I know that I've taxed even my most faithful readers with this inexcusable lapse. I last wrote in mid-July and left you hanging in Frankfort…much as I myself was hanging on to my tent and worldly possessions during a midnight thunderstorm. In the same way that I at that moment asked, "When will this ever end?", so too must you be wondering, "Al, when will this (blog) ever end?"
Soon, Gentle Reader, soon. Gotta get you (and me) home first, OK?
But…why the lapse? In a word: sloth. I spent two wonderful weeks with family and friends at my mom's camp at Lake George, rowing in the mornings, feigning home improvement projects in the afternoons, succumbing to a nap by three, taking a refreshing swim and rejuvenating libations by five, and generally living the life of a teenager….all under direct parental supervision. My daughter and I built a Potato Cannon on my birthday – just the activity to busy a summering teacher and an aspiring doctoral candidate – and it performed magnificently, lofting Russets hundreds of feet behind a gout of flame and my mother's protestations. (I highly recommend William Gurstelle's Backyard Ballistics, which Dava Sorbel refers to as "the official manual for REAL boys." I concur. The Cincinnatti Fire Kite is another personal favorite, but watch that wind!)
So, where were we? Oh yes, Frankfort. After gathering the trail of debris left by the storm, I packed the boat and made a largely rainy 30 mile day of it through four locks, one of which – Little Falls – presents, at 41 feet, the greatest vertical transition on the Canal. Believe me, sitting at the bottom of that lock in a rowboat is sobering as you contemplate both the ancient concrete and the 1919-vintage machinery protecting you from the deluge upstream. I felt like the proverbial rubber ducky tub toy when the lock keeper opened the lower doors. As an aside, the acoustics of the Little Falls lock are truly superb; my blues harp was never far from my seat, and as I bent a few notes before I headed out, I imagined Muddy Waters in the back seat, providing that back beat and soulful vocals. Muddy Waters on the Erie. Oh, yes.
The St. Johnsville Marina offered a clean campsite and showers that night (7/2). Of the three boats transiting the canal tied up there that evening, lo and behold, two of the three families had Boys' Latin connections. One fellow's son had graduated a few years before, and another fellow's wife had dated a BL student "back in the day." I couldn't clarify what she meant by "back in the day," and decorum prevents speculation here. Nonetheless, Peg, Kathy, and I hit an Italian restaurant in town – as did my fellow transients- and I loaded up on carbs. If I were at a wheel instead of at my oars, I'd weigh 300 pounds after an Erie journey. Note to file: keep rowing.
July 3rd dawned sunny and calm. Four locks and 34 miles later, I pulled up just west of Amsterdam, a town still reeling from departed or marginalized industries. We had heard that there would be quite a fireworks display that evening, but it never happened. Instead, as Peg, Kathy and I sipped a saucy merlot at sunset along the canal, we were visited by two kids on bikes. Sal and Robert started the interrogation with zest. Who were we? Where had we come from? Where were we going? Was I really sleeping in that tent over there? What did I do for food?
As conversations with pre-teens often do, the questioning eventually turned to "How old do you think I am?" as Sal and Robert challenged me to guess their ages. Six years in an 8th grade classroom have taught me that in the interests of domestic tranquility, it is always wise to guess low. I came comfortably close with Sal and Robert (10 and 11) and then made the mistake of turning the tables. "Sal," I asked, "how old do you think I am?" Sal sized me up, discreetly conferred with Robert, and then confidently pronounced, "Seventy two." Cripes, had I not just told them that I had rowed the boat before them over three hundred miles in the last ten days? As Peg and Kathy wisely opined after a few more glasses and many laughs, to a kid on a bike, anyone over 20 is an enigma; 32, 52, 72….if you're ten on the canal in July, what's the difference, really? Of course, Sal and Robert staged a comeback when they sized Peg up as "about 37" and Kathy as "forty-something."
Sal and Robert…the Diplomats of Amsterdam. Sigh.
More later, and soon, 'K? We're almost home.
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