August: Osage Moon

As Louise will tell you, I rarely go to a movie.  I couldn't tell you why, I just don't.  Its probably for the same reasons that I seldom watch television.  However, the other day we decided to go to the movies.

We were trapped in the motor home and the weather was horrible for south Texas (still a lot better than at home).  We had heard some PR about August: Osage County and since it was filmed in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, about seventy miles from our house, we decided to go see it.

It has been about a week now since we went and I still can't tell you what I think about it!  The profanity was terrible but I guess thats pretty much normal for Hollywood today.  The movie did not need it to develop the characters and plot however.

Without giving the movie away, I'll try to tell you a bit about it.  Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts, two amazing actresses, developed their roles perfectly.  I don't know a thing about movie making but I suppose that the director, John Wells, had a great deal to do with this as well.  Several other actors and actresses played outstanding roles as well.  One of my favorites was Misty Upham, who played the role of Johnna, the Indian girl who was hired as a housekeeper.

The entire movie was a dark one; if you are looking for a "feel good" show which will make you happy, don't go to this one.

Of interest to Louise and me was the location shooting in Pawhuska.  Many of the buildings were recognizable, including the unique triangular shaped multi-story building in downtown.  Being a car guy, I kept an eye out for unusual vehicles - the two most memorable were a Ferrari and an old F250 Ford pickup.

I usually measure movies by how often I get up to go to the restroom (perhaps out of boredom).  In this case, I stayed in my seat.

The Pierce Family

As I have mentioned earlier, my biological father was Roy Moses Pierce, Jr. He left my mother when I was less than a year old and I never saw him again until 1999, some 53 years later. Roy was called “Junior” by his family. Junior was also the father of my brother, Gary but never saw him. Mom and Dad (Tommy) never kept this a secret from us but we didn't talk about it a lot either.

When Junior was a very young man, he had a severe accident which impaired him for the rest of his life. He was working on the railroad back east somewhere (I believe I was told in Massachusetts) and was critically injured. He was not expected to live but somehow did and his family brought him back to the Cromwell area, where he had been raised. Mom and he got married in late 1945, a couple of years after his accident. For the rest of his life, his family used the accident as the reason for his challenges.

Junior had several brothers and a sister, most of whom lived in the Bakersfield area where their parents had moved in the 1940's. As a child and young man, I never had any contact with any of them except for once when I was about 18. I was working at Ted Norwood's service station in Mannford when, one day, Ted came back to where I was working and told me that Pete and Bessie Barton were out on the drive and wanted to talk to me. Pete and Bessie were long time Mannford residents but I hardly knew them and found it strange that they would want to talk with me. When I went out to their car, Pete and Bessie were in the front seat and an unknown couple were in the back. We had an awkward two minute “how do you do?” conversation and I went back to work. That evening I was relating the meeting to my mother and she told me that the woman in the back seat was my aunt, Ninah Melton, Junior's sister. She had known that the Bartons knew Ninah and her husband somehow.

Many years later (35, in fact), I was talking to Mom one day and she told me that Ninah had contacted her and asked if Gary and I would have any interest in seeing any of the Pierce family. Since I had just retired and was somewhat curious anyway, I called Ninah and talked to her. Eventually, Louise and I decided to make a trip to California to see the Pierce's. I talked about this with Gary and he had absolutely no desire to meet any of them. In fact, I think he was somewhat upset with me that I would consider seeing them. I was concerned about hurting Dad's feelings; he was my true father even though he had adopted Gary and me.

Eventually, Louise and I did go to Bakersfield and meet the Pierces. Ninah, being the only girl in the family, was kind of the “hub” of the group. Junior had had a stroke and lived with another brother, Lloyd, in Bakersfield. Lloyd was a widower and enjoyed Junior's company, I think. The whole time we spent there was kind of surreal; they didn't quite know how to treat me and I was probably a bit of an ass to them, wanting to remain aloof.

While I was there, I did learn about one of my uncles, Larry Stanley Pierce. He had served in the Army in Viet Nam and had been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor posthumously. He had thrown himself on a grenade to save his platoon. He was one of the first Viet Nam era recipients of the Medal and his family was flown to Washington, DC, to have the Medal presented by President Johnson. Larry was married and left two small children behind. I have never met his wife or children. Today, both a street and a post office in Taft, California are named after him.

