Back in the 70′s, C. W. McCall (Bill Fries) along with Chip Davis (Yeah, THAT Chip Davis) wrote a song called Green River. If you’d like to listen to the original, here’s a link:

I suppose you are  probably wondering why I am even bringing up an almost 40 year old song. Well, you see, it’s like this: Evil Kat.

Come on… You knew The Supreme Redhead had to be involved in this somehow…

Back in the days when it was just E K and her leashed pets – that being two canines and one husband (I can’t complain, she bought me a really nice collar with an engraved tag that said Property of Evil Kat on it) we used to go on float trips CONSTANTLY. For non-Missourians – as I have found that the term “float-trip” is not universal – a float trip is where you rent a canoe, get dropped off with it and your coolers, and paddle/float yourself down a river to the “take-out point,” which can either be where you parked originally, or a different place where they pick you up and bring you back to your car.

This is intended to be fun. As a rule, it usually is. Like I said, back in the day, E K would leash us up, put us in the car, and off we’d go. There was one year I recall that we went on float trips almost every weekend for the entire summer. AND, truth be told, a float trip was EKay’s and my first official date – and she still married me anyway. But that’s a different blog that I’ll tell sometime in the future.

At any rate, back to the here and now. For several years after the O-spring came along, we stopped “floating” – primarily due to time constraints. However, now that she is older and can come along with us, and can swim, and all that good stuff, E K has made it her mission in life to see to it that we go on at least one float per summer, if not more. With that, she has started scheduling an end of summer float with friends for the past two years. One more year and it becomes a tradition…

Last year’s float, while it had a couple of mildly harrowing incidents, was almost completely unremarkable as compared to this year’s canoeing odyssey – which occurred just yesterday,  Saturday August 27…

I knew it would become a blog when we were less than a mile into the float. Why? Because Steve, Mary, and Tammy flipped. Not as in “flipped someone off,” or “flipped out”… Although, they DID flip out of the canoe, so I guess in a way they DID flip out. Basically, Mary’s sunglasses “flipped” off her head, Steve tried to grab them, they all shifted in the canoe, and… Well… Moments later we were standing on a gravel bar emptying water from their craft and then reloading it with their coolers.

But what REALLY told me this would be a blog was that while we were reloading their “boat,” some other canoers came around the bend, merrily singing “Row, Row, Row your boat.” To this, a waterlogged Mary muttered under her breath, “I’ll show you row, row your f*cking boat… Quit your damn singing.”

After that, it was all over for us. The river proceeded to exact revenge upon each and every member of our group. E K, O-Spring, and I flipped – something that literally has NOT happened since the second time E K and I went floating (We are actually pretty damn good “canoe drivers”). Mary was taken down by a slippery rock and banged the crap out of her knee. Same thing then happened to the O-spring. We were caught in a snag and I had to bail out of the canoe and fight the current to get us free. Later, during a similar operation I was sucked under the canoe while E K and the O-spring were still aboard and became a speed bump after I loosed it – then the current popped me back up above the surface, but still had hold of me and I tumbled over rocks for several feet until I could get a handhold. Of course, E K and the O-spring were now 300 yards down the river and I had to walk the rocks to get to them. There was plenty more, actually, but this blog is already over 1000 words, so I need to give it a bit of a rest… Instead, what I will try to do is recount our adventure through rewriting C. W.’s tune…

Meramec River

It was daylight on the river but we weren’t having any fun
And we couldn’t find our cooler cups no more
But we felt the boilin’ current and the spring was runnin’ cold
As we headed down the river two plus four
And the rocks were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

[Chorus]
And we died a thousand times in that nine miles of hell
The longest day of life we’d ever seen
But we lived to tell the story and we know the story well
Then we ate some dinner at a truck stop

We were four plus two in number when we gathered on the shore
And we loaded up our coolers full of beer
But we summoned up our courage an’ we said we wouldn’t scream
And we ran that rocky river without fear
Yeah, the logs were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle RIGHT!
E K – HANG LEFT!
Mary – WHAT THE FUUUU–
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – Here, hold my beer…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!

And we saw a thousand floaters hung up on the snags and logs
As we fought to keep ourselves from their fate
And we saw the bobbing beer cans and we heard the ghostly cries
Of the drunks who ran the river long ago
And the rocks were kickin’ our asses
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle LEFT!
E K – SERPENTINE! SERPENTINE!
Mary – STOP SINGING!!
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – Here, hold my beer…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!
Steve – Whatever…
Mary – Dammit, Steve!
E K – Those assholes just threw trash in the river!
Tammy – GODDAMMIT!
Murv – (clunk clunk) … I’m okay… I think…Gimme a beer…
O-Spring – Squeeeeee!

Now the memories are swirlin’ down the campground shower drains
But the waters of the Meramec flow like tears
And the rocks and snags and crashes will be a long remembered tale
To be told around the campfires through the years
Yeah, the rocks were tryin’ to kill us
On the day we ran the rapids of the Meramec

[Chorus]
And we died a thousand times in that nine miles of hell
The longest day of life we’d ever seen
But we lived to tell the story and we know the story well
Then we ate some dinner at a truck stop

Echoing Shouts:
Steve – Paddle RIGHT… NO, LEFT!
E K – O-spring, give me the paddle!
Mary – I can’t bend my knee…
Tammy – GODDAMIT!
Murv – We should have brought Scotch…
O-spring – Squeeeeeee!
Steve – Lookit that fish…
Mary – How does our canoe look?
E K – Look, Mary, a snake…
Mary – (SCREAM)
Tammy – GODDAMMIT!
Murv – There’s a blog in this…
O-Spring – Here, hold my Gatorade…

Fade out

And there you have it. We made it home alive… Late. We’re bruised and battered and sore and blood was shed (I’m not kidding)…

Funny thing is, I have a physical tomorrow. Before you ask, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just a “coming up on 50,000 mile” service check sort of thing. I suspect the doc won’t even mention the bruises and scrapes. He’s used to seeing me after E K has been “in a mood”…

More to come…

Murv

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I wasn’t the most popular kid in school.

Hell, let’s be honest, I wasn’t popular at all. I was the target of bullies who were looking for someone to beat on. I was the subject of cruel pranks by popular girls who thought it would be great fun to convince me they “liked me” in that adolescent raging hormone sort of fashion, only to turn around and deride me in front of our peers, en masse, all for the purpose of a giggle at my embarrassment.

Of course, I sort of brought it on myself depending upon how you look at it. I’m not “pretty.” Just sort of average looking. However, when you take average – or even pretty – and hang a scientific calculator from its belt, then give it a pocket protector and a briefcase… Well, you’ve got “Revenge of the Nerds” happening right in front of you. Yeah… That was me. So, in effect, I painted a target on my forehead every single morning – usually around a big ol’ cyclops zit, but that’s just standard puberty for you.

So… Where am I going with this? Someplace different, actually…

You see, my daughter just started Middle School – what we used to call Junior High back about 1000 years ago. Of course, since she’s reaching that “age” there are more and more moments when my wife (E K) and I are persona non grata. Just the old ‘rents that have to be ignored, because we are so out of touch and never ever, ever were her age, so we just can’t understand. However, in between our annoying tendencies to do ‘rent stuff, such as reminding her to do her homework, withholding her allowance when she neglects her household chores, or even sternly explaining why it’s against our rules to leave a half-eaten cheese sandwich under the couch, we have our “moments.”

What I mean by that is we have a pretty great relationship with our kid, and there are those times when she actually converses with us on a one to one level, without disdain, eye-rolling, or “you-just-don’t-understand sighs” punctuating every sentence fragment.

And so, I had one of those moments just the other day. Our brilliant child (seriously – she’s in the gifted program, but I’ll refrain from bragging. For now…) Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah… Our brilliant child was babbling incessantly to me as we headed to the store. Having just started Middle School, everything is new and different. Fun and exciting. A brave new world, so to speak… She paused for a moment and then said, “What was your favorite part of school, Dad?”

Well, as I started out with this blog, you can probably tell that school was sort of a self-contained hell for me. However, like our daughter, it too had its moments. I really enjoyed learning new stuff. I still do. That’s part of the allure of school, even though academia, in and of itself, is not my thing. They didn’t have a Gifted program when I was “in the system.” The best they could do was try skipping me grades which was a social nightmare and was nixed by my parents. So, that led to me being an underachiever for part of my primary education. Fortunately, that only lasted a couple of years, because I discovered extracurricular activities that were actual learning venues tied into classes – The school radio station, the newspaper, the yearbook, the school literary magazine, and even Drama Club… All of these provided me with a creative outlet as well as an advanced learning opportunity. I loved all of them. They literally kept me from pissing away my High School years, even with all of the bullying. Of course, there are certain teachers who were directly responsible as well – I’ve mentioned them here before – Martha Ackmann, Martha Osthoff, Mary Martin, Edward Ross, and others…

It was also during this time that I began honing my sarcastic sense of humor, primarily as a defense mechanism against the bullies, some of whom were even members of the extracurricular clubs that were keeping me interested in school. I was bound and determined that these bullies would not take THOSE away from me too.

But, I need to avoid being maudlin here… That’s not really what this is about. It’s about my kid asking me what my favorite part of school was. It didn’t take much thought for me to answer. I proceeded to “wax poetical” for several minutes about how wonderful the Radio Station, Yearbook, Lit Mag, Newspaper, and Drama Club were. How I looked forward to them, and how they tied into classes, and how I still hold truly fond memories of them today.

After my verbose, detailed, and flowery soliloquy, I paused.  Glancing over at the O-spring for a brief second, I asked, “So, what’s your favorite part?”

Without missing a beat, she replied, “I like the lockers.”

Sometimes it’s the simple things… And, I guess when you get right down to brass tacks, it’s all just a matter of perspective…

More to come…

Murv