The Boat

Well, my dad posted about the boat he remembers while growing up in Minnesota, so I thought it would only be fair to mention the boat I remember when I was growing up in Eastern Oregon.  I’m not sure what kind of boat it was, but I do know that I always trusted it like I would trust a gold toothed bank robber.

Whenever I think of that boat, I’m filled with wonder that I ever made it beyond childhood.  It was a small boat, yet I remember numerous times having it packed with mom and dad, gear, food, and four kids – and barely staying afloat.  I’d guess that by today’s standards, we were a little over loaded.  Dad used to enjoy taking real sharp turns because he knew as the water crept dangerously close to the top of the boat on such turns, it would cause a high pitched squeal from his youngest son – his youngest son who to this day insists those were squeals of delight, but the rest of the family remembers as screeches of fear.  What do they know, anyways?  Despite the many warnings the boat gave us of its less than ideal temperament, we insisted on taking that boat places it flat didn’t think we should be.  This blog from Outdoor Odyssey reminded me of one such trip.

We headed out to Owyhee Reservoir to do some bass fishing – and this was a special event because Owyhee was our prime bass water, but it was also a large body of water that we generally stayed away from because of the unpredictability of our beautiful floating vessel.  “We” included Dad, Grandpa, my two older brothers, and myself.  You’ll have to excuse the fuzzy details as they are recalled from the depths of my memory as this must have occurred around the time I was seven years old or so.  We hit the lake and started up the reservoir.  Initially, we had wanted to stay close to the ramp, but shoot, the reservoir is 52 miles long, so what’s the fun in just hanging around the ramp when there is 52 miles of fishing to do?  We crept a little further and a little further from the ramp.  We hit a cove here, then noticed a nice looking cove just a little ways further.  We kept this up, till in one fateful cove, as we packed ‘er up to head to the next nice looking cove, the engine decided it’d had enough.  Nothing.  Not even a whisper of energy left in it.  My mechanical father tried everything – from telling the boat what a beauty she was and how sleek and shiny she was to telling it what an ugly brute it was and some other things I didn’t quite catch.  Finally, we succumbed to the reality that we were going to have to paddle back.  We were now several miles up the reservoir – and to a seven year old it seemed like we were 50 miles up the reservoir.   We realized we had just one old wooden paddle, some rope, and a few old whipped cream cartons.  It’s amazing what becomes a paddle when one is desperate enough.  Some might scoff at how unprepared we were, but when it comes to fishing, the only things we think about are: fishing pole? Check.  Tackle box?  Check.  Let’s go fishin’ and we’ll worry about what might happen later.

Off we went – paddling with our one oar and our whipped cream cartons.  Then we realized we had the rope, and we could just tie on to the boat, and Dad and my oldest brother, Benji, would take turns towing the boat along shore.  Then it was discovered that I had an Oregon State Beaver shirt on.  To this day, that is the most confusing part of the story – I have no idea what my family full of Oregon Duck fans was doing allowing me to wear such an atrocious shirt!  But, it was orange, and thus we figured it to be the most visible.  I was designated as the waver.  Any time a boat became visible, I was to stand up and wave the shirt as high over my head as I could.  Still today, that is pretty much the only use for an OSU Beaver shirt that I could possibly imagine.  Apparently, there were no Beaver fans on the water that day, though.  We decided it was going to be a long journey back.

After what seemed to be forever, we finally made it to the ramp – or at least parallel to it, but on the wrong side of the long and narrow reservoir, and now we had to traverse the deep water and there would be no towing.  I say “narrow” but when all you’re armed with is one oar and a host of whipped cream cartons, there is no such thing as a narrow reservoir.  I continued to wave my shirt in hopes that I might look busy and get out of having to help paddle.  Didn’t happen.  You should have seen this site – Dad using the one oar, Grandpa and the three kids paddling away with little whipped cream cartons for all we were worth!  Not exactly the power of 200 horses at our command, but we were moving.  We made it more than half way across, and still nobody is stopping to help us.  We made it three quarters of the way, and as a boat went by on the other side of the reservoir, I jumped up and began waving – and they slowed down.  Then, they turned in our direction.  They were coming to help us!  We were so glad for the help – no matter that it came after we’d nearly made it the entire way ourselves because we were truly exhausted.

The one good thing that came from that day is the boat vanished.  Maybe it is because I was just seven and don’t remember real well what happened, but I’m not sure if we sold that thing or took it to the dump, but I do remember this: that was the end of that floating time bomb.