MCA HUT! Archive

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. But tryin’ to break an old paddler of an old habit is an even tougher assignment.
Now, we all have our little quirks. The world would be a pretty dull place if we didn’t, I guess. But some quirks are more functional than others. And some are just accidents waiting to happen.

As an example, take the fact that I always check three times before I lock the door to be sure my car keys are clipped to something in my dry bag instead of left lyin’ on the seat of the shuttle vehicle. That’s a functional quirk. Or when I’m down in the Ozarks, I always pull the canoe up the gravel bar higher than the tent for the night and tie it off to some scrub willow or something. That’s a functional quirk, too, especially if it’s likely to rain hard. On the other hand, my always car-topping my boat so the bow faces forward when I’m drivin’ down the road, that probably serves no useful purpose whatsoever. But I do it anyway, for luck.

In the accidents waitin’ to happen category is my old friend, Floyd. Now, if you think I’m old enough to have helped Noah off the ark, you should meet Floyd. He’s been messin’ around in canoes since Methuselah was a kid. And he hasn’t changed much in the interim. Ol’ Floyd has a pure and open disdain for most advances in technology. And you’re not likely to change his mind about much of anything.

I’m kinda surprised ol’ Floyd ever progressed beyond birchbark. But his own boat is wood and canvas. Aluminum canoes get a cool nod of approval from Floyd. But he sneers at fiberglass and Royalex. And Kevlar rates a loud snort of contempt. Don’t even show him a carbon fiber paddle: he’d probably bust a gut laughin’ at it.

Now I don’t see anything wrong with a bein’ a traditionalist in most things. I have a few leanings that way myself. I can appreciate the look of an old wood and canvas canoe out on the water or the feel of a nice wooden paddle in my hand. But sometimes I worry about ol’ Floyd. ‘Cause he does tend to make life harder for himself. If he’s gonna insist on wearin’ wool long johns when we go duck huntin’ in October, I figure that’s his own itchy affair. But for the sake of his boat, not to mention numerous potential, innocent bystanders, I do wish he’d stop usin’ nothing but bungee cords to keep his canoe on his car.

I know I’m wastin’ my breath before I even start, but every time I help him hoist that venerable boat of his back onto his vehicle, I just gotta say it. "Floyd, why don’t you try usin’ my boat straps? They’re just as easy to use as those bungees of yours and they hold way better."

"Nah!" he’ll always reply with a rumble of disgust comin’ from somewhere deep in his throat, "yer not gonna ketch me usin’ yer fancy, new-agey toys."

"Well, you ever heard of rope?" I’ll suggest. "That’s been around way longer’n bungees."
"Bungees are easier’n rope," he’ll counter.

"Since when are you interested in easy?" I’ll protest. "I thought you liked doin’ everything the hard way."

"Wally," he’ll say, lookin’ me square in the eyes with that steely-blue glare of his comin’ from under bristling eyebrows, "you always were a lazy son-of-sailor."

"You know good and well that rope’ll hold a boat way better’n bungees ever could," I’ll persist, ignoring the attempt at character assassination.

"Never lost a boat yet," he’ll serenely reply and turn back to bungeeing his boat.
"Yeah, so you’ve been lucky," I’ll reply. "Just wait."

About this time he’ll snap, "Quit flappin’ yer jaws and help me hook this thing down!" And that’ll be the end of the enlightened discourse on the matter.

Last year Floyd surprised me by showin’ up for duck hunting without his classy old Prospector. Instead, he brought along the aluminum boat we had salvaged the previous year. It was a beat-up old Saugenay 16-footer and it was in pretty tough shape. We found it sunk in some twisty little creek while we were out huntin’ and Floyd had insisted on comin’ back in overland next day to haul it out. He had us drivin’ down some pretty theoretical roads to get at it. But we relocated it and hauled it out.

Don’t know why Floyd took such a shine to that old wreck. He’s not sentimental enough to feel sorry for it. And it’s not like he resented it as an unsightly blot on the wilderness: he’s not the kind to go around pickin’ up other people’s trash. Maybe it was because the canoe was so old. And maybe it was just the idea of gettin’ something for nothing that appealed to him. Not that it was worth anything. Rivets had popped out, leaving the keel gaping. There were a coupla ragged, vertical cracks in the hull. And there were so many dents, the overall effect was that of an aluminum pie plate someone had had second thoughts about after crumpling it up to throw away. It was a mess.
I halfway suspected he was haulin’ it away to sell as scrap. But he didn’t. He took it home and tinkered endlessly with it that winter. He pounded out the dents, re-riveted the keel, and took it to an aluminum welder to patch the cracks in the hull. Now here it was, in scarred but seaworthy splendor, ready for the maiden voyage of its second life.

Floyd had his reincarnated boat hooked to the top of his car with his archaic bungees. Those things looked like they’d been around ever since hooks were first attached to rubber to create the illusion of a secure tie-down. I think he got ‘em for 5¢ a pair at somebody’s garage sale. But I didn’t feel like proselytizing about his technical insufficiencies this time. I figured that resurrected piece of scrap metal atop the car wasn’t worth the argument. I didn’t even point out that Floyd had put the boat on the car stern first, which is unlucky. Floyd thinks I’m weird enough already.

We just got in the car and started drivin’ for the river. It wasn’t far. I was idly starin’ out the windshield, tryin’ to be stoic about Floyd’s driving, when I saw something kinda odd. The stern of the boat, which had been hangin’ down over the middle of the windshield, suddenly lifted, like an airplane nosin’ up off the runway, to give me a less obstructed view of the sky.

"Floyd, your boat’s not down tight enough," I counseled. Floyd just grunted and kept on drivin’.

"Floyd, your boat’s airborne," I corrected myself as I watched the boat slide kinda sideways offa the car and go sailin’ like a kite, stern pointin’ poignantly skyward.

But canoes, even those made from leftover aircraft aluminum, aren’t designed to provide much lift. As I turned to watch and Floyd slammed on the brakes, the boat demonstrated that rule about what goes up must come down. It pitoned, bow first, almost squarely on the center line of the highway as if it’d been dropped from the sky after a tornadic ride from Kansas to Oz. Then it rolled a few times across the oncoming lane before coming to rest among the drying weeds and grasses in the ditch.

Floyd and I walked over to assess the damage. I gallantly refrained from sayin’, "I told you so," mostly ‘cause I figured a smug and satisfied silence would be more effective anyway. There was a huge dent in the starboard side of the bow. After all its reconstructive surgery, the boat was gonna hafta go in again for a nose job.

Miraculously, nothin’ else looked busted. All the new rivets and welds held. When Floyd had surveyed his boat from stem to stern, he grunted and said, "That ain’t so bad. Just needs a bigger hammer to take out that dent an’ I can do that later. Let’s go huntin’."

So we lifted the boat back onto the car. We couldn’t find any trace of the bungees. So we never did figure out if those old things broke or just came unhooked. Either way, Floyd didn’t care. He had spare ones in the trunk. I just shook my head as we rebungeed the wounded boat back onto the car. Old dogs learn their lessons faster’n ol’ Floyd does. You can’t teach him a new trick unless it was his idea to start with.

Well, ‘til next time, keep your paddle wet. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Rich Furman and Morgan MacBain, 901 East Geranium Avenue, St. Paul MN 55106 or editor@canoe-kayak.org. Let me hear all about the improvement-resistant paddler in your life. Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so no one will ever believe it anyway and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even the FAA.