But Rodney Folsom Jr. was familiar with the boat, the conditions and the task at hand; it was hardly the first time he had ferried folks across to Sugar Island. Raised at the marina his father owned until recently, the teenager had long been pressed into service for the business.

"It was real wavy, so we had to go slow, you know, because of Mrs. Boutin," Folsom recalled. There were five passengers on board, and one, in fact was "pretty old." Becky Boutin, 94, was among the party that included her son, Dale, her daughter, Pat, all from southern Maine, and Ed and Lee Hauser from Florida. They were to join Craig Hadley at his camp on Sugar Island to go deer hunting.

Near Treasure Island, still deep in the cove, Folsom spotted smoke coming from the engine. Killing it, he grabbed a fire extinguisher and sprayed the engine, but smoke continued to fill the compartment. They were dead in the water.

But the youngster was prepared. Pulling out his cell phone, he called his uncle, Max Folsom, because his father, Rodney Sr. was flying south. Max radioed Rodney Sr. who immediately abandoned his trip to Bangor and headed back north.

In the meantime, Rodney Jr. calmly put up the boat's canvas cover so that he and his party would be able to keep relatively warm. The wind continued to buffet the craft, however, pushing it back down the cove. Closer inspection of the problem revealed that "something had overheated around the bellows," Rodney Jr. explained. Furthermore, that "something" had "actually melted and split in two" and water was now coming into the boat. The boat had an electric bilge pump, but it was unable to keep ahead of the water coming in.

"I wasn't nervous," the teenager said at first, but then added, "Well, maybe was a little." Fortunately, it wasn't more than "a couple of minutes" after he began to worry about the water the boat was taking on when he heard an airplane. It was his father, spotting the boat's location.

While Folsom's Air Service is known for seaplanes, the aircraft Rodney Sr. was flying was equipped with wheels so he had to put down at the Greenville Municipal Airport. The rescue was accomplished after he drove from Greenville to the marina, jumped into a boat and sped to the disabled craft. No one was injured in the incident.

Rodney Jr., a junior at Greenville High School, is the third generation of Folsoms who have taken people to remote places. Such service is inherently risky and Folsom's Air Service founder, Dick Folsom, Rodney Jr.'s grandfather, had more than one close call over the years. Experience and skill appear to have carried all the generations through.

"I don't even know how early I started driving boats," Rodney Jr. said. He has taken flying lessons, though he has yet to become a pilot. He has worked alongside of his father making snow at Big Squaw Mountain Resort. He doesn't know what he wants to be when he grows up, but he does know "I'll continue to drive boats."
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Moosehead Messenger and is used here with permission."