When
we bought our boat, it was named “Waterfront Property”. Somehow it did not resonate with us. Our Islander 33 was named “Maggie Anna” and
though we would not have picked it out ourselves, my name is Margaret Anne and
it just seemed like she was meant to be ours.
But now we were faced with changing the name of a boat. Lots of lore surrounds this issue and we
didn’t want to start out on the wrong side of Neptune, but we had to change it.
We considered: Wind Dancer (we like
dancing and we like the wind), Wave
Dancer (same thing), Walkabout (a nod to my sister’s immigration to Australia),
Windtraveler (already taken by one of my favorite blogs)…but when my sister
suggested “Well, Why Not?” we knew that we had found our boat name.
The
back story: Many years ago, when my
older brother attended Webb School in So. California he wrote the music for
their 1950 High School musical production called “Well, Why Not?” It became part of family lore because my
father helped with the orchestration and my sister played in the
orchestra. When I reread the lyrics
which were written by John Pettley they seemed to reflect a lightheartedness
that was new to Jim and me. “Why not
sing? Why not dance? Why not dally with romance? Why not put all of your cares away? Why not live just for today? Why not whoopee, Well, Why Not?”
We
became even more sure of the name as we talked about our plans. Many is the friend who with wide-eyed wonder
blurted out “Why do you want to do such a thing?” “Well,” we said, “Why not?” And there you have it……
Cool name. Wish we were that clever. We had a list of names posted on our fridge. We would all take turns writing one down when we thought of one and someone didn't like it they would cross it out. After months they were all rejected. So we just named her after the kids. The problem is it sounds like a fishing boat and nobody can say it correctly on the radio.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for the link to the blog. I'll have some reading to do.
Cheers!
Paul
SV Kelly Nicole