1999
Uncle Wally's Weirder Than Real Paddling Adventures (Ozarks)
by Uncle Wally
They say that, when in Rome, you should do as the Romans do. But when in the Ozarks, stay away from low water bridges no matter what the locals tell you.
Now, a low water bridge is an easily decipherable mystery. It's a structure across a watercourse that's a bridge when the water's low enough and a ford when the crick comes up. And when it's been rainin' REALLY hard, it's just an awful tight spot for a U-turn. I'd lived a large portion of my life in blissful ignorance of the existence of low water bridges before my Kansas City connections took me on a bona fide Ozark float trip. Then I got to meet one up close and personal.
A bona fide Ozark float trip turned out to be a colorful, cross-cultural experience carried out by a host of characters of questionable skill and sobriety. They don't do things in a small way down in the Ozarks. There were more folks than you could count out floating the river that Saturday. Not everybody was in our party, mind you. But, bein' an outsider, I had only the vaguest of notions who was with whom. Not that it mattered much. Folks are pretty friendly down there, especially as the beer coolers get lighter in the afternoon.
I paddled with my ol' buddy, Ralph. Ralph's son, Gary, paddled with his current love interest, Jody. There were a few other, familiar faces amongst the crowd paddling alongside. Well, paddling is probably too strong a word for what we were doin'. Except for a stroke dropped in here and there to negotiate a bend or avoid a rock, there was very little paddling going on. It was a very relaxed, put-your-feet-up-on-the-gunwales sort of affair. It wasn't the kind of paddling I usually do, but a fellow could get used to it.
Then, late in the afternoon, right when everybody was far more relaxed than was really good for 'em, we came to the low water bridge. We rounded a bend and there it was, stretched like a tollbooth gate, right across the river. A pick-up truck was just rumbling back onto the gravel at the far end of it.
"Dang!" cried Ralph "the river's real low this time! Last time we was here, we could paddle right over this thing."
We pulled over on the gravel bar just upstream from the bridge to consider our options. I looked up the road from the end of the bridge. The truck was outta sight and the dust of its passage was just beginning to settle. I had a disquieting vision of being in a canoe floating over this bridge in higher water just as someone came thundering down the road in a hurry to get home from the grocery store before the ice cream melted or something. Of all the hazards I'd encountered while canoeing, being run over by a pick-up truck while on the water was an entirely new and unpleasant possibility.
But there was no danger of that today. There was a good foot or so of air space between the water and the underside of the bridge. I figured we'd just lift the boats over the bridge and be on our way. But my paddling companions would hear nothing of that. Just as "low water bridge" had not been a part of my paddling vocabulary, "portage" was not a part of theirs. So we sat and studied the problem a bit.
"Danged if this river ain't way too low to let us float over this thing and just a tad too high to let us float under it!" declaimed Ralph, taking another swig of Budweiser to help steady his thoughts. I tried reminding them of the "around" option, but nobody listened.
"The thing to do," began Gary, "is to just float the boats through with nobody in 'em and then get back in on the other side."
"Now, that's an idea!" seconded Ralph. The two of them waded Gary and Jody's boat out to the center of the closest span and tried to persuade it to squeeze submissively under the flat, concrete slab. But the boat didn't go. Its prow hit squarely on the upstream side of the bridge, riding just a fraction of an inch too high to slip underneath. "I guess you emptied your cooler too soon," suggested Ralph. "It's too light."
"Hey, Jody!" yelled Gary, "Come give us a hand with this boat!"
When Jody went to render assistance, Gary said, "Why don't you lie down in the bottom of the boat to make it ride lower and then we'll just push you through?"
Well, I could think of any number of reasons why Jody shouldn't. This was shaping up into a perfect example of why canoeing so often has a way of turning current love interests into former love interests. But Jody was either far too good a sport or she had an unshakable faith in her favorable standing with her Creator. 'Cause she lay down in the bottom of the canoe just aft of the cooler, hands folded across her chest and lookin' a little like Queen Nefertiti on her final voyage. And then the boat did slip under the bridge. But only for a little way.
Trouble is, a low water bridge is a lowly and functional piece of roadwork. Nobody trowels out the underside as smooth as a baby's behind. It is rough and rugged concrete, full of little cavities and craters where the river has washed away some of the aggregate. The upsweep on the bow and stern of the canoe kept catching neatly in every available depression with an echoing clang of aluminum. This stopped downstream progress of the boat every few inches and sent a little shower of silty dust down on the unwary passenger.
"Hey, you guys aren't gonna get me stuck under here, are you?" Jody's voice came echoing out from under the bridge. The tone was taunting and still cheerful.
"Naw, darlin', we'll have you out in no time!" lied Gary, laboring manfully in waist-deep water to pull the boat down out of its present resting place and yank it a few more inches downstream.
After a few minutes of patient silence, Jody's voice came floating out to us again. "Aw, Gary! There's spiders under this bridge! Get me outta here!" The cheerfulness was all gone.
The thought of being stuck, immobile, in a canoe on the dark side of a bridge with spiders crawling a few inches from one's face was enough to send shivers down even my spine. I decided this pointless exercise in portage avoidance had turned into a rescue mission and I waded into the fray. I just hoped another pick-up truck wouldn't rumble by overhead.
The three of us managed to counteract buoyancy enough to gradually inch the boat back out into the daylight. By now, we had garnered quite an audience as boat traffic caught up to us. There was a considerable amount of helpful advice being loudly offered by the assemblage. Most of it was aimed at Gary and had to do with the way a fella ought to treat his date. He was gonna be hearin' about this for a while.
At first, Jody was pretty happy just to be out from under the bridge and out of the boat again. Then, for his part in the escapade, Gary got his head ducked under water a few times by his beloved. The crowd roundly applauded his penance. Jody had the weight of public opinion on her side.
Well, I wasn't about to volunteer to be ballast for our boat, even if I would have weighed it down substantially more than Jody had. And Ralph wasn't about to carry the boat around the bridge. So, he ended up tippin' the canoe sideways and fillin' it halfway up with water. THEN it slid under that lowly, concrete span. I let him do the bailing afterwards.
It woulda been easier to portage.
Well, anyway, after that, the rest of our trip was pretty uneventful. And I guess Gary made it up to Jody somehow, 'cause last I heard, they were still an item. So, I guess the whole incident is just water under the bridge to them now. Though I'm
sure they both still remember how it was that the boat didn't fit.
* * * * *
Well,'til next time, keep your paddle wet. And keep in touch. Drop me a line c/o Mickey McBride, 8191 Belden Blvd., Cottage Grove MN 55106 or mickeymcb@worldnet.att.net. Let me know if you've ever found yourself in an uncomfortably tight situation when you've been out paddling. Remember, Uncle Wally promises to 1) tell the truth so no one would ever believe it anyway and 2) never reveal your true identity to anyone, not even Ann Landers.
