The cooler thumped onto the gunwale behind me as I unloaded the boat for the trip home. The old man had brought his car alongside to load his gear and had passed the cooler up to me so I could load his share of the catch into it. I turned to take it from him and realized I’d never seen it before. It was dark green, small to medium in size, with stickers on the front that were torn and shredded, leaving only the words “Work Hard – Play Hard” still legible.
Subscribe to keep reading
This story is from our archive. Get your SandPaper Annual Pass for access to our digital archive, plus everything else a pass includes. Details below.
Annual Pass — $18 Details
365-day access to:
- The complete SandPaper digital archive (stories date back to 2012).
- Full photo galleries from our photographers.
- The entire catalog of SandPaper games, puzzles and quizzes.
How it works
- Enter your email below and click to pay the one-time $18. Card details are entered on Stripe’s secure page.
- You’re in straight away — no password to create, and nothing to set up or manage.
- You stay signed in. If you’re ever signed out, or you read on a new phone or computer, we’ll email you a code to get you back in.
- Never auto-renews. Your pass is good for one year. We will email you when it expires so you can renew if you’d like.
See our site policies for more information.
Already a subscriber? We’ll email a code to get you back in.
