Freddy, age 88, is a newcomer to model sailboating in Central Park. He hasn't entered any of the Saturday morning racing regattas yet, worried that if he gets too excited it might set off his defibrillator.

I have two nurses, and those two girls became almost daughters for me. I adopted them, almost, and I wouldn't part with them for love or money. One of them is supposed to meet with me here, in fact, today. She's working, but she'll come over here and share her baloney sandwich with me, if needs be. That's the type of gal she is! So, she said, "We ought to get some kind of a hobby." I said, "Maybe, how 'bout a sailboat?". She said, "You want a boat? We'll find it on the internet and we'll get you a sailboat."

So they got the sailboat, but it was all in parts, so these girls had to put it together. Some guy helped them, and of course he didn't do the job he was supposed to do, so when I got it over here, all the guys said, "It's all rigged up wrong!" So, they restrung the whole thing. John and Steve and Hal, they're the ones that fixed it up. So I made more or less a friendship with them guys. And it's a great life with them, because Hal was a Navy Commander and I was the Air Force, so we have a little something in common. He served in the South Pacific and I served in the South Pacific. I wasn't actually a flyer, but I used to fly with a crazy Major; me and him was always a drinking party.

I haven't been sailing recently because as I was bringing the boat into the park, two women with baby carriages got in front of me, so instead of hitting the baby carriages, I hit the branches of the trees and it broke my sails. But Hal put it back together again.

It's relaxing, sailing the boats, but I gotta watch myself—if I forget and I hit the switch on my chair, I can go overboard!