I was surprised to learn that Junior had never remarried and had no other children. I had really expected to find that I had some brothers and sisters. Because of the stroke he had suffered, he had a speech impairment and was extremely self conscious about it. After a couple of days, Louise and I returned back home. About a year later, Rachel, my daughter, indicated that she would like to meet the Pierce family as well so she and I flew out to Bakersfield. Again, it was a somewhat awkward meeting. Dan, my son, never had any interest in meeting them, not because he harbored any ill will; he just was not interested. I wonder today what Junior thought about us showing up. I don't know whether he was truly glad to see us or whether the whole deal was Ninah's idea and he wished we had just not shown up.

Ninah died in 2002 and Junior in 2003. We had not stayed in contact and I didn't know until sometime later that they had both passed.

In about 2000, I became interested in genealogy and did a lot of work on the Alexander and Mooneyham families. My mother's mother was a Mooneyham. I didn't spend a lot of time on the Pierce's (since I didn't know much about them) or on the Nash's, my mother's father's family.

In about 2010, however, I began to do some study on the Pierce family and quickly found a cousin, Sharon Pierce, who was also into genealogy. Sharon lives in Fayetteville, North Carolina, with her son Christian, and her father, Coy. I had talked to Coy on the phone back in 1999 but had not gotten any feel for what kind of person he was.

In October, 2013, Louise and I were going to meet Dan and Dorinda in Atlanta where they lived and spend a long weekend in the mountains of North Carolina. I decided that, since we were already in the state, we should go on over to Fayetteville and meet Sharon and Coy. I called her and made the arrangements. When we met them, we were immediately comfortable and at ease with them. I supposed I had gotten over my desire to distance myself from the Pierce's.

Coy had been a career Army guy and the reason they lived in Fayetteville was its proximity to Fort Benning where he had been stationed for a long time. He moved in with Sharon in about 2012 to help her with her house and provide some company. Sharon is a sales person in the food service industry and has done that kind of work for many years. Louise and I enjoyed ourselves and were glad that we had made the decision to go visit Coy and Sharon.

If I had a “do over”, what would I change? Probably nothing except that I would have been more responsive on those two trips to California. Roy Pierce, Jr. could never replace Tommy Alexander as my father but I still would like to have known a little bit more about him.

Sons of the American Revolution

If you've read any of my posts, you know that I have been interested in genealogy for a long time.  Its a wonderful hobby and its addictive; the more you learn the more you want to find out more.

One of the many aspects of genealogy is organizations which are based on a person's lineage.  The most widely known of these groups is the Daughters of the American Revolution, or DAR.  It shouldn't have surprised me that there is also a group called the Sons of the American Revolution, or SAR.  There are also organizations dedicated to lineage from the Mayflower, from the Civil War, and who knows how many others.

As I worked backward in my family tree, I found a couple of ancestors who had fought in the American Revolution.  If you think about it, this isn't really remarkable since the number of potential ancestors grows exponentially as you travel back in time.  My fourth great grandfather, Andrew Rish, was the person I used to prove my lineage for the SAR.  In a typical family tree, you would expect to have 32 fourth great grandparents, 64 fifth great grandparents, and 128 sixth great grandparents.  These three generations, having a total potential of 224 ancestors, are the pool that you might have to work from, since we are about six to eight generations removed from the Revolutionary War.

To put this into perspective, I realized that Andrew Rish was the great-grandfather of my great-grandmother, Nancy Huffman.  Although I never met her (she died in 1940, six years before I was born), I do have many pictures of her and feel as though I knew her.  By looking at my family tree in this manner, it tended to personalize my ancestors.  This picture of her with a calf was taken in 1935.

A bit about Andrew Rish - He was born in South Carolina in 1756, twenty years before the Declaration of Independence was signed by our forefathers.  He fought in the war as a part of the South Carolina militia, somewhat akin to our National Guard today.  He died in 1818 at the age of 61, still living in South Carolina.  Many of his descendants wound up in Mississippi where they became members of the DAR and SAR through his participation in the Revolution.  I don't know the exact number of DAR and SAR members who used him as their patriot ancestor but it is substantial.

It is an old adage that you never get finished with genealogy.  I'm now working on additional SAR lineage through the Pierce family and I'm about ready to submit it.  We are also working on Louise's DAR membership through her mother's side, an ancestor named Darby Shawhan.  He is an interesting study and might be the subject of a future blog.  Many of his descendants became famous whiskey makers.  Louise's application has been submitted and is waiting approval.

