Original Burgee

Being a part of this club has given me interesting and various opportunities that involve the sailing community in ways I never would have imagined. For instance, this last weekend a contingent of our club made our way over to a quiet Des Moines nursing home to meet Doris Linkletter. The woman is 100 yeas old and 55 years ago designed and sewed together our club's first burgee. We mustered up as much ceremony as our club has seen in a long time to accept the Burgee that Doris and her family have now donated to the club.

In exchange we wanted to give Doris something for her donation and to appreciate her work all those years ago.

We also took this opportunity to talk with Doris, Jean, Terry, and Bill about the early club. It was interesting to hear about what boats they used to sail, where their club was based out of, and the overall flavor of what sailing used to be like for them. Troy brought our historical scrap book to instigate story time with Doris.

I also brought my laptop and sat it down on her lap so she could scroll through pictures of the current club. She really seemed to enjoy scrolling through them, at time she was scrolling faster than my internet connection could keep up! It was hilarious to see her face when she got to the picture of my leg tattoo while I rolled up my pantleg to show her it was me in that picture. She just stared at me with an amused smile and a nod that one might give to a crazy person to make them go away.

Once the clock struck noon, it was lunch time and Jean had made reservations at Tuscany just down the street. We packed up our stuff and made our way to the cars.

I learned when you're 100 years old, you don't go anywhere fast. Its funny how when you are forced to slow down a bit, you start noticing things you wouldn't otherwise see... like these amazing shrubs!

We made our way to the restaurant and had a nice big table in the back. Our conversations continued while Doris, hard of hearing, took a nice noontime nap.

Overall, this was a really neat experience for me. Learning about the early club gives me the perspective of having roots now. Knowing that they used to teach anyone who wanted to learn to sail, and realizing that is still an underlying tenet that we still live by. Hearing stories about all the kids they used to teach gives me inspiration for teaching my own kids. My favorite story was that Bill met Jean (Doris's daughter) when she took him out to learn to sail, and now they are married! It really is an interesting community to belong to.

Thank you!