By LEAH WEATHERSBY

I know it's scientifically impossible for a person to have salt water running through their veins, but a family like the Freemans makes me wonder....

I'm sitting in Mark Freeman's office at Fremont Boat, a company which was founded in 1916, and I think I'm going into nautical overload. It's like a boat show crashing into a history book.

While Fremont Boat was started by Capt. V.C. Webster (first and middle name as well as the origin of the title "Captain" are forgotten) the Freeman family must have contributed their heart and soul.

Freeman's father, Orrin Henry "Doc" Freeman, bought the company, then called Fremont Boat Market, back in 1928. At that point, the business sold moorage and boats, and operated a boat-towing service.

Although Doc Freeman had worked in different fields such as trucking and real estate, his true ambitions were in the direction of the marina, according to his son, Mark.

"(Doc) loved boats...forever," Mark Freeman says.

Doc Freeman had made it to waterfront and he stayed. At first he and his wife May lived in on the spot where Lake Union Waterworks is today - at first in a small two-room shack and later in an apartment above the marine supply at Fremont Boat Market.

Times were hard for the Freemans as they were for many families during the Depression, but they managed to keep the business afloat.

"There was always a few people buying boats, and you get a little moorage and you survive," explains Mark Freeman.

Even during the Depression, Doc never wavered from his policy of taking back merchandise from unsatisfied customers. Mark Freeman tells of the time his father sold an engine for $15 during the Depression years, which would have been enough money to keep his family fed for weeks. Unfortunately, the customer ended up returning the engine for a refund. "My dad almost cried," Mark Freeman says.

Ultimately, Fremont Boat pulled through. In 1938, the Freemans purchased the property next door, the company's current site at 1059 N Northlake Way. They moved both their home and their office to an old 110-foot ferry boat moored there called the "Airline."

Even Mark, who was only four at the time, helped move boxes. He still remembers his mother being in a huff because there was always a band saw in the living room.

But their home on the Airline was to be relatively short-lived.

When World War II came along the government began buying and commandeering any vessel they could get their hands on. In 1942, the Coast Guard took over the Airline and converted it into a barracks.

The Freemans moved into a two-story fishing scow from Neah Bay, which, like the Airline, served both as their home and office.

In 1947, Doc Freeman opened a supply store called Doc Freeman's, which was located at 999 N. Northlake Way. The Freeman family moved once again, this time to an apartment located above the store.

In 1952, the Doc Freeman store was sold to Pete Knudsen and Bob Braas, whom Mark described as two of his dad's best employees.

In 1999, Doc Freeman's, which is now owned by Lee Knudsen (Pete's son), moved to its present location: 1401 NW Leary Way in Ballard.

Meanwhile, Mark was growing up to love boats as much as Doc did.

At age 13, Mark purchased his first tug boat (a 21-footer) from his father for $650, called the "Seal Rock," and started salvaging stay logs for market. "My dad financed me, so I salvaged logs to be able to pay him off," recalls Mark.

By the time Mark was 16, business was going so well he purchased a 36-foot tug, which he promptly named "The Jerkmore." Mark explained that the name referred to the fact that "the boat was capable of jerking, or pulling, more logs than anything else that had been built at that time."

Mark left the family business briefly in 1955, but not Washington state's waterways - he joined the Coast Guard and was stationed in Grays Harbor.

During his time in the Coast Guard, Mark Freeman helped save 37 lives. Last year, he received a belated commendation medal for a rescue he performed in 1956.

Mark returned to Fremont in 1959 to take over the family business - overseeing the company's moorage, boat sales and tug boat operations.

Doc Freeman passed away in 1963.

Mark Freeman continues to run Fremont Boat to this day, with the exception of the boat sales part of the business, which he jettisoned in 1967.

Mark Freeman's son, Erik Orrin Freeman, now 30, is also a part-owner and president of Fremont Tug. Erik's longtime friend, Tom Bulson, is the company's vice president and other partner.

And the Freeman family ties to boating keep going. Mark's sister Merry (named for the fact that her birthday falls on Christmas Day) married a tug boat operator and now lives on Camano Island.

Mark even met his wife, Margie, a tugboat owner who came to Fremont in 1976, looking for a moorage space.

Margie, who at the time was working as an administrative assistant to a regional manager for a Fortune 500 company, said she had developed a passion for boats after purchasing her first watercraft: a 16-foot runabout. Her growing interest in vessels prompted her to buy a 90-foot Canadian-built tugboat, which became her floating residence.

After three years of being Mark's tenant, in 1979 she agreed to become his bookkeeper when Mark's mother, May Freeman, decided to retire at age 75.

Eventually, Mark and Margie's friendship turned into romance as the couple began dating in 1983. They were married the following year.

"They said it wouldn't last," laughs Mark Freeman, in reference to his marriage to Margie.

I'm not sure who "they" are, but it's clear they must not have seen the couple's huge scrapbooks, which are filled with 8x10 photos of boats, as well as the dock that houses the tug the Freemans use to commute to work from their houseboat in "south Fremont" (i.e., south Lake Union).

If they had, they would have known that Margie's only rival must be the sea. (