Day in a Canoe

    There is nothing like slowly gliding down the river in a canoe.  Everything is so quiet slipping past the muskrat primping up its den. The birds are always announcing our arrival, thinking we are surely pending danger for them.  Fish are jumping high to grab that elusive fly buzzing over them.  The frogs are leaping and splashing the surface as we approach.  Hardly raising its head the pan turtle would remain basking on its rock without a care in the world.  We are ready for actions since the first set of rapids from our usual starting point are approaching. My buddy Dan was in the bow most trips keeping a lookout for the large boulders partially submerged at the entry to the foaming white water. He would yell and point out the direction so I could tend to my paddle as a rudder.  It was usually a smooth but rolling and bobbing ride.  We must have been over those rapids a thousand times. People called them the Stratton slew.  The Stratton family once owned a lumber mill just off the river and that rapid was once a log slew for guiding their logs into the mill. There is no more timber and no more mill in the area now, only farms with corn and soybeans growing on them.
    The river always picks up the pace as it narrows into the Henderson chase that has high earthen banks and thick foliage. This would offer another moment to lean back and relax. Gliding a little faster now and by the thickets of blackberries full of birds partaking of the luscious fruit.  We could see the river snakes and an occasional black snake in those brier patches attempting to snag a bird for a meal. We would also usually pick a few quarts on our way back for our mothers when we would make our trips down stream.  As we are coming out of the Henderson chase we can see the backside of Union Cemetery.  Nelson Porter is the caretaker there and he would always wave “Ahoy” if he were out near the bank.  This point is about two miles from our start.  We generally make the end of this run at the convergence of the Scioto River in the middle of the city. Then we turn around and come back. It is always an all day trip. We leave about six and get back around six. Moving on down there is another set of rapids faster, longer and shallower and would always take a keen eye for the big boulders. After we shoot those it becomes a very nice glide for the next 2 miles.  Farms on one side and homes on the other border along this stretch. Most of those homes were built in the late teens and early twenties. They had tall rooflines and extra fancy work on them.  Nearly all of them were white.  We would have to navigate our next rapids just past the cemetery, no special name for them just a longer set and harder to shoot through. 
    Danny’s girlfriend lived in the ninth home after the Broadway Bridge. Sometimes we would stop there and she would make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for us.  A few times she would come along for the ride. After our really lazy float down the flat stretch we came to our portage point.  It was a water main leading to the west of town.  They had set it over the ground in the water and created about a six foot dam; way to high to slip over and land safely.  Here we would unload our provisions hoist the canoe up over our heads upside down and walk it up a small rise and down a steep bank about fifty yards below the pipe dam.  Then we would go back and retrieve our provisions, load up and push off for more open water.
    The river became very wide below the pipe dam and quite shallow. Having a canoe was best because it only had about a three-inch draft.  That stretch was known as the West Campus of the State University. As we came closer to the campus the water becomes very deep.  Sometimes we would see students with their rowboats or canoes fishing or just rowing and paddling around.  If it was in late summer we could hear the whistles of the coaches at football practice.  Also at that time of year we would hear the marching band practicing. That band was once an all male only band till the early 70’s sometime.
    Beyond the West Campus stretch was our toughest set of rapids.  One set after another for about a mile.  I think there were about eight all together.  It took a lot of hard paddling and sharp eyes on that run. The river spread wide along another earthen bank stretch.  This is where the river made some winding turns and had islands in a chain for a couple miles. The first Island was where we usually stopped and made camp.  We would start a fire and cook some canned stuff.  Beans were often the bill of fare those days; green beans, baked beans, kidney beans what ever was in our mothers’ cupboard.  We would also dry some of our clothes too. While our clothes died we could take a swim and swing on a rope from the bank to the island. If you wanted to make a splash you needed to drop rather quickly after your launch or you’d land in about six inches of water instead of six feet.
    After our lunch we shoved off and made the last run into the middle of the city.  Sometimes we would have the police calling at us to come to the shore.  They would always ask the same question. ‘What are you doing on the river? It’s to fast out there you boys will drown’.  We tell them the same answer. We do this five or six times a year officer and are heading back up river soon. Then he would ask us for our phone numbers and call our parents while we waited at the shore.  It took about fifteen minutes for him to go to the station house and get back. Then tell us to get on our way our moms’ were serving supper early.  So after resting a while we headed back up the river and usually made it home before six.  To make the rapids on our return trip we used two lines tied to the bow and one of us on the east bank and the other on the west as we pulled the old gal thru the rapids. She was a fine canoe and served us well for many years.