heart (not ann and nancy)


It’s been 15 months since the LAD STEMI knocked me down a few rungs on the Ladder of Life. Okay, it sorta threw me off the Ladder of Life and I landed in the Thorny Rosebush of Reality and rolled off onto the Pile of Dog Poop I Missed of Unpleasantness.

The good news is that I had my echocardiogram last month. Most folks think of echos for babies in utero, which is a lot easier since there are no ribs to work around. My tech was an expert at just hearts, from neonates to old farts. He took a bunch of video and snippets for the cardiologist.

The results were as follows:

SUMMARY: 1. Normal left ventricular size and wall thicknesses, with normal systolic function. 2. Left ventricular ejection fraction, by visual estimation, is 65%. 3. Normal pattern of left ventricular diastolic filling. 4. Right ventricular size is normal. Right ventricular global systolic function is normal. 5. Right atrial pressure is normal. In comparison to the previous echocardiogram(s): Prior images from examinations are available and were reviewed for comparison purposes. The prior study used for comparison was dated 12/1/2022. The wall motion and EF have improved.

Left Ventricle: Normal left ventricular size and wall thicknesses, with normal systolic function. Ejection fraction, by visual estimation, is 65%. The parameters of diastolic function are normal. Left ventricular strain is normal. LV Regional Function: No evidence of any regional wall motion abnormalities. All segments are normal. 

Some of the key findings were noteworthy.

I am healed. No sign of permanent damage which is crazy rare.

Thanks, heart, I love you.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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how many part II


I wrote a post several years ago about how many canoes I have. Some of you asked me what has changed since then, I wanted to update y’all. A lot of change, as you may imagine.

Because of my profession, I try to be brand-agnostic or at least brand neutral. I believe that the canoes we sell at the shop are the best brands to choose from, otherwise I wouldn’t sell them, lest you think I’m shilling product. I’m not.

Numbers One, Two, and Three: 18′, 16′ and Willow, built by Island Falls Canoe.

I have a 18′ and 16′ Wilderness, and a 15′ Willow Solo. The biggest one paddles like a dream, holds a ton of gear, and is a great workout on a portage. So it doesn’t go on many trips where there are portages, and I don’t upload it (or try not to unload it) by myself.

The 16 footer is flatter on the bottom, so it’s a little slower, but it floats over shallow water and is a great boat for poling. I just had it recanvased by my friend Dave Osborn. He is trying to retire but I keep on throwing boats in his direction.

The Willow is one of my favorites. I wrote about it here and here. The second here is an addendum that is worth reading. It is still as efficient as a Prius with a tailwind and still just as cranky, but I swear she paddles herself.

Willow, paddled by Whitney Sara.

I purchased none of them new. The 18′ wasn’t paddleable until restoration, the 16 had the canvas rotted under the gunwales (barn find), and the Willow had a bunch of cracked ribs from being paddled with less care than is befitting a lady of that stature and grace.

So that’s all for the wood boats. I think. Probably. Do I want another one? Duh. I would love a Rushton Indian Girl or a 17′ B.N. Morris Model A, Type III. But it would be the height of avarice to lust after one.

Number Four : Swift Keewaydin 17

This is my tripper. Fast, light, and neutral, if that means anything. To me it means it has no bad habits, paddles well in a quartering sea (the test of a good canoe, in my opinion), and is pretty. I went all out on the layup and went carbon with integrated carbon gunwales, A 17 footer that weighs just under 40 pounds is great for BWCA trips.

I wrote a review about this (and other 17-footers) for Men’s Journal several years ago. Lots of pictures there.

Number Five: Northstar Phoenix

Ian takes the Phoenix for a spin. Bittersweet State Natural Area.

I really like this canoe. She’s pretty in a not-so-sleek sort of aesthetic: a little zaftig if you will. The tumblehome makes it easy to reach the water but she’s still rock-solid stable in an aggressive lean. I don’t paddle long skinny solos; she’s fast enough for me. The construction is Northstar Canoes’ IXP, a cloth woven from basalt fibers and Innegra, an aramid fiber and cousin to Kevlar. She flexes when you hit things, and I use this boat a lot on shallow rivers and up to Class II+. She can take it. If you can only have one boat, especially as a novice solo paddler, she’d be a good choice.

