Cat Has Had the Time of His LifeRecollection Used Books Logo
                                  For nine years I lived within 100 feet of
                                  Stan Iverson, beginning in 1974, when my
                                  husband and I moved onto our newly-launched
                                  boat, right behind his - the fabled Ora Elwell.

                                   An old flat-bottomed river tug, Ora
                                   had lived out her wage-earning life
                                   pushing logs on the Skagit River.
                                   Now she simply floated on her
                                   enormous timbers, her glory days
                                   over, stripped of her engine and
                                   stern paddles, the only mementos of
                                   her past life the spiked iron at the
                                   waterline on her bow, and a row of
                                   cleats, lacey from corrosion, along
                                   her port and starboard decks.

                                   Stan was as fabled as his boat. When
                                   other liveaboards in the marina
                                   talked about Stan, their voices -
                                   generally skeptical and
                                   wise-cracking - turned reverential.
                                   Stan, they said, had stood up to the
                                   House Unamerican Activities
                                   Committee in the early 50s, had
                                   organized one of the first
                                   demonstrations against the Vietnam
                                   War, could still deliver a stirring
                                   speech against the "establishment."
                                   His collection of books, which I
                                   glimpsed occasionally through Ora's
                                   windows, was considered to be one
                                   of the best around on Montana
                                   history. I took all this in, but the Stan
                                   I encountered on the dock was polite
                                   and easy-going, expansive when
                                   friends were around but otherwise
                                   private and quiet. Too gentle, I
                                   thought, for the words used to
                                   describe him: "radical,"
                                   "communist," "anarchist." With his
                                   long grey hair, his horn-rimmed
                                   glasses, a cigarette in one hand and a
                                   drink in another, he seemed more
                                   like a retired hippie than a fiery
                                   rabble-rouser.

                                   Despite the fact that we built our
                                   own boat, despite our VW beetle
                                   and my husband Bill's Afro
                                   hairstyle, no doubt we were utterly
                                   conventional in Stan's eyes. I had a
                                   straight job as an English teacher
                                   and Bill was a graduate student in
                                   architecture. Bill had been in the
                                   Navy during the Vietnam years - a
                                   vet. And talk about work ethic! The
                                   two of us labored tirelessly on our
                                   boat, determined to shape her into a
                                   polished yacht. And we jogged, for
                                   god's sake. The term "yuppie" didn't
                                   exist then, but if it had, it would have
                                   applied to us.

                                   There was Stan, working nights at
                                   Morningtown Pizza collective,
                                   speaking on public issues over the
                                   alternative KRAB radio (or from his
                                   stool at the Blue Moon Tavern),
                                   living aboard a derelict boat he
                                   made no pretense of restoring. Oh,
                                   occasionally he'd shove more
                                   styrofoam under Ora's flat bottom,
                                   and the "thunk thunk" of his ax as he
                                   chopped firewood was a familiar
                                   sound. But like Ora, Stan's purpose
                                   seemed just to be. He and his boat
                                   had come together after similar,
                                   energetic lives: clearing log jams,
                                   pushing against the current. Now
                                   they seemed content to age together.

                                   (I do the arithmetic, and realize that
                                   he was only 46 then. How could I
                                   have thought that Stan was old?
                                   Simple: I was 28.)

                                   As close as we lived physically, we
                                   really never talked much. Walking
                                   past Ora several times a day,
                                   nodding and saying hello, we seeing
                                   his friends and he ours, week after
                                   week - for years these were the only
                                   ways our lives intersected.

                                   Our cat changed all this. Schooner, a
                                   grey tabby, wasn't put off by Stan's
                                   historic stature. She didn't care about
                                   age difference, political beliefs, or
                                   invitations. Just out of her
                                   kittenhood, Schooner was drawn
                                   irresistibly to the broad expanse of
                                   Ora's aft deck. She spent many
                                   afternoons crawling through Stan's
                                   fire wood, stalking ducks and geese.
                                   She'd hide behind Ora's cleats, one
                                   forepaw lifted, the tip of her tail
                                   quivering with excitement. During
                                   Stan's summer parties, when
                                   everyone was smoked up and
                                   swimming naked, Schooner would
                                   meow from our bowsprit, cute as the
                                   dickens. Eventually someone would
                                   approach, hand out, and she'd
                                   pounce on their fingers.

                                   "Your cat," Stan would say some
                                   days later, a broad smile across his
                                   face lifting his mustache, his beard,
                                   his blue eyes. "Your cat..." and he
                                   would describe Schooner's latest
                                   visit, how she startled a pair of
                                   geese into his boat, or crawled in
                                   through an open window, or slept on
                                   his newspapers. Like everyone else,
                                   she admired his library, though not,
                                   Stan explained, for his literary taste.
                                   What impressed her was its shape,
                                   how the books were stacked into
                                   towers that allowed her to
                                   demonstrate her talent for climbing,
                                   leaping, and balancing. "If she came
                                   home with a fat tail last night," he
                                   laughed, "it's because she toppled a
                                   whole pile of Montana short
                                   stories."

