However, that biking lifestyle didn’t last long. One day, while I was riding my bicycle to the boat yard, there was a senile old man signaling for me to get out of his way, or else he would run me over. I signaled to the motor home behind me that I was going to turn make a left hand turn. I guess I didn’t move out of his way quick enough because he ran into me, causing me to wipeout on the street.

I felt guilty for going off on old guy the way that I did; but when I realized that I was without wheels, I made him give me a ride to Judy Forman’s house to pick up another bicycle that her husband had given to me. The old guy must have felt bad about hitting me, so he wound up giving me about $50 and he said he was sorry. I then I rode my new bike to pick up Chris at daycare in Carpinteria.

The next day my back had gone out. While I was pushing my bicycle with Chris and all of my equipment, Teresa McWilliams came by and told me to take her Porsche. I tried to say no, but my back was hurting too badly. She told me not to be an idiot and take the car, so I did.

The boat we were buying from Captain Ernesto, for $100 a week, was a 25’ Cabin Cruiser. The boat was unnamed, so we named her “The Chrismattic” after our names: Chris and Matt. We got that boat in the water before Chris started kindergarten so that we had a rent receipt to get Chris into school.

The Chrismattic II was the first spec boat that we did in California. We didn’t make much money but the overall idea of buying an inexpensive boat and selling it was something that stuck with the corporation to be.

The Chrismattic led us into other boats, such as the Chrismattic III, in Ventura, which was a 30’ Cabin Cruiser. We bought her for $1,000 from the dock maintenance guy and he financed her to us; we got free rent until the boat was paid off. By that time, we got both engines running and were able to bring her to Santa Barbara.

We then had two homes in Santa Barbara. The rules for the Santa Barbara Harbor is that you are only your boat in the harbor for 14 days at a time. We pioneered the alternating boats routine: we would have one boat in the harbor for 14 days, while the other boat was on anchor. When the 14 days was up we would alternate the boats and maintain control of the same slip for several months. Eventually there was a bad storm and the Chrismattic got damaged, so we hauled her out and sold her cheap, while keeping the Chrismattic III.