By
the Rev. Jon Rieley-Goddard
Dear
friends,
It all started when the guy who
was trying to impress my sister gave me an old folding kayak
with a broken rib.
It was my own, my first boat. I
was all of 11 or 12 and as was normal and usual for the
time, I had enormous freedom. Once or twice I tied that
kayak to an old two-wheel cart, grabbed on to the end, and
bicycled the mile or so to the river. Fantasy became reality.
The river was the Sacramento River,
fresh from Shasta Lake – cold enough to support a
native population of trout, which meant cold enough to be
dangerous in any season.
Down by the rodeo grounds, there
was a concrete boat ramp, next to a high bluff of glacial
till. I could paddle upstream against the strong current
and fish in the shadow of that bluff. After one trip, I
decided that an anchor would be in order, so I rummaged
around in the garage and found a heavy truck brake shoe
that my dad had yanked out of his logging truck but couldn’t
bring himself to the point of throwing away. That and a
length of manila rope, and I was in business.
Dad decided to take me down to the
river and then visit his mother in the trailer park across
the way from where I was going to be fishing. I remember
him helping me launch and squatting down to watch as I paddled
away, a bemused look on his kind, round, bald face.
I paddled up the river a way and
threw the anchor over the side.
Red
flag. Red flag. Red flag.
When I was done fishing, I pulled
on the rope and the kayak flipped over. Immediately I was
in the cold, cold water, fighting for the surface. I grabbed
onto the kayak and flipped it over, face down, because I
had read somewhere that that was what you were supposed
to do, to trap air. While I debated with myself about the
merits of upside down or right side up, I hurtled down the
river. I was too shocked still to realize my peril. I was
below the ramp and racing toward the gravel riffles that
salmon spawned in, just above the bridge abutments of a
bridge long forgotten. The sun was brilliant, and the sky
was a faultless blue. I could have drowned.
A man and his wife, in a powerboat,
came over to help me. First they got me into their boat,
then the man tried to tie off the rope on the kayak and
save it, too. As soon as he gavehis boat the gas, the rope
broke. He was able to reach down and grab the double paddle
out of the kayak, but I lost a pair of binoculars, a fishing
pole, and some tackle. And that crazy old kayak, which had
been trying to kill me.
I told my rescuers that my grandmother
lived in the trailer park on the other side of the river,
so they took me close and I got off, dripping wet, paddle
in hand, shivering violently as I walked the length of the
trailer park to grandma’s house. She was horrified
as only a very old lady from the Old Country could be, and
dad was largely silent, because that is the way he always
was.
He was surprised that I didn’t
know the proper way to cast an anchor, so he took me out
in his boat the next day and showed me how you tie a painter
– attach a rope to each gunwale, forward, and tie
an anchor line to that line so that the pull of the anchor
was on the point of the bow instead of the side of the boat.
He didn’t belittle me, he didn’t lecture me,
he didn’t ground me from ever going near the river
again.
He taught me what I needed to know
without adding a lot of extra junk that I didn’t need.
By his actions, I understood that it was important to do
what you love, and to learn from your mistakes, and to get
back quickly to the place where bad things had happened,
if it was a place that you liked to be, or needed to be,
or both.
I will cherish that bemused look
he had as I paddled away, up the river. And
I can’t forget the shock of the cold water as I fought
the five feet back to the surface and found that crazy kayak
within arm’s reach. God had other plans for me, I
guess, and as I go through life and feel blessed, I realize
that my gratitude drives me to give back the love in ways
that will be a blessing for others, too.
That’s my story. I’m
sticking to it.