I should point out that both the DAR and SAR have extensive genealogy libraries and are more than happy to help you complete a membership application even if you are not into genealogy.  Both are great organizations and I'm looking forward to more activities with them.

The Carnival is Coming to Town

Every year, just as surely as the swallows return to Capistrano, the carnival comes to the vacant field next to our RV park in La Feria.  This morning there was no sign of them; this afternoon the lot is filled with trucks and rides which need to be set up.

This carnival winters a few miles south of La Feria and their first outing of the year is right here in town.  I suppose its kind of a "shakedown" trip for them where they can see what works and what needs to be fixed.  Another thing we have observed about this carnival is that it is almost always accompanied by rain.  This year promises to be no exception since the forecast calls for rain off and on for the rest of the week.

From our standpoint, there are not too many problems with them being there.  We have lost our "dog walk" for the week but there is plenty of room in the park.  They generate quite a bit of noise but it always seems to wind down about the time we go to bed.  One concern we do have is the possibility of theft or vandalism with all the kids being over there.  There is a gate between the park and the lot where the carnival is but park management keeps the gate locked for the week.  So far, we've never had any problems.

We have never talked to any of the people who work there but it would be interesting to find out how far and where they travel to.  I wonder if kids still wander off and join the carnival or circus.  Probably not!

The Great Mannford Gunfight

In October, 2012, I mentioned a gunfight that I had witnessed as a teen.  In 2003, the Keystone Crossroads Historical Society published a book of Mannford history called "Mannford Through The Years" and they asked me to write a short story about it.  Here is a copy of that story.

"One day in 1963, I believe it was on a Saturday afternoon, Mom asked Gary and me to take her car to Ted Norwood's service station for an oil change.

"Since we both worked for him, part time anyway, this was a good reason to go to town. We took the car in and put it on the rack. There were a few people hanging around as they often did, including Roy Russell, the Superintendent of Schools and a good friend of Ted's, the Pepsi route man whose first name was Bill and Willard Oller. Oller was a big man and very overbearing but we weren't particularly scared of him.

"In a little while, a tall, lanky man whom I did not know walked through the door of the station. Almost at once, he and Willard began fighting. I was amazed at this sight - two grown men fighting like school children. Ted told my brother, Gary, to go get Lee White, the local constable, and Gary left in Ted's pickup truck.

"As Willard and the other man fought (I found out later that he was Ted Hix, Willard's brother-in-law) the fight moved from the office out into the shop bay. Although Ted weighed about half of what Willard weighed, he soon began to get the better of Willard. Willard finally got a chance to escape and took off through the door of the station to his Cadillac, which was parked in the drive. I remember standing there in disbelief watching Willard lean over into his car and come out with a .32 automatic pistol. I thought to myself, "He will never use that thing!" The next thing I knew, Willard came back through the door of the station and, without saying a word, started shooting at Ted. I was standing behind Ted, and Bill, the Pepsi route man, pushed me down underneath Mom's car. Ted was hit four times, twice in the chest and twice in the leg. In spite of being shot, he chased Willard out the door of the station, took the gun away from him and tried to shoot him. Fortunately for Willard, the gun had jammed. Willard ran up the hill west from the station.

"About that time, Gary returned with Lee White, who very calmly walked up the hill and told Willard he was going to have to arrest him. Lee took Willard to Sapulpa and the ambulance took Ted to the hospital. I remember that while Ted waited for the ambulance, he sat down on the curb of the station, unlaced the work boot on the leg, which had been shot, and the boot filled up with blood.

"About two hours later, after Gary and I had gone home to relate the story to Mom and Dad, a pickup truck pulled into our driveway. Dad looked out and recognized the two men in it as being employees of Willard Oller. He said, "Well, it looks like we've got trouble!" then he got the 12-gauge shotgun off its rack, loaded it and the three of us, Dad, Gary and I went out into the yard. One of the men got out of their truck and said, "We understand that your boys saw what happened at the station today. We just want to talk to them about it." Dad told them that there was no way we were going to talk to them and with a shotgun pointed at them, they decided not to argue the point. They got into their pickup and drove off.

"Later that evening, I was back at Ted's station and Willard Oller came back in!  He had made bail and bragged that he beat Lee White back to Mannford from Sapulpa. In his usual blustery manner, he was chiding me for ducking under a car when the gunfight was going on. I don't know what he thought I should have been doing!

"During the next six months, I was called out of class four times by County deputies to be served subpoenas, twice for the criminal trial and twice for a civil suit filed by Ted Hix against Willard.

