Shanty Boats

Songs were always a prominent part of spending time out on Pepop's boat.  The following is a song that I learned at a young age and was one that was sung most often:

A man was in a shanty boat
Some fish came swimming by
a great big catfish came along
and spit* right in his eye
let it rain
let it pour
nothing bothers me
as long as there's a man in a shanty boat
with a banjo on my knee...

*sometimes we sang the word spit, sometimes we pretended to spit and made a weird spitting noise and most times sometimes we actually did spit because after all, spitting is completely appropriate when done in the course of honoring the arts.

So..... what the heck is a shanty boat? (I didn't know either until I saw a display at the River Museum in Point Pleasant, WV while attending the Mothman Festival.)

These are photos of shanty boats.

According to the website ShantyBoat Living a shanty boat is, "small crudely built dwelling or shelter usually of wood. But I think a shanty boat implies simple, functional, slower paced life on the river. It also implies a vessel that you build yourself. It doesn't have to mean junky, but it does imply individuality, with an air of simplicity in the romantic sense."

This definition brings to mind the 500 pound large raft I built in my backyard when I was 10 and in love with Huckleberry Finn.  I'm certain it would  I think it might have floated though it went untested since I lived in the suburbs of Baltimore and didn't have so much as a stream within 300 yards.  Sadly, my dad dismantled my raft and took it to the dump. 

I'm drawing up plans for my very own shanty boat, and I'm going to spend my time living on the waters around Deltaville and Mathews.