Number Six: Curtis Companion

The first open canoe I ever owned. It’s a solo-tandem that actually does both well, Great to paddle with my babies (all grown up now) and with my old lab Gracie. She’s heavy for a 15-footer, as Curtis overbuilt their boats and hand-laminated them. No matter how many skills you have hand-laminating, it’ll never hit the weight of vacuum-bagged or resin-infused boats. Another Dave Yost design, she’s also a little zaftig.

I had many wonderful experiences in this canoe. Gonna leave it at that.

Also a nice solo for beginners.

Number Seven: Lotus Egret

This one was a barn find and she is in fine condition, after I gave her a good scrubbing and oiled and sanded the gunwales several times. The Egret came from the lofting board of Mike Galt, the late iconic canoe designer and builder. His canoes are all elegant and well-crafted, and my guess is he lost $100 on every boat he built and tried to make it up in volume. He was relentless in his quest for quality.

He was also a controversial character. In the 1980s and 90s, canoe designers were a quirky bunch, and often fought hammer and tongs about what constituted the proper ways to design, paddle, and build canoes. A few managed to stay above the fray, but it got personal. Mike often had a younger female on his arm and a cigarette barely hanging from his lips. A charismatic character he was for sure.

Anyway…the Egret was specifically designed for freestyle canoeing, an activity where paddlers choreograph paddle strokes to music, and sometimes to comedic effect, costumes. I take nothing from the skills of many of these paddlers, but I know few people who take freestyle seriously. A handful of paddlers participate in the national competitions.

As a reult, the Egret paddles beautifully, especially with two people who know what they’re doing. I love paddling her with my wife. She’s not fast but she’s fun. Sort of a Miata of canoes.

Number Eight: Swift Dragonfly

There aren’t many canoes that I’d consider buying a second one just in case the first one wears out. This is one of them.

The Dragonfly has a long and sorta weird history, with some differing opinions of who designed it, who influenced the design. whose idea it was, and all that stuff I try to ignore. It was cetainly influenced by David Yost, a prolific and talented man who has never designed a boat I didn’t enjoy paddling. Some say Harold Deal designed it, but I don’t really know who to trust on the story. My guess is Harold designed it, and then Dave perfected it.

Anyway…it’s a fantastic boat, the fastest 14.5 footer I have ever paddled. It’s also one of the most maneuverable solos I have ever paddled (outside true whitewater boats, naturally). She has less initial stability than many due to her arched, rounded bottom, and she’s lively when getting in and out on a muddy river bank. Between the Phoenix and the Dragonfly, I use the Phoenix more when the water’s cold as she’s more predictable.

Jeremy and me. Matching Dragonflies.

Number Nine: Blackhawk Covenant

This canoe is quirky, like her designer, Pat Moore. Pat was one of the designers I spoke of earlier, one of the ones that weighed in about the true nature of good paddlers and good boats. He was dogmatic and unwavering in his opinions, achieving a zealotry that few matched. I say he was, although I think he may be still alive. He disappeared years ago into the wilds of central Florida.

The Covenant uses a pedestal rather than a seat, which gives you a lot more feedback from the hull than a seat. That’s important, as the Covenant is barely 24 inches wide. She has spit a lot of my friends into the drink after taking a careless stroke. She is probably the most efficient canoe I have ever paddled as far as effort at a cruising speed. The downside is that while comfortable, the pedestal gives you exactly one seating position. I took her on a long paddle down the Wisconsin River, and my ankles too a week to recover.

I am considering selling her, as she rarely gets wet, and that’s a shame. The problem is that there aren’t that many paddlers who can handle her. Not bragging, just saying.

Number Ten: Nova Craft Prospector 16 (Royalex)

This old standby is the Ford F-250 of the canoe world. She’s not particularly fast, but she’s deep and dry, can hold over a thousand pounds, and can take a beating. I’ve paddled her up to just shy of Class III rapids and she handles it just fine.

