Grew up on the Mississippi and was around the water all the time. But we were always in John boats. I was intrigued by the canoes I’d noticed people paddling on a nearby stream, Castor River, and tried one out before I was old enough to drive. Decided they were a lot easier to paddle than a John boat and paddled them as often as I could scrounge up the bucks to rent one through the mid to late '70’s.
By the early '80’s I was drooling over canoes in catalogs but there were no local retailers that sold them until a local boat shop obtained a few Lowe Canoes made in Lebanon, MO. Put one of them in layaway and a few paychecks later I owned my first canoe, which I later named “The pig.” Paddled her on many an Ozark stream and she only let me swim once; hitting a log during an ill-advised paddle on a flooded Castor River paddle with a friend. Heck, she even kept me dry on a whitewater paddle where the only paddlers you’ll see now are in short, “Bagged” whitewater canoes and kayaks. I sold her to a paddling friend several years later when I graduated Nursing school and decided I’d get a nicer, lighter canoe.
I tried kayaks for a few years, but there is so much more pleasure to be had in an open boat and a single blade paddle. I’ve had the pleasure of owning and paddling dozens of boats, but circumstances have led me to trim our fleet to just a few. I’m fortunate to have a good friend and a wife whom paddle and I paddle most weeks of the year. I also relish our twice a year Paddling.net Rendezvous when I get to see many of my old paddling friends. I cannot remember the book, but there is a quote that sums up my mindset perfectly; “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
