June 10, 1998
Boy sets sail in ship of his dreams
By Garret Leiva
Herald staff writer
It's hard to be swash-bucking- peg-legged pirate out sailing the seven seas instigating high seas hijinks without timbers to shiver.
Equally difficult is diving into the ocean depths searching for sunken treasure without a bow and stern above water to call your own.
Luckily for Tyler Lyons of Traverse City his ship of dreams has come in. Now all the 7 year-old has to do is come up with a name for it.
The task of bestowing a name, however, should hardly prove difficult for Lyons. After all it was the first grader's fertile imagination that brought the 14 foot cabin cruiser, formerly know as "Little Toads" into dry dock behind his parents Long Lake Township home. That and a seemingly innocent trip to the museum.
"We visited the Curious Kids museum in St. Joseph and they had a room there built like an old wooden boat. It had a gang plank and a steering wheel and the kids could wear rain coats and pretend they were the captain of the ship," recalled Kay Alfonso, who brought her son, Tyler to the museum while visiting his grandparents downstate.
And just how exactly did her son react to his new-found sea legs? "He just went nuts," Alfonso said. "He thought he died and went to heaven."
So when Alfonso and her husband, Mike returned home they tossed around the idea of recreating the high sea adventure with an old rowboat stored at their cabin out on Old Mission Peninsula. But the metal boat had been badly torn up and could not be pressed into service - even in imaginary waters.
With the rowboat out of commission, a call went out in a five-line classified advertisement: "7 YEAR OLD seeks Unseaworthy row boat or equal to make imaginary Naval vessel in his back yard." The phone started ringing and by Friday an unseaworthy vessel was being towed from behind a barn in Buckley.
Docked beside the swing sets, the ship will now rest half-buried in a wave of grass and a sea of pine trees. Despite this land-locked fate, it's young commander has set his sights on distant horizons.
"It's pretty cool," said Lyons. "Now I'll be able to pretend I have a pirate ship, even though I don't have a pirate sword. I can jump off the ship with my friends and go scuba diving for treasure."
However, there is one problem that continues to resurface with the ship - a name.
"He keeps coming up with new names everyday," Alfonso remarked. "At one point he thought about calling it "The Greatest Speedboat on Earth" but I told him that might be a bit much to paint on the back of the boat."