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WBM september 2010
the boat of plenty. On the bad days, they’d
catch 20 or 30 (mostly Spanish). On the good
days, they’d catch 60 or more. Papa took it
upon himself to show Doctor and Uncle Bob
the ropes. “After probably 10 years of fishing
with Paul, I was at the helm one day taking
us through the inlet, and Paul looked at me
and said ‘It might just be time you became my
apprentice,’” Bob says with a smile. Motoring
through the inlet back then was certainly not
for amateurs. There were no jetties, no rocks
and no walls. “It was pretty hairy,” Uncle
Bob says. “You had to ride a wave to make it
through the inlet.”
There could be no greater challenge,
though, than leaving the beach each year with
all 15 children in tow. The Keeley entourage
grew at a rate of one per year for nine years
in a row. The other six were spaced two years
apart. Aunt Nina’s secret for keeping them
together was bright-orange and plaid life jack-ets
— as big as some of the children — and a
lot of help from her three sisters. “If it wasn’t
for Polly, some of these children might not be
here!” Aunt Nina says, laughing. When asked
what she remembers most about those many
summers at Wrightsville, she replies with a
grin: “Counting!”
The Keeleys grew in size and number and
slowly began shedding the life jackets as their
parents and Grandma and Doctor found ways
to rein them in. “It’s funny, because we didn’t
even realize it. Now that I’m a parent, I see
that there was a lot of planning and a lot of
work involved in showing us a good time and
keeping us out of trouble,” John, Keeley num-ber
seven, says.