear about sailors, boat builders, ferrymen; hear about canoeing amid the marshes.
The best part about it? You don’t have to spend your time sanding and varnishing. You don’t need to don any foul weather gear. You don’t need to know a bowline from a boom vang, or know how to pole a canoe.

Here is the world of Constant Waterman: wry, introspective, intimate, impassioned. Turn another page. You may find a lighthouse, you may find a swan. You’ll hear the hoarse cadence of the sea grinding shingle, the wrinkling song of a stream through the forest, the complaint of the wind in your standing rigging.

Listen.

Matthew Goldman has worked as a toolmaker, a woodworker, and a land surveyor. He has written serious drama, black comedy, and farce. Three of his one-act plays have been staged, and his full-length comedy, Shades of Darkness, Shades of Light, was included in Tennessee Stage’s 2002 Playwrights’ Festival. He was one-time editor of the poetry quarterly A Letter Among Friends, which flourished for several years, and he has published a number of poems. He currently writes a semi-monthly column in Messing About in Boats, and his work has appeared in Good Old Boat and WindCheck. He resides in Stonington, Connecticut, and works repairing boats in nearby Noank.