"Willard pled temporary insanity during his trial and was acquitted. He bragged to us later that he had "bought off' the jury". Since it was in Creek County, we all believed him.

"Ted did win a $38,000 judgment although it is not known if any of it was ever paid."

Collections

Everyone needs to collect something.  I don't know why but, as humans, we feel compelled to collect things.  Otherwise, how could a television show called "The Hoarders" survive and even thrive?

I collect several things, including tools and firearms (its a "guy" thing).  But the last few years I've been collecting hourglasses.  The hourglass is the perfect metaphor for life itself and has been used as such by many writers.  the phrase, "sands of time", of course, refers to our life as though it was the sand in an hourglass.

According to Wikipedia, the hourglass was first conceived in about the 8th century AD and was an indispensable part of ocean navigation for hundreds of years as it was used in conjunction with the sextant to determine one's position.  After the development of the mechanical clock, however, the hourglass became a much less popular way to tell time.

So why do I collect them?  Well, there are a couple of reasons.  First, they are generally fairly inexpensive, at least the ones I collect are.  Second, they seem to be pretty rare in flea markets and antique stores so you don't have to spend a lot of money on your collection.  I always, when I enter an antique mall, ask the owners if they have seen any hourglasses.  They almost always reply that, no, they haven't seen any.

In spite of the difficulty in finding hourglasses, I now have a grand total of eleven of them, in all sizes shapes, and materials.  They range in time measurement from three minutes to one hour.  My latest acquisition was given to me yesterday by a dear friend.  She is one of the most thoughtful people I know and she knew that I collected them so she gave me this one.

It's about half way through its 15 minute cycle.  One thing unusual about this hourglass is the color of the sand, almost pitch black.  Joy, thank you very much!

Joy also included a cartoon with it which relates to hourglasses.  Dan Piraro, one of my favorite cartoonists, does a strip called "Bizarro", which is slightly off the wall.  Here is his take on hourglasses:

At any rate, I enjoy collecting hourglasses.  If you happen to find one, think of me.  I'll never forget you!

The Boat Trip

One day in early August, 2003, I returned home and found a message from Foster Harness on the answering machine.  This was a little strange since, though I knew him, I didn’t know him well.

I returned his call and exchanged pleasantries and then he asked if I would be interested in making a boat trip down the Arkansas River.  I instantly replied “Yes!”, since I had thought about doing just that for years.  As it turned out, he had been planning this trip for over a year and had done quite a bit of research on the trip.  He wanted to leave from the park just east of Broken Arrow, Oklahoma on 71^st Street, go through every lock on the Arkansas River and get clear to the Mississippi.

I went to Foster’s house and we sat down and began making plans.  He would take his 25 ft. pontoon boat with a 130 hp Honda outboard and I would take my 19 ft. center console boat with a 125 hp Mercury.  Two of his sons and a friend were going with him and I told him I would find one other person to ride in my boat.  We planned to leave on September 6 and return on September 13 or 14, figuring that it would take eight or nine days to make the round trip.

I starting making plans including testing the boat for fuel consumption, finding a passenger, and making a list of provisions which would be needed.  Although I did not think he would be interested, I called my brother, Gary, and asked if he wanted to go.  Without hesitating, he said, “Count me in”.  During the next couple of weeks, he started helping me with the provisions and planning.

I hadn’t really planned on more than two people in my boat but Gary called one day and told me that he had mentioned the trip to his son-in-law, Bill Schaum, and Bill wanted to go also.  Who was I to say “No”?  Because Bill had a background in retail food, having managed several McDonald’s franchises during the past ten years, he took over the food planning.

We took the boat out and ran it one day over a known course to see what kind of fuel mileage I got.  I ran right at 4 miles per gallon, about normal for a boat of this kind.  I knew it wouldn’t do this good on the trip because it would be loaded to the gunnels with gear but I didn’t know what to expect.  It had a 34 gallon fuel tank, giving me a range of about 120 miles but I wound up taking extra cans totaling 30 gallons anyway.

With about two weeks to go, we had not found anyone else to go with us and we really would like to have had four or five boats on the journey.  Foster and I decided a little publicity wouldn’t hurt so we went down to the local newspaper office and talked them into running a story and picture.  In the story, we stated that we were looking for other people to accompany us.  It didn’t do much good – we didn’t get anyone else to go - but everyone in Mannford knew about the trip.  Meantime, one of Foster’s sons and his friend backed out, leaving just Foster and his son, Mike, on the pontoon boat.