                                   Schooner took to visiting Stan
                                   regularly. If the red sliding door into
                                   Ora was closed, she'd chin herself
                                   up to the window and meow loudly.
                                   In a few moments Stan would let her
                                   in. "Hello, Schooner," he would say,
                                   in that inimitable mellow voice.
                                   Striped tail up, she'd walk in like a
                                   princess, as if such gallantry was her
                                   due. When she returned to us, hours
                                   later, her fur was fragrant with the
                                   smoke of Ora's woodstove.

                                   Schooner was a skittish conduit
                                   between our boats. When Laurie
                                   [Chambers] moved aboard Ora, the
                                   connection sparked into more of a
                                   friendship. Laurie was close to my
                                   age, with a warm smile and a feisty
                                   sense of humor that drew me to her
                                   immediately. One of her first nesting
                                   projects was to build bookcases.
                                   Good weather found us both
                                   outdoors, sanding and painting, and
                                   soon enough we were sharing tools,
                                   coffee, and beer. She invited me
                                   over to admire her work, and for the
                                   first time I saw the inside of Ora:
                                   cedar-paneled, with an oil-drum
                                   stove in the center of the room, a tiny
                                   kitchen and a toilet in the back
                                   corner, a bed against the opposite
                                   wall. Bookcases arranged in narrow
                                   aisles. Paintings and photographs
                                   everywhere. Schooner sprawled
                                   wantonly on the only chair.

                                   It seemed like the news of Stan's
                                   cancer came soon after Laurie's
                                   pregnancy began to show. She hung
                                   on to her art studies, for sanity, she
                                   and Stan explained, as much as for
                                   the affordable medical insurance she
                                   could get as a full-time student. To
                                   make ends meet, she took up
                                   scrimshaw carving. Every afternoon
                                   that summer, when powerboats
                                   plowed the water into rolling wakes
                                   that interrupted her work, Stan
                                   emerged from Ora, bullhorn in hand.
                                   His beautiful voice resonated across
                                  the channel: "THIS IS A NO WAKE
                                  ZONE! SLOW DOWN!" along with
                                  other, more creative invectives. I

                                   saw a little of the activist others had
                                   spoken of with such respect. "Just a
                                   concerned citizen enforcing the
                                   law," he'd say when he caught my
                                   eye, his smile a bit diabolical.
                                   (Laurie didn't need the bullhorn;
                                   she'd rush outside and yell at a
                                   decibel range I wouldn't have
                                   thought possible in such a small,
                                   blonde woman.)

                                   It was only natural for us to pitch in
                                   after Colleen was born: chopping
                                   wood for Ora, filling the water tank.
                                   I took on their laundry; I can still
                                   remember the feel of Stan's heavy
                                   red flannel nightshirt, the stiff denim
                                   of Laurie's coveralls, Colleen's tiny
                                   T-shirts. Not that we did anything
                                   really big. We were only neighbors.
                                   More intimate friends were around
                                   for the crucial support, making sure
                                   they and Ora were OK, building a
                                   child-proof rail around the wood
                                   stove, a studio for Laurie, a better
                                   bed in the main cabin among Stan's
                                   books.

                                   No longer working, Stan spent his
                                   days looking after Colleen as she
                                   grew from helpless infant to curious
                                   toddler. The click-click of his
                                   typewriter was a common sound in
                                   the afternoon. On warm summer
                                   evenings, he and Laurie sat
                                   side-by-side in the shade of Ora's
                                   deckhouse, silently reading.

                                   My husband and I left for Alaska in
                                   1983, when Colleen was still small
                                   enough to be carried in a backpack.
                                   Stan was trying to learn to meditate,
                                   "to fight the cancer," he explained
                                   wryly. "But it's like putting a gun to
                                   your head and saying, `Relax, or I'll
                                   kill you.'" My last view was of him
                                   walking down the dock, tapping the
                                   planks with his black cane. Looking,
                                   somehow, both dapper and
                                   determined.

                                   Now, nearly 50, I am the "old"
                                   liveaboard, writing away inside my
                                   boat, surrounded by my own
                                   collection of books (a far less
                                   ambitious one than Stan's, but enough
                                   to make piles in every room). I
                                   stroke and talk to the same cat, who
                                   is herself dying of cancer. I take
                                   comfort in my memories of Stan.

                                   Like this one:

                                   "What a beautiful day!" Stan boomed
                                   from the doorway of Ora one
                                   morning. He smiled broadly, clearly
                                   aware of the perversity of his
                                   remark; it was cool and cloudy. The
                                   only sure sign of summer I could see
                                   was that Stan had replaced his Greek
                                   fisherman's hat with a red bandanna,
                                   and his heavy boots with rubber
                                   flip-flops. "It takes a true
                                   Northwesterner," he explained, "to
                                   appreciate this pearlescent sky."

                                   I looked up and saw a little of what
                                   he saw: pale grays washed with blue
                                   and mauve. Clouds that did not
                                   threaten, but seemed instead to
                                   soften and shelter.