Royalex is now gone, replaced by T-Formex from Esquif, so mine is from the days when Spartec made Royalex. It’s a horrible material to make as far as the environment goes: it offgases something awful, and the site where they made it in Warsaw, Indiana turned into a superfund site after they closed down production. T-Formex is a lot better environmentally, but boat with the least environmental impact is the one you don’t have to replace.

She lives in a friend’s garage up by the Kickapoo River. I can get it whenever I want, but my friends have two young kids whom I love dearly (I love the parents too), so they have a canoe when they need it.

A great canoe for bulky stuf like a canvas lean-to.

Number Eleven: Nova Craft Pal

If you can only own one boat, she would be a good choice. She’s sort of the Ford F-150 of the canoe world, with less rocker and depth than the Prospector. Flip her around and she’s a fine solo if you paddle Canadian style. She can be paddled backwards with a young child in the stern-now-bow seat and the boat trims out beautifully.

My Pal is Royalex with ash gunwales, so she’s pretty too. And it was the boat I used to train Lucy.

Number Twelve: Chestnut Ogilvy 22″

She’s a beast. Seats six with a load. I should probably sell her, I dunno. 160 pounds dry, and my guess is that she’d hold a few tons of dead moose. The Mack Truck of canoes.

Number Thirteen: The York Birchbark 16 footer.

She’s a beaut, ain’t she?

Number Fourteen: Northstar Pearl, K9 version..

That’s a whole other post.

Of course, this doesn’t include my kids’ boats, a few vintage boats that are more fixtures than anything, or sea kayaks (a handful of them). So I guess we’re at lucky fourteen. Call it an occupational hazard.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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to build a canoe


I made the strategic error of selecting a dog breed that is hardly a logical choice for a canoe dog. That said, I’d do it all over again. Lucy is the sweetest Great Pyrenees/Newfoundland cross ever bred. She also weighs a solid 100 pounds.

I had been using a gorgeous but ponderous wood canvas canoe, which weighs just a bit less than my dog. I drive a Toyota Tacoma with big tires. Getting it off and on and off again is doable, but it’s only a matter of time before something in my lumbar area starts screaming at me. On top of that, the seat configuration doesn’t leave as much room as I’d like for Lucy to stretch out.

Dog in a wood and canvas boat.
Always watching, Wazowski. Always watching.

My dilemma was easily solved. Because I know a few folks who build boats. 

I would build a tandem, but it would be set up as a solo. Lots of room for Lulu, and half the weight or less than the woodie.

I had been working on a canoe with Charlie, the rocket scientist at Northstar Canoes. I am not a designer, but I have lots of experience in canoes and came up with a performance profile; what the canoe should do in the situations for which it is built. Charlie took my idea and got to work, and off his lofting board came the Pearl, a sweet little sixteen footer, symmetrical and rather traditional in style. It’s a light tandem, but performs well as a solo too. Or in my case, a solo and a half.

The Pearl is a perfect boat for my application. I made an appointment and Bear at Northstar squeezed me into the schedule. 

Putting Kevlar fabric into a canoe mold.
Putting in the cloth. Carefully.

A laminated boat is constructed in several steps, and there are waiting periods. To save time, the first layer was put in the afternoon before my arrival so it could cure overnight. They call this skinning the boat.

The next morning I arrived bright and early, ready to get sticky. Truth is, if you pay attention to what you’re doing, you hardly get any resin on you at all. We placed the pre-cut layers in the mold, adding more layers where they’re needed for reinforcement. We worked quickly but carefully, and it only took about twenty minutes to complete the layers. The mold was then moved into an area where it was vacuum bagged. This technique uses vacuum to pull the layers together and squeeze out any excess resin. It’s a precise technique: too much vacuum and you pull out too much resin. Too little, and you get excess resin in places you don’t want it.

Creating carbon fiber canoe parts.
Jerry. E6 gunwale master.

With that done, I had some time to kill, so I killed it by building boat parts with Jerry. Jerry is a character, who started building boats on the production line, but found he did well in a quieter room with more complex processes. Not that building a boat is not complex; it is. But doing resin infusion on seats and gunwales is fussy work, and a small error means you have to throw a few hundred bucks in the dumpster. He allowed me to assist on the non-critical steps and watched me like a hawk wearing reading glasses when it was more crucial. He laughed at my jokes and I laughed at his.

