by Tom Ludwig member of the Rocky Mountain Classics chapter
I am the second owner of the “Window Table”. (the name is another great story that I won’t go into here) The original owner was John Thompson, the author of the above piano book and many more piano books and sheet music such as, “Shadows on GrandLlake, The First Grade Piano Book, Cobbler Cobbler, The Covered Wagon, and many more. The story goes he was a Captain of a PT boat in the Second World war. When the war was over he returned to his home town of Shawnee Mission, Kansa. As a reward to himself he built a cabin in Grand Lake with a small writing/piano studio on the property and “The Boat” He passed away some time ago and the children inherited the cabin and boat, imediately if not sooner they put the boat on a trailer in the alley with a for sale sign on it and bought a new Donzi. I was out for a run one day and spotted the boat. In talking to one of the kids and getting its history I got the “boat fever” (already had the tractor and truck fever). As an old tractor and truck collector I couldn’t let this one go by.
Problem was getting it home undetected, if you know what I mean. Lynne and I have had the boat now for over 20 years. I am not a fanatic about restoring old things to better than original condition.I like to keep most of my stuff in their “original working clothes”. So this boat is still that way down to registration placard inside with John Thompson’s name, address and original Colorado registration number on it.
I remember Thompson’s books in my parent’s piano bench.