Tiger Stripes and Peacock Letters

Silly me, thought the second blog would be easier but it seems to be trickier. Now you know some basic information on Wildlife Research Team. Where do we go from here? I am not ready to get into the story of Dr. Tom just yet. There’s a lot to tell and it has to feel right. He sure did have a lot of interesting ideas about WRT though, back at the beginning, when he was dreaming it up.

Let’s start. then, with our canoes. We do have a lot of them; sort of like potato chips, hard to stop once you start. Not for you? Well, for us, then, because canoes, like cars or bikes, are not all created equal. So we have over 30 of ‘em.

Not that we had much choice with the first canoe, which Tom bought off a guy for $20 because Hurricane Andrew had knocked a big hole in its fiberglass hull, the previous year. He really wanted a canoe and that’s all he could afford. The guy should’ve given it to him for free, I think.

When Tom was a teenager, he made a lot of money doing cool things with fiberglass on cars and boats, and was a real artist with the stuff. So he fixed the hole beautifully, and painted the canoe black. At a later date, I’ll tell you about why black.

Now in my checkered artistic career I’ve had to learn a lot of media, and lettering and sign painting I picked up early on. So Tom had me design a stencil with the name “Wildlife Research Team” and then I had to paint it onto the hull of the now-black canoe. My favorite lettering paint is One-Shot, and you have to have just the right brush to make the letters come out right, nice sharp edges and corners. I happened to have a lot of leftover paint in various colors, and with Tom’s blessing, rather than waste it, used it to paint tiger stripes on our canoe.

Tom named this canoe, Do-er, and I dutifully lettered on her name. Then I thought, whew, that’s over with! Because Wildlife Research Team is a really long name to letter, especially on a curving surface. Little did I know how many canoes we’d add to our fleet!

Since that time, I’ve always favored One Shot’s peacock blue, but Tom was a freak for yellow. We experimented with different colors and those show up best on black. I’m very critical of myself when I letter in paint! But then I see how somebody else blobs on the yellow as if it’s squeezable yellow mustard on a hot dog. Oh dear. Then I realize I’m too hard on myself.

Do-er launched our naming strategy, which represents the fact that we are not only Dreamers in our Team, we are Doers. So our next canoe became Do-It; then Did-It; Dunnit, and then Duzzit, Doable, Sure–Do, Do-Fer, Wanna Do, Will-Do, Do More, Do Right, Done Good, It’ll Do…I know I am forgetting someone…sorry, my beauties. We can never keep up with the repainting, relettering. Our canoes work very hard and are constantly getting scratched up in their ceaseless pursuit of a better, cleaner, habitat.

Our tandem canoes are the ones named for doing; our solo canoes have a different naming policy which I’ll get into another time. All I know is, when four, or eight, or twelve or twenty of our uniquely-named black canoes paddle out on a mission, it’s an awesome sight. I get a tear in my eye, actually. Tom’s Dream, in black and yellow and peacock blue, the real deal. Doin’ it.

Do-er’s tiger stripes were long ago sanded off and painted over, and actually, Do-er herself has been retired after serving 30 years. Her fiberglass is rotting and we aren’t sure what to do with her. That canoe and I have been through some SERIOUS stuff together…material for several future blogs…oh Lord…

Please check out these sleek and hardworking beauties on our website, www.wildlife-research-team.org, especially on our Fleet page. You are most welcome to grab a paddle and join us whenever you are in South Florida, because that’s the very best way to enjoy this beautiful part of the world.

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