The next day Tony and I added the gunwales and figured out where the seat would go to balance my 200 pounds with Lucy’s 100. That made the math easy: 2 feet from the center for me. 4 feet from the center for Lucy. We poked around and found the optimal location, and started drilling holes.

Putting gunwales on a canoe.
Tony.


The final thing was adding stickers. I felt proud that I had a hand (two, really) in building my own boat. We hung it on the scale: 35.86 pounds. Both my brain and my back rejoiced.

Darren with finished canoe.
36 pounds of carbon and Kevlar.

Since then, I’ve had Lucy out half a dozen times. She loves the canoe, even jumping in it while on the ground in the front yard, and even staying in it after I went in the house.

Dog on land in a canoe.
Front lawn hangout.
Dog resting in a canoe.
Lucy like.
Dog swimming next to a canoe.
Sometimes ya gotta chase geese. Then you figure out reentry.
Dog in a canoe shaking water off.
Of course, once you’re back in, ya gotta give Pops a shower.

I am deeply grateful for the folks at Northstar Canoes for letting me undoubtedly slow down production. Thanks to Ted, Bear, and Charlie, and the 12 people who signed my canoe, as a sign of their skill and passion for their work, and in some way, for me, a fellow paddler.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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yin and yang


It’s mid-April, which in Wisconsin means it’s 36 in the morning at 70 in the later afternoon. That’s April. Oh, and two weeks ago today I was snowshoeing in ten inches of fresh, heavy snow just to tire out Dog 4.0.

Not many people I know are in a position to get two new boats in a little over a month, let alone helping to build one of said boats. I fullt admit my privilege in owning a canoe shop. There has to be at least a few benefits, and I guess this is one of them.

Truck with two canoes on top.
Two canoes, both alike in dignity, near fair Lake Wingra where we lay our scene.

One of Fifteen

This first is a Swift Dragonfly. I’ve wanted a Dragonfly since I first paddled one in 1989. They were out of the price range of a grad student, and I was more of a whitewater kayak guy then, but this canoe was special.

Several builders made them sporadically over the years, first Curtis, then Colden, and now Swift obtained the mold from Colden. I first saw it at Canoecopia on March 10. I recognized the shape from across the hall and had to find the story from Bill. Yes, he had the mold, and he was building 15 in a limited edition. I grabbed the first one. Only took me a third of a century.

I walked out into the water and set her down. I put one leg in, steadied myself with a paddle, and quickly slid my other foot under the seat and settled in quickly. It was like climbing on a headstrong horse: the first few seconds are the hardest, and once in, you get locked in.

Yahara River and Tick Reserve

This boat is special. It weighs literally half of the original Curtis-build boat, but new tech and materials has made these boats stronger and lighter. It is definitely a paddler’s boat: it’s roundish and rolls over to the gunwale easily. But that roundness (and a 26″ waterline) makes her fast; the fastest 14.5 footer I’ve ever paddled. Add a good bit of rocker and you have a great downriver boat.

After the initial jaunt around the lake, I took her to Badfish Creek, a log-strewn corkscrew that flows into the Lower Yahara, which runs into the Rock River. If I kept going I’d hit the Mississippi. If I wanted to paddle to New Orleans, I could start the trip a mile from my house.

She handled beautifully. Fast, maneuverable, and pleasantly rounded. I don’t like that feeling of paddling a dock. It takes a little more proprioception to paddle a boat like this, but it’s worth putting the time in.

So that one gets added to the quiver. She probably won’t be my every day boat (when you own a dozen or so canoes, that’s not a revelation), but I know a few rivers waiting for her.

The One Of A Kind

A few weeks ago I took a trip up to Northstar Canoes to spend some time with my friends who work there and to build a one-of-a-kind boat. I have this problem to solve.

Said problem.

