Word: houseboats
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...horrible death, the victim of an inexplicable assassination. Desperate and half demented, McGee writes a note leaving all - The Busted Flush and Miss Agnes, the elderly "hand-hewn" Rolls-Royce pickup truck - to his old pal and counselor, Meyer, a famed economist who inhabits the next-door houseboat, John Maynard Keynes. The salvager plucks his life savings of $9,300 from a cache and becomes Tom McGraw, a retired fisherman. Following a ritual clue Gretel had given him a few days before dying, he heads for northern California, in search of a fictitious missing daughter who has supposedly disappeared...
Burgundy is a region for meandering. Not surprisingly, the houseboat has gained great popularity. Ten companies have set up rent-a-boat fleets along the rivers and canals. For an average $550 per week, not including food and fuel, in July and August ($300 offseason) a family crew of four can drift through the region at 4 m.p.h., tying up along the way to picnic or sightsee. Local tourist offices list furnished houses renting from $175 to $550 a week for a family of four. Top price for a double room in the Château d'Ig?...
...house with a Florida room, have 2.7 kids, a dog, a cat, a smiling wife, two cars, a viable retirement and profit-sharing plan, a seven handicap and shortness of breath." McGee, of course, is the swashbuckling hero of 18 John D. MacDonald mystery novels who lives on a houseboat, The Busted Flush, that he won in a poker game. His aversion to structured, land-based predictability is shared by an ever growing number of Americans who live year-round on their boats...
Though it is not suited for offshore cruising, a houseboat built to be just that generally offers more living space for less money than any other craft. (Houseboat sales came to $17.5 million in 1978, an increase of nearly 23% over the year before.) A modest 38-ft. houseboat with sleeping space for six may be bought new for $38,000. Major costs thereafter will be about $1,200 a year for insurance and perhaps $2,700 for marina rental. In northern climes, electricity and heating fuel may add another $1,000 a year. Many marinas provide shower rooms, laundry...
...living quarters are as cramped as they were for Captain Bligh's midshipmen. Says a California boatwife: "When you cook corned beef and cabbage, everything you wear next day smells like corned beef and cabbage." Miamian Tom Dixon, 35, who inhabits a relatively spacious 45-ft. catamaran houseboat he designed and built, notes that his 360-sq.-ft. living area is the equivalent of a one-car garage. Even at a dock, high winds and storms can make a boat dweller feel as if he were inside a Cuisinart...