After less than a week on the hards getting the bottom painted, Season 14 opened when a cold front blew through. It’s the first time I’ve had to shovel snow off the boat to go sailing.
The first family drove all the way from New Jersey just to sail. Shelly Ascione said, “We’ve been taking care of my parents for a year now as they declined. Once they passed, we needed a break and this is it.”
Their younger son Cole ran the helm in 10-15 mph winds as we reefed the mainsail to minimize heeling. “At the last minute, our other son didn’t come. He said, ‘Why do I want to drive all the way to Virginia from New Jersey to get on a boat when I can do that here instead?’ He’s 20, so he knows everything.”
Cole held on tight and picked up the game quickly as we zoomed down the York River, off Yorktown. Their German shepherd named Keller coped well with the heeling.
“He didn’t quite make it through Seeing Eye School,” Shelly explained. “He did great at everything for the blind person, including squeezing himself into a small space under an airplane seat. But he flunked the anxiety test. He wouldn’t sit there when the person got up from their chair. He wanted to stay right there.”
The upshot is that they got to keep his security vest, so he has quasi status as a seeing eye dog. “The hotel was going to charge us $150 a night for Keller, but they waived the fee because of the vest.”
The Asciones raised two other seeing eye dogs. “One is out in the world in Wisconsin and the other is in Michigan.” She added, “We don’t get to name the dogs; we just raise them. The name Keller is ironic, eh? As in Helen Keller.”