Lucy is my best dog friend, and in the top ten of all my friends. I love paddling with her, but she doesn’t fit in any solo I own. The compromise isn’t a good one, since the wood canvas canoe I often use to paddle with her is 80 pounds. I can get it up on my shoulders and up on the truck consistently…except I am concerned that the one in 25 times I do it, my old back goes snick and I am laid up for three weeks on cyclobenzaprine and ice, and I am not allowed to take ibuprofen for two more years because it counteracts some of my heart meds. Not gonna chance it.

So the other solution is to build a custom canoe, so because I have special privileges and I asked nicely, Bear and Ted and Charlie allowed me to come up and turn a nice, small 16-foot tandem into a solo.

It wasn’t that hard: just built the hull, but when it gets to the time to place seats (well, seat) and yokes and thwarts, etc. Tony and I poked and prodded, and finally got Charlie’s structural blessing.

We ended up leaving a 5′ space in front of the yoke, and I moved the seat forward so that with Lucy in the boat, it would be balanced and trim.

I should same something about this boat. The Pearl is a sweet little 16 footer that was designed by Charlie to fit a performance profile we hammered out together. I won’t say I had a hand it its design, but I will admit to putting the spurs to Northstar to build it. It will normally be a tandem canoe with a decent capacity, or a solo that can carry 100 pounds of Newfie/Pyrenees muscle, bone, and fluff.

BUT you don’t have to have a giant fur factory to enjoy a Pearl. Good for just paddling around. Since it’s symmetrical you can paddle it backwards with a kid in the stern seat and it’ll trim perfectly. I would highly recommend one for a lightweight mess around or light tripper.

Oh yeah: Mine weighs 35.8 pounds. That will save my back until I pass it along to my son.

Charlie shot this. I am in my very happy place and she ain’t even wet yet.

The hull is designed to paddle flat, but I can paddle it over to the side a little like the Canadians do. Because of that sweet little bubble of flair, she sits just so and doesn’t move.

It was a little chilly and windy.

I didn’t push it since the wind was pushing me around, but according to Photoshop’s angle indicator, she leaned over to ten degrees easily. My guess is I’ll probably run 12-14% heel.

All in all, I think it’s a huge win for Lucy and me. If I put it on the ground she jumps in and looks at me like I’m daft for having it on the grass.

Just got a new Redleaf Designs cover. Lucy approved.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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a shot across the bow


Well, it has been a strange autumn. Firstborn was home from the Brooklyn for Thanksgiving, which is always a treat. Great food, better company.

We usually paddle over the Christmas break, but it was nice out, and last year we got skunked by unseasonably cold weather. I had the Island Falls WIlderness 16 in the garage, so it was either that or two solos, and we weren’t sure about water levels. So it was a go. The Sugar River is close and easily shuttleable.

This canoe was designed for shallow New England rivers with its flat bottom and high floatability (if that’s a word) so other than its weight, she’s a great choice for shallow. Add her shellac bottom and you have a perfect choice. Shellac is sacrificial: you take off a chunk, you add more.

The water was a bit low, but it was manageable and a beautiful day to be on the water. When we got home it was getting close to dinner, so I left it on the truck.

The canoe was still on the truck the Wednesday after Thanksgiving. That’s when I received a little kick in the pants from the Universe.



It was 7:05 am, and I was 30 minutes into a stationary bike workout when I felt a little off. I stopped my workout and told Steph I didn’t feel well, but it was probably just stress. I took a brief shower and the pain was worse, so I told her “let’s go to the ER, I don’t think this is going away.”

By the time I got to the ER (Stephanie running a red light and driving like a Formula One driver) it was very painful. I was wheeled to admissions as the tech hooked up some leads and got the EKG going, and after three seconds he said “Go, you’re having a heart attack right now!”

I was then that everything went fast. At least six or seven EMTs, nurses, a cardiologist and a few other techs took to poking, prodding, shaving, sticking, shoving pills under my tongue, and applying electrodes all over my body (including the big ones in case things stop working. I remember the ECG tech saying “got it – LED” and things went even faster. I was unaware of what happened after that. The contrast dye was injected at 7:46, and the stent was in by 8:04. I woke up on the way to the recovery room as if nothing happened.

What I didn’t know until Google was that an LAD is a particularly nasty blockage. Your left anterior descending artery supplies your left ventricle with most of its blood supply.

Oh yeah. 100% blockage in the LAD is often called the widowmaker, an appellation created by a particularly insensitive cardiologist. Survival rate is not high, about 12% if it happens outside the hospital, and 20% if it happens inside the hospital.

Well, I guess someone has to be the one in five, he says flippantly.

The cardiologist, the nurse practitioner, RNs and cardiology techs were unanimous in their opinion: I am lucky to be alive, due to a rapid response time, good health (I was working out when it happened), relatively good diet (cheese is going to be curtailed in the future), having a good BMI, and a few other assorted lifestyle choices (no smoking or drinking).

The surreality of it is pretty weird. I felt great within a few hours of the procedure and could have walked home. That was not going to happen. Because the medical staff are way smarter than me.

Well, here we are almost a month later, and I feel fine. I am exercising under the direction of a cardiology rehab nurse and doing everything as perfect as I can. There is no permanent damage, and I should be able to do pretty much whatever I choose to do after six months or so.

The next day Steph and a talk. Well, it was more than a talk. It was a discussion. What I didn’t know as I was being wheeled into the cath lab for my stent, a nurse stopped and said “Do you want to kiss your husband?” Steph said of course, and kissed me on the top of my head.

It was after that when we both realized that the nurse did that…because they weren’t sure I was going to make it out of the cath lab with my heart still beating. That’s when it hit me.

Now, I am not having the “Are you prepared to meet God?” mindset. I have no fear of achieving room temperature, and I’m good with my relationship with Deity. There’s nothing I’m doing in my life that I would stop doing out of fear.

What I did have as thought while I was on the table in the ER is that this is bloody inconvenient for my wife. I can’t imagine how much more inconvenient it would have been if I had joined the choir celestial. That’s the thing: when you’re dead, it’s not a problem for you. It’s the ones you leave behind to clean up the mess that concerns most people.

We own a business, and are part owners in another one. We own commercial properties. I am active in all of these. I would not be active in all of these if the LAD had its way.

Anyway…I’m alive. I’m relieved. I can continue to do the things I am doing to get better. I can make changes. I already did make changes.

First: work. I am not a workaholic, but I do enjoy it. Steph and Firstborn say it’s more about boundaries: I do not have to be available (i.e., on my phone) 20/7 to staff, customers, or anyone else. I made the lame excuse that “Well, if I answer that phone now, that’s one less call I have to take the next day.” True, but a red herring. So I’m setting the phone down and letting things go a little.

Second: vacation. It’s a little known fact that owners have the worst bosses in the world. There’s a strong pull between taking time off and leaving your baby, even if you have a dozen very competent babysitters. Owners don’t know this, but we’re really not that important. You can tell because you can have a heart attack and you get texts like “We got this, it’s all good” and “Don’t worry, we’re on it.

So in 2023, I’m taking a week off a month. I worked hard, it’s about time I enjoyed some of the fruits of my labor.

N.B.: The texts say “We,” not “I.” The team is on it.

Third: stress. I generally think I handle stress well. I certainly have had enough building a new building. But I certainly don’t do as much self-care as I need. Meditation, prayer, yoga, etc., are things I enjoy, and are good for my mind. My acupuncturist Dan said “You are like water and fire. On the surface you are calm as glass, but inside you are fire.”

I need more water, less fire.

Luckily, my infarction was a shot across the bow and not a broadside. I still have work to do here, and more importantly, I have more play to do here.

Respectively submitted,

Canoelover

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collateral damage


My wife has a lovely little vegetable garden.

I have ground squirrel traps set in the backyard around Stephanie’s garden as they like to eat her veggies, and the fencing and marigolds weren’t holding them off.

Checking the traps, I found one empty, one with a small rodent, and one with a beautiful bullfrog, caught by the lip. Not dead, but. clearly terminal if it can’t figure out a way to eat.
 
I picked it up and for some reason, started to weep. I couldn’t explain it, I just felt like I had been kicked in the chest by a mule.
 
I put the frog under my shack in the backyard. In thinking about it, I realized the reason I felt so sad was that I took a life that was totally innocent and had no reason to die. A dead ground squirrel who is devouring our garden is one thing; a creature that was just minding its own business and hopping along the side of the house is another thing altogether. The frog did nothing.

Collateral damage when an innocent person is harmed by the careless actions of others. I don’t care if it’s a bullet or a bean bag or teargas or a mouse trap. The frog was at the right place, behind the ferns, eating slugs; but the wrong time (after I had set out a trap). 

Black people walk around carrying the wrong time with them every day by just existing. They start half in the wrong place. I see red lights in the rear view mirror, I get a little gripped. My Black friends see red lights and get a surge of adrenalin and wonder of they’re going to get through the next fifteen minutes.

Just something to think about while hopping around.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover
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the day I hugged the man in the parking lot


The white van pulled into my shop, dripping with gear, looking like someone was living in it. There were bikes strapped on the back, but the right-wing bumper stickers and giant NRA emblem were clearly visible. No big deal, it happens all the time at the shop. I can’t agree with everyone, and wouldn’t want to.

A white-haired gentleman with a grey mop of hair and a between three and ten days of beard emerged and walked to the door. I greeted him as I always greet customers.

“I wanna buy a kayak. I’ve been waiting for three years and I’m going to get one.”

So I did what I always do, I took him through the same Q&A to get things narrowed down and give options. He asked a lot of questions about what boat would be best for different rivers and lakes, including ones out west. “I’m traveling for a year, I want to see everything.”  I looked for a wedding ring and saw one, but I didn’t see his wife anywhere. I asked him what his wife thought about his walkabout.

He chuckled. “She’s totally cool with this. She told me to do this right before she died.” I asked how long ago it was. He said told me it had been about three months, and he finally felt like he was ready to go.

I looked him in the eye and said “I’m so sorry.” Then I just reached out and hugged him. He patted my back and whispered “Thank you.”

We continued going through the whole process; assessing his rack needs (turns out he wanted two boats, one for flatwater and one for whitewater), and getting him all geared up. As he opened his car door, I saw a huge revolver (later identified as a Ruger Super Blackhawk .44 Magnum) and I just smiled and said “I see you’re a Clint Eastwood fan.” He laughed, pulled it out right there in the parking lot, cracked open the cylinder and dumped the shells into his hand and handed it to me. Three pounds, not a light pistol.

I have no particular hatred for guns, really, except I think they’re too readily available and need to be more closely regulated, and as much as is possible, keeping them away from children, with trigger locks. I feel much like author and humorist Michael Perry, who said that a gun is a like a pitchfork; just a tool to gather venison in the fall. But go into his house in the middle of the night, you can guess which tool he would grab.

It felt weird standing in the parking lot with a Make My Day sidearm. I admired it for its craftsmanship and handed it back.

He wrying hiked up his trouser leg to reveal a Glock 26 (the baby one) strapped to his ankle. This guy was ready for the Zombie Apocalypse. He didn’t take it out.

As we finished up, I just looked at this sweet old widower, left alone and ready to do a trip of a lifetime, after three years of caring for his wife of over 40 years. He was tired, and looked it. He was ready for some rest.

I shook his hand again, smiled, and embraced him a second time. “Save travels, she’ll be with you.” He said “I know, and thanks again.” I watched him drive away with his new toys, heading for somewhere in the Northwest.

This man and I probably have significant differences in our political ideologies. I own a firearm and again, have no issues owning one, but I can’t stand the NRA and their rhetoric of fear. Most gun owners I know feel the same way. I lean leftish, he leads rightish.

But when I embraced him, none of that political b.s. mattered. It was just two men, one comforting the other. I can’t imagine nor do I ever want to imagine losing my wife; it would probably destroy me. But I saw hope in a man who could lose his wife and hit the road, finding himself again, grieving, biking, and now, paddling, guns and all.

Put aside your petty differences, please. Love each other, because we’re all we got.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

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A minyan of one

Two weeks ago I was visiting my favorite special ed teacher and redhead in Brooklyn. We were driving to get dinner on