Finally, the appointed day, September 6, came and we met at Bluff Landing Park at 6 am.  Foster’s daughter met us there and saw us off with Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee.  My son, Dan, drove us out there and took the truck home so we would not have to leave it there all week.  At dawn, we idled out of the park in our boats and headed down river!

Our Boat

Foster's Pontoon Boat

For the first couple of hundred feet, the water was full of debris and we had to idle through it.  I wasn’t getting a warm, fuzzy feeling about this.  However, we went through the first lock right at the park, and after getting out of it, we were home free.

Between Tulsa and the Mississippi River, there are seventeen locks and dams on the Navigation Channel and we planned to go through every one of them twice, once going and once returning.  We almost made that goal but more about that later.

The scenery on the trip was beautiful.  We spent most of each day motoring down the channel, looking at the views and trying to stay even with Foster.  His pontoon boat would max out at about 23 to 24 mph, while my boat would start to fall off plane at about that same speed.  Because of this, we couldn’t run down the channel side by side so I would run way ahead of him, and wait until he caught us.  After he had passed us and gone almost out of sight, we would start up again.  Each one of these “cycles” took about 30 minutes.

We quickly learned that the time you make on the river is largely dependent on how you catch the locks.  We had marine radios in the boats so we would radio ahead to each lock when we were about two miles out.  If they had no other activity going on, they would be ready for us when we got there and it would take about 20 minutes to get through the lock.  If there was a barge tow ahead of us, especially if it was a really long one, it could take as long as three hours for us to get our turn.  Pleasure craft, after all, are last in line at the locks.

The first day we made pretty good time and got to near Ozark, Arkansas.  We found a sandy beach and pulled up on it to make camp.  All of our plans about cooking food quickly went out the window and we resorted to the vienna sausage and pork and beans diet.  After this wonderful meal, we went to bed.  The first night I tried to sleep in the bottom of the boat and it was miserable.  The space almost didn’t allow me to roll over, which I like to do.  However, we did survive it and headed off the next morning, Sunday, toward the waiting Mississippi.

We didn’t fare nearly as well on Sunday with the lock situation and only made it as far as Little Rock before night began to close in.  In fact, we did have to wait three hours at one lock on Sunday because of a double length barge tow and then had to wait over an hour at our fueling stop for the fuel attendant to show.  Fuel continued to be a constant concern and we weren’t about to skip any places to buy gasoline.

When we got to Little Rock, we found a little cove just off the main river channel and tied up there.  I had decided that I was not going to spend another night sleeping on the boat, but there was no place on shore to sleep except in the middle of a poison ivy patch.  I opted for the boat again.  Gary said he was not going to sleep there so he took his sleeping bat and went up over the hill.

Once again, the sleep situation was miserable and I felt claustrophobic where I was lying.  Finally morning came and Gary came staggering down the hill.  I asked how his night had gone and he said “just fine but I did get a surprise when I woke up!”  I asked him what the surprise was and he said that when he woke up and looked around, he was sleeping just off the green on the 13^th hole of a golf course!

Monday, the third day, we began to have much better luck with locks and dams than we had the previous day and we began to sense that, with a little luck, we might be able to reach the Mississippi today.  Also, we found a Corps of Engineers Park on the river that had showers and we got to take our first showers of the trip.

We did get a bit of a surprise when we got to the Pendleton Bridge, near Dumas, Arkansas.  The marina where we had planned to fuel up was out of business!  We knew that we didn’t have enough gasoline to get to the Mississippi River, turn around and go clear back to Pine Bluff, where we had last bought fuel.  Fortunately, we talked a fisherman into taking all of our portable cans up to a Convenience Store and filling them up.  This did set us back about 45 minutes, however.

Finally, at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, we pulled out into the Mississippi River at Mile 590.  The current in the Arkansas River Navigation Channel had been about 2 mph; the current in the Mississippi was over 7 mph!  You could sure tell the difference.  We pulled across the Mississippi and got out of the boats just to be able to say we had been there.  Since it was going to be dark in about an hour, we had to head back upstream to a camping site we had selected.

On the way back upstream, Bill spotted a black bear and pointed it out to us.  It had come down to the bank of the river and was just standing there watching us.  As soon as I turned the boat around to go back and get a better view, the bear vanished.

