Commentary—At Home On The Road
This is a personal one, so bear with me. Or stop reading now, I won’t blame you if you do.
By the time this year is done, I’ll have spent almost 200,000 miles flying, covered 35 go-fast boating events in person and eaten countless nasty mini-omelettes at Hampton Inns around the country. In 36 years of reporting, 33 of them in the powerboat world, I’ve never hit the road harder.
And I covered another 30-something events by phone, old-school-daily-reporter style. For the record, I wrote many of those stories in airports and on airplanes.
I also had the absolute privilege of consulting with Scrapyard Media on the groundbreaking “Super Cat – Race For US-1” docu-series hosted on the Speed On The Water YouTube channel.
The author (third from right) caught up with members of his road-family on Britain’s Isle of Wight while covering the Cowes-Torquay-Cowes offshore endurance race in August.
Now I’m working on the 10th anniversary edition of the 212-page Speed on The Water Year In Review print magazine with Jason Johnson, my gifted friend and hardworking partner in speedonthewater.com for 13 years. That plus one more week of travel for event coverage will take me through December.
Short version? It’s been a wonderful year, though a little discombobulating and a lot isolating at times. Because whether you’re staying at a hotel or with family or gracious friends at their places, neither is home.
But home, as I’ve learned firsthand this year, is where you make it. I used to think of home as a location—I have long-been a creature of place, a nesting type for sure. Now, I know that home is a feeling of comfort in large part created by the people with which you surround yourself. Home is the comfort you feel inside your own skin.
I don’t have that part nailed down yet, but I’m working on it. I’m just 63 years old. I have time.
Today is Thanksgiving, and the holiday has never meant more to me. Thanks to a year on the road, people I once knew as likable business acquaintances such as insurance-and -finance dude Devin Wozencraft, Performance Boat Center co-owner Brett Manire, Florida Powerboat Club owners Stu and Jackie Jones and Randy Sweers of the Marine Group became close, essential friends. Already-close friends in the performance-boating community including Jeff Johnston of DCB Performance Marine Kelly and Julie O’Hara and Kiran and Jessica Pinisetti, Stephen and Heather Miles, Greg Harris and Yvonne Aleman, Don and Amanda Gardner, Chuck Stark and Tim and Cyndee Hill became that much more cherished.
Don and Amanda Gardner—road-family at its finest in Cape Coral, Fla.
Those folks and others became my road-family this year. As for my blood-family, you are—to borrow from the Miranda Lambert song—the house that built me.
Tonight at dinner, I will raise a glass to all of you. Thank you for giving me a year I will never forget. Thank you for being family.
Thank you for being home.
Editor’s note: Matt Trulio is the founder and co-publisher of speedonthewater.com, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary.
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