Ah, the sailingtexas site -- what a way to kill a morning!
Thanks for the suggestions. What I'm envisioning - aside from the summer trips to MI -- is a boat I can keep at one of the little clubs here, so that I can take it out for an hour or two on a moment's notice. It really would be possible: both clubs are about 10 minutes from where I live & work, and I have a schedule that's flexible enough so that almost any time I felt like spending a bit of time on the lake, I could do it. I won't be planning to spend entire days or longer on the boat -- THAT kind of time I don't yet have, not even on weekends.
I've paid visits to both of the local clubs over the past couple of weeks...one is mostly 22+ft cruisers, on a lake that is overrun with powerboats on the weekends; the other, on a quieter lake, is mostly racing boats (Y-Flyers and such). I may spend some time crewing for them, but I really don't want one of my own: staying relatively dry and comfortable is more a priority than speed! It's curious -- there just don't seem to be many little daysailers around. But I am pretty sure of the kind of boat I want. The boat committee (that is to say, my Dad) is in agreement, and in fact he is going to pay a visit to his local dealer to have a look at a Catalina 14.2. He'll be keeping his eye out for other similar boats too -- it's much more likely that something will turn up for sale in Michigan, than down here in the northern edge of the Bible belt. Oh, someday I will once again live in a place with lakes that were put there by receding glaciers, not the Corps of Engineers!!