I have a canoe older than that

A century just isn’t what it used to be.

The building where I write this column turns 100 years old this year. So does my house.

I remember visiting relatives who lived in a century-old home when I was a kid. The place seemed ancient. After all, it had been built before the start of the Civil War.

Now I live in a house built in 1915, and while it does seem a little dated, it’s only 37 years older than me. I have a canoe older than that bought with paper route money when I was 16. A 17-foot aluminum Grumman, it came with a lifetime guarantee that I gave little thought to at the time of purchase.

Like me, the canoe is weathered and aged, but still floats.

I have other, newer boats that I use now and the canoe sits half-hidden on a pair of sawhorses covered by a caragana hedge in the yard. I’m hoping someday my grandchildren will show an interest in the canoe, but for the time being, they’re much more interested in the newer boats.

The canoe probably looks like a dinosaur to them.

It’s tarnished and the bow is dented from the time it flew off the truck on the interstate. I could clean it up a bit, but it still works as well as it did when it was new.

The two old buildings are a different matter. Like a lot of aging beauties, they’ve had work done -- new roofs, wiring, plumbing, windows, floors and paint. The work done not so much to disguise their age, but to keep them functional.

Both the house and the office were built a year after World War I broke out in Europe, and less than 40 years after Custer met his end at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. They were built a year before my father was born.

They are indeed old, but hardly ancient.

Few buildings here are.

Montana was in the midst of boom times in 1915. Homesteaders flocking to the state pushed the population to more than half a million. It took nearly 100 years for that number to double.

I listened to the television weatherman this morning talk about rains in Texas the likes of which that state hadn’t seen in 30 years.

So what, I thought. That was just 1985. I have a canoe older than that.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected]