My first BIG purchase of my youth was a 15-foot aluminum canoe, which I bought along with paddles, lifejackets, and a car-top carrier from K-Mart in Marietta for somewhere around $100.
We floated the mighty Etowah River that formed the west margin of the old family farm which my dad and uncle bought from their dad. It also flowed through our hometown of Canton before dumping into the flood-control Altoona Lake.
We shot carp at night with bows and fishing arrows. We hunted squirrels and ducks. We camped from it, and on one camping trip Danny L and I turned it over--and we only lost a little bit of stuff.
We hauled it hither and yon, and when we moved to Maryland, we took it with us. We also took it to VA, when we moved there to work at VMI. When we were away one summer, some of my military buddies borrowed it to run through the spillway on the Maury River just on the NE side of town. It was destroyed beyond use.
Brenda's dad then gave me a fiberglass canoe that he had salvaged by repairing a big hole. It was a great canoe, until some boy scouts borrowed it and put it half-way into the back of a pickup truck. That was ok until a huge rainstorm filled it with water, to the point of breaking it.
One of my canoes was stolen from the big lake at Camp Tuscoba, where I was using it to tend beaver traps for the owner. He replaced it with my current red plastic canoe. We were storing it at my friend Daniel's place at Lake Tuscaloosa, when a tree blew over in a storm and smashed my canoe and his.
Fortunately the plastic is extremely tough and the canoe survived. We use it very often to fish in the lake behind our house. It is IDEAL for that application.
I guess I had never thought about what a perilous position it is to be my canoe--but it has been.
I loved as a youth, and still love canoeing.
Give it a try sometime. It takes a little effort to learn to paddle in a straight line, but it's worth it.
And, now is the time of year to enjoy it.
We floated the mighty Etowah River that formed the west margin of the old family farm which my dad and uncle bought from their dad. It also flowed through our hometown of Canton before dumping into the flood-control Altoona Lake.
We shot carp at night with bows and fishing arrows. We hunted squirrels and ducks. We camped from it, and on one camping trip Danny L and I turned it over--and we only lost a little bit of stuff.
We hauled it hither and yon, and when we moved to Maryland, we took it with us. We also took it to VA, when we moved there to work at VMI. When we were away one summer, some of my military buddies borrowed it to run through the spillway on the Maury River just on the NE side of town. It was destroyed beyond use.
Brenda's dad then gave me a fiberglass canoe that he had salvaged by repairing a big hole. It was a great canoe, until some boy scouts borrowed it and put it half-way into the back of a pickup truck. That was ok until a huge rainstorm filled it with water, to the point of breaking it.
One of my canoes was stolen from the big lake at Camp Tuscoba, where I was using it to tend beaver traps for the owner. He replaced it with my current red plastic canoe. We were storing it at my friend Daniel's place at Lake Tuscaloosa, when a tree blew over in a storm and smashed my canoe and his.
Fortunately the plastic is extremely tough and the canoe survived. We use it very often to fish in the lake behind our house. It is IDEAL for that application.
I guess I had never thought about what a perilous position it is to be my canoe--but it has been.
I loved as a youth, and still love canoeing.
Give it a try sometime. It takes a little effort to learn to paddle in a straight line, but it's worth it.
And, now is the time of year to enjoy it.
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