The Ship of Life
— Remembering my father
One winter dusk, Daddy sat on the side of the boat. Suddenly a gust of wind blew, he shivered, felt uncomfortable, and said to himself, "Can I still reach my birthday?" Grandma also blamed him for not saying unlucky things. I didn't think that I would really die suddenly in the middle of the night. The next day, his father and brothers, dressed in torn cotton jackets, tied with hemp rope around their waists, and wearing filial piety hats, carried their grandfather to a mound on the east hill of Shuanggou Town and buried him, and since then his grandfather has disappeared from the earth. The only property left was the dilapidated 4.5-ton wooden boat and two small thatched huts on the shore. At that time, my father was only 16 years old, and my sister-in-law was still in my grandmother's belly.
There has been a saying throughout the ages that "there are three kinds of suffering in the world", and the use of boats is one of them. A life with a boat is a life of struggle. People who use boats to seek people everywhere, often suffer from white eyes, difficulties, and have to laugh with their faces when they are commissioned, which is extremely small, quite difficult, but it is difficult to change their own situation. My father also had a turning point in his life, and he signed up for the army. When he passed the political examination and the physical examination, he was preparing to embark on the military journey, but he changed his mind. At that time, the leader of the Water Transport Agency said, you are gone, who do you rely on your widowed mother and your 3 younger siblings who have not yet reached adulthood? He thought about it, and after a painful choice, he finally gave up the idea of joining the army. Of course, not becoming a soldier is also a regret in his life. But for the sake of this family, he must endure the pain, must swallow the regret into his stomach. Since then, he has begun his boating career, in the wind and rain, in the difficulties and obstacles, tempering the hard years of using the boat for more than 40 years.
Relying on the small wooden boat that was full of holes to support the whole family. Small boats mainly run short distances to transport goods, but they have also traveled as far as Nanjing. If the boat has wind, it relies on the wind, and if there is no wind, it pulls fibers or braces, and it travels through the wind and waves for many years, and the physical fatigue and psychological burden make him mature prematurely. In the face of adversity, my father never despaired or helpless, on the contrary, he appeared stronger and stubborn. Pulling up the fiber to exhaust the full body strength, the waist arch became 90 degrees, sweat spilled all the way, sometimes no shoes to wear, in the winter also have to go barefoot to pull the fiber. The cold wind was cold, the cold was shivering, the water was so cold that people were biting, and they wished that there was a stove to drill into. I often sketched the picture of my father in my imagination: under the scorching sun, my father was bare-backed, barefoot, a fiber rope pressed on the shoulder, held in the hand, moving forward step by step, the shoulder rubbed out of the blood, the soles of the feet were also swollen... When eating, eating nest heads, tofu residue, corn rice, and dried vegetables with mold... After the meal, he kept fulfilling this heavy responsibility without end... With the fiber in his hand, with his perseverance, with his tenacity, he gradually raised his three younger siblings. How many thousands of miles have my father's feet traveled! Although the conditions are so difficult and life is so difficult, he still clenches his teeth, strides forward, and his indomitable character supports him to walk bravely, measuring his hard life with his big feet full of calluses...
Later, the boats were incorporated into the collective, and my father at first worked as a helper on someone else's big ship, living in the cabin at the bow of the ship. For many, many days, parents endured hardships, reprimands, contempt, and instructions that were difficult for ordinary people to accept. They endured in silence, not only to endure long-term physical fatigue, but also to endure mental torture and even personal humiliation. It is conceivable that my father's habitual patience and tolerance were honed for a long time. Because of his father's shrewdness and ability, he did not have a long time, and became the captain, and dozens of people in a fleet of people ate all tied to him. In the few years he was captain, the fleet business has been good, the supply of goods is relatively abundant, and everyone's life has improved. My father often said to us: To engage in business is to be a person, to play a little clever, two sides and three knives, can only be a one-time or two-time interaction, is unreliable. Whether loading and unloading or crossing the locks, my father's fleet was unimpeded, and even became the best of all the fleets in Sihong County. To this end, his father has been rated as an advanced figure by the company, the bureau and the county for many years. His father was the soul of the county's water transport community. At the end of the 70s, after my father left the fleet, the business of the fleet was not good, the life of the crew was extremely poor, and even in Nantong, they went ashore to dig wild vegetables to eat, and the crew missed the years when their father was the captain.
Needless to say, the dangers accompany the ship people. Boats once sank in Hongze Lake. It was a day in the early 70s, from the rear kiln loading cylinder to the Hongze Jiang Dam. Shortly after the boat passed the Malanggang, suddenly the wind was fierce, and the lake set off a shocking wave, and the hull of the ship was leaking and was not repaired in time. After all, the boat could not withstand the attack of the evil waves and slowly sank. At that time, I was only the age of arms, sleeping in the cabin, where would I know that such an earth-shattering thing would happen. When the water entered the cabin, my father remembered to save me, and he rushed into the cabin and carried me up. Hongze Lake is shallow, and the hull of the boat is just exposed to the water. A bunch of big boats passed by in Huaiyin and helped my family ship salvage it. Heaven has eyes! We are saved, and it is truly a great blessing in misfortune. The ship was also struck by lightning. It was a rainy night, lightning and thunder, the night sky was dancing with teeth and claws, its face was vicious, it seemed to swallow the earth into its stomach, and suddenly heard a thunderbolt, clicked, and the mast was broken... This is a terrifying scene that many people have only seen in movies. Our family, on the other hand, experienced this dangerous moment first-hand. Driving in the river in Yangzhou City, full of rice husks, a heavy-duty ship from Anhui came upstream, and the two ships accidentally collided. My family's boat was violently shaken from side to side, and seeing that it was about to overturn, the hearts of several of our brothers and sisters were raised to the throat, and they were very panicked. Seeing his father swooping to the bow of the boat, he threw the anchor into the river sharply, and then tied the cable to the stake. So, the boat slowly stabilized, and the calm father's face was covered with beads of sweat... It's frightening to think back, but how terrifying it would be to be immersed? The life of a boatman is spent in danger and trial.
In a very small memory, I feel that my father is very brave and has a strength that is different from ordinary people.
My father had saved people at the gates of Huaiyin. In the early 1970s, the ship was moored on the south bank of the locks, chatting with the crew. Suddenly a woman jumped into the river, followed by a man who jumped into the river again. The two are husband and wife, while the man cannot swim. The father did not hesitate at all and jumped into the river with a crew surnamed Wang to save people. However, due to the larger flow of water, the woman soon sank to the bottom of the water and the man was rescued... Unfortunately, the woman was not rescued, and the father was still blaming himself... His father was born with divine powers and once faced three goons with his bare hands. One year, a group of several boats anchored at the Goldtown Wharf to load goods. Three goons get on the boat and cause trouble, thinking that the people on board are good bullies. Unexpectedly, they met my father. With his strong arms, the father beat these miscellaneous pieces down in three or two strokes. When he fled, he also said: You wait. As a result, I did not dare to come. One summer day in the early 70s, when the ship was repaired ashore and cut off from a source of livelihood, my father went to pull a flatbed truck to support his family. During this period, my father got up early every day in the dark, tired and sweaty, and when he went home, he went to bed and snored incense, and the long-term labor made the body overloaded. Once, when pulling goods from the county seat to the boundary, the poisonous sun was like a furnace, and my father was sweating, hungry and thirsty along the way, and every step was unusually heavy. I couldn't bear it, I fainted on the way------ my father was weak and pale, and when he came home, he fell asleep... Thinking about it now, we are all sad in our hearts, so distressed that we want to cry...
My father drove a boat across the lake and the river, the wind, the rain, the waves, more than forty years of miserable wind and rain, through many tribulations. Father never cowered, never depressed. In the first 20 years, he brought up 3 younger siblings; in the last 20 years, he raised 4 children. After swallowing a full boat of bitter water, what do you get? At less than 60 years old, he is visibly aged, his sideburns have been dyed white, and his forehead is full of wrinkles. The years ruthlessly consumed the father's beautiful youth, but the ruthless years tempered the father. His eyes were still shining brightly, showing his unique fortitude, shrewdness, boldness, and composure. In 1979, Hao Qiang's father was the first to use a hanging pulper boat in his hometown, and in 20 years, he successively exchanged 25 tons, 70 tons, 160 tons of cement boats, 230 tons of iron barges, and built a house of more than 200 square meters and a courtyard of more than 400 square meters on the shore. After half a century of running, my father was too hard, and it was time to take care of himself. However, the disobedient father had a new plan, and what we did not expect was that he tossed the fleet. We were dissuaded several times or could not resist him, he said to us: Life is short, what does it mean not to come out and live without a name? He actively raised funds, was busy all day, and his efforts paid off, and the fleet of nearly 10,000 tons was opened again... Looking back on his past experiences, my father had a lot of sorrow and a lot of joy. I thought of the 4-and-a-half-ton wooden boat that took over from the previous generation, but now handed over to the future generations is a fleet of 10,000 tons, and my heart is full of emotions. This was unimaginable before. One day that year, the strong father burst into tears... It was the first time in my life that I had seen my father cry.
Now, my father has been away from us for more than a year, and I think about him all the time. The unspeakable pain was always hidden in my heart, and the irrepressible heartache would make me sob when I was alone in a corner. I often walked to the river to find his footprints. In the past, boats often went to Huaiyin, and boats were moored next to the docks on the Grand Canal and the Li Canal. I am imagining the running and busy figure of my father, imagining the many grievances and hardships suffered for the sake of my children...
In the quiet of the night, I often silently pondered: I think my father is a big boat of life, carrying us in the river of human growth without fear of hardships, riding the wind and waves, facing difficulties and driving forward...