After going through two locks going back upstream it was almost totally dark when we got to the park we had decided on.  Instead of being able to look for a good camping spot, we decided to just tie up at the courtesy dock next to a boat ramp for the night.  I was not going to spend another night on the boat so I took my sleeping bag and made a bed on the dock.

We had not been bothered by mosquitoes up to this point but they were thick this night.  Fortunately, I was able to douse myself in insect repellent and avoid getting bit.  For a while, however, the buzzing of these critters was enough to keep me from sleeping.

Tuesday morning, we got up and prepared to leave.  We had been cautioned to take an extra propeller with us and I found out why this morning.  I was trying to back out of the little cove we were in and hit something underwater.  It messed the prop up good but we got the spare on quickly.

We once again headed upstream, knowing that we were considerably ahead of our original schedule.  Like a bunch of stupid men, however, we approached the whole trip like it was a race!  The next time, I’ll slow down and take my time.

We got back into Little Rock about 4:00 p.m. on Tuesday and decided to have the first decent meal we had had during the trip.  There was a place called “Gator’s” on the river and we went in there, body odor and all.  I swear, this was the best meal I had had in years.  After we ate, we quickly got up to the Little Rock Yacht Club where we bought fuel and started looking for a place to camp.

Tuesday night was the best night of the trip for sleeping.  We found a sand bar off the main channel of the river and threw our sleeping bags out on it.  That sand really felt good.

Wednesday was another good day as far as timing the locks went.  We seemed to get through each one of them almost immediately.  We knew we were making good time and toward the end of the day on Wednesday, we knew that we could get home the next day, arriving back a full two days ahead of plan.  We also knew that the weather had been perfect for five days and was going to change on Thursday.  We had had five days of full sunshine and little wind, something unusual for Arkansas and Oklahoma.

Finally, at about 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday, we got through Kerr Lock and Dam near Sallisaw.  Our last fuel stop was at Applegate Marina on Kerr and we knew they would be closed.  We also knew that we couldn’t get all the way home without adding fuel, so we decided to spend the night on Applegate’s dock, get fuel the next morning, and head out.

When we woke the next morning at 6:30, the wind was howling and the sky was gray.  Gary, Bill, and I talked it over and decided that it was not important to us to be able to say that we went all the way back to Tulsa.  We decided that we would call my son, Dan, and have him meet us at Three Rivers Landing in Muskogee.  We told Foster and his son about our plan but they wanted to go ahead and go all the way back to Tulsa.

Since our boat was not going to go all the way back, we knew we had enough fuel to get to Three Rivers so we took off, leaving Foster and Mike to wait on gasoline.  The trip across Kerr was absolutely frightening!  The waves were running three to four feet and that was really too much for our boat.  We were pounded like you wouldn’t believe but it still had not started to rain.

We finally got across Kerr to Gore Landing, just below Webbers Falls Lock and Dam.  We called in to the Lock on the radio but were advised that a barge tow had just gotten there and it was going to be about two hours before we could get through.  By this point, we were all about through boating so we decided to call Dan and have him come on down to Gore City Park and pick us up there.

We pulled over there to wait on Dan and while we were waiting, Bill and I walked up to a small café in Gore.  We got three great big breakfasts to go and took them back to the boat.  Again, this was awfully good eating!

Finally, Dan got there with the boat trailer and we got the boat loaded just as it started to rain.  We headed back toward Tulsa and it began to pour.  We were all glad that we had decided to “chicken out” at Gore.

Later, when we talked to Foster, he told us that the trip across Webbers Falls was just as hair-raising as Kerr had been.  On top of that, he and Mike got drenched in the rain.  Because the visibility was so poor, he got out of the channel at one point and hit a submerged rock.  He knew he had done some damage but he kept going.

He later found out that he had ruined his prop, bent the prop shaft in the motor, and knocked the skag, or bottom fin, off of it.  The total damages amounted to about $1400 but Foster was so happy about the trip that he didn’t even mind it.

When we got back, Gary and I agreed that we had said about everything that we had to say to each other for a while.  After all, we had spent six days in the boat with each other.  We decided that, when we saw each other at Mom’s house or somewhere else, we would just nod at each other.

The trip was one of those events where, when you finish it, your first reaction is that you would never do it again.  Then, about a week later, you start making plans to do it the next year.  Oh well, we’ll wait and see!

[Footnote: Nine months later, Gary passed away of a massive heart attack.  I was so thankful that I had gotten to spend this time on the water with him.  Also, I did make the river trip again, this time with my son, Dan.]