This isn’t meant to toot my horn or anything. It’s just a reminder: When you’re living out in nature, it’s always good to do the right thing, even if nobody else knows. Case in point? Several days ago, the dirt road to our place flooded. Yesterday, it was still flooded, BUT, it was sunny, so I thought I’d go look around, maybe even get out in my kayak and get a workout. As I was scanning the flooded area from the “mighty” West Chickamauga Creek, I noted a BIG tan plastic thing. Can you see it in the “lake picture” below? (look along the fenceline at the right). I thought “Looks like a kayak or something!”
Sure enough, it was an upside-down canoe! NICE ONE, too. 14 foot Mad River Adventurer Canoe. Still in great shape, even though it had certainly been battered by a major flood (12.5 feet … well above flood stage!)
My first impulse? Keep it. I mean, it is an amazing canoe! It was still floating, even upside down, it had probably been bashed around by raging flood waters and smashed by huge trees that the flood had ripped apart. But you couldn’t even tell! Once I cleaned it out … it was really REALLY nice. Obviously, it’s a fine piece of nautical equipment! AND, we live out in the woods, and nobody would ever know. AND my wife sure would like a 2 person, stable canoe so I could paddle her around, instead of her always worrying about tipping over. Well, that feeling lasted about a nano-second.
I knew what I needed to do… and just where to go to do it! See, there’s a great Facebook page, Canoe West Chickamauga. I figured that I’d go there, post that I’d found a canoe, and see if anyone claimed it. (Not that anyone was posting much in late February!)
Surprise! Toward the end of December, someone had posted “LOST!” … and then he described the canoe I’d found! He’d found his paddle about a mile downstream from where I was, but hadn’t found his canoe. I’m guessing that the canoe broke loose in December, got jammed downstream from where he lost it, and then broke loose again in late February, with this bigger flood, and ended up where I could see it.
I called him today: He’s a young guy. He and his wife are just starting their family. I think he was a bit surprised and excited that someone had found his canoe! I told him that I’d noticed he is a Veteran. He said yes. I told him “Thanks for your service,” and that it was a priviledge to help him out. I mean, after all, those folks put their lives on the line so we can enjoy going up and down the creek by our property. Would it be nice to have a canoe like that, that is not only stable, but that can take a tremendous beating and still be in great shape? Sure. My wife and I had a GREAT TIME using it today (before I got in touch with him). And maybe some day I’ll get a nice canoe like that, and be able to take my wife out again (and again and again). But tomorrow, a young vet is gonna come over to my place, drive his rig down a mucked up dirt road where HIS canoe is sitting in the mud (because the flood waters have gone back down). And I’ll be able to shake his hand and thank him for HIS service. And I’ll always have some photos and this poem:
Canoeing The Right Thing: Revolutionary ImproVerse Rhyming Haiku
#MadRiverCanoe #ChickamaugaCreek #ThankaVet
