The Good Book (and I am paraphrasing here) urges us not to covet our "neighbor's ox, nor his ass, nor his manservant nor his maidservant."

Your Scribe sometimes covets a lot of things his neighbors have: light, heat, a well, a woodsman who will cut his timber as per contract.

But I don't covet a boat.

Checking the for-sale list of "pre-owned" boats in a prominent Maine sportman's newspaper, I see (inboard) crafts being resold for prices ranging from $4,700 to $54,000.

Even prices on used outboards are intimidating: $1,100 for a '98 Mercury 9.9 horsepower, and $3,500 for a '05 Honda 25 HP with an electric starter.

But it isn't just the money.

Boats don't work on my river.

My camp abuts the Sandy River in Franklin County. It is 69 miles long (running into the Kennebec) but there aren't many miles where you can use a motor.

Going downstream from my place, there are rapids just a half-mile away. Even in high water in spring, a boat with a motor could hardly make it through.

Going upstream, there's about seven miles of what might be called open water. But there are many submerged logs in the waterway, and you'd be risking your engine if you ran into one of these "tree bass."

The Sandy has a significant amount of erosion. For that reason, many trees leave the riverbank to collapse into an afterlife of immersion in the slow-moving water.

Actually, I do have a "boat" - if we don't get into semantics.

It is a 16'9" Old Town canoe. We've had it since 1992 when my Aunt Bea willed me what today might be called a nano-bundle. Enough to buy a canoe but short of anything that required an engine.

But it's worked out better this way. The canoe fits the river, and a powerboat would not last a fortnight.

Sure, I could haul a motorboat around. But I'd rather stay on the eroding but lovable banks of the Sandy than spend my days looking for a public launch to accommodate a larger craft.

On this point I agree with myself: I haven't missed the boat.

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