INTERESTING TIMES

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?

--BY ROBERT HAYDEN

This video is of people from a Georgia paddling club running a whitewater river in the classic craft of the 1970's and 80's. That is when I began running rivers, in the same region. The equipment has changed substantially. The river is still the same. The video is mostly filmed on the Chattooga, where I spent years paddle raft guiding and safety boating (kayak).

The Chattooga river still shows up in my dreams. Section IV of the Chattooga is where I became conscious, woke up, began to see past the tip of my own nose and into the people and world around me. There's some nostalgia and a certain electricity for me in seeing these old boats on familiar waters with such southern-sounding rock playing in the background. This video is inside my head already.

Contrast this with the trailer for a more current whitewater video here and you'll know why I backed down from the cutting edge. No need to go anywhere near THAT edge. I'm too old and too female for that.

I was 11 years old, it was 1977. My father had bought me a mark IV kayak cut down to child size. It was fiberglass, red on top and white on the bottom. It was pointy and fast. It was light; I could lift it.

My legs were already gangly and long, and my feet were jammed down into the child size boat in an uncomfortable way. My dad was in his canoe. He kept trying to instruct me by yelling from his canoe. I was overwhelmed. The river was mild and slow, but I was slower and out of control.
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