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You've heard the story. Of course you have. About the man who built a boat in his cellar then found the door too small to let the finished craft be extricated. Just a joke, you think. Well you're wrong! Here's proof! Elbridge Girdler of 6 Merrit Street, Marblehead, is the boat builder. He's wearing glasses and a khaki shirt. Beside him are his helpers, Henry Maurais and Frank Goodwin, In the boat are Lillian and Horton Girdler. And, in the house wall, is a big hole which had to be sawed before the boat could be brought outdoors.

Elbridge Girdler was my grandfather, a descendant of Elbridge Gerry, former governor of Massachusetts, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and vice president under James Madison. Elbridge Gerry grew up in Marblehead and is most famous for inventing the hideous concept of "Gerrymandering," which is the cutting up of voting districts by the political party in control, for the single purpose of remaining in control.

After this somewhat embarrassing episode in the annals of Marblehead boat building, Elbridge Girdler quietly moved on to another career. It's probably a good thing. I am told that the boat was a real dog. My mother and uncle (also stuck with the moniker Elbridge) are seated in the boat in front of the house in which I grew up.

A sequel to this boat story is the fact that my grandfather sold the boat in the early 1940's to my future father-in-law. This nautical transaction pre-dated both my birth and the birth of my wife. Marblehead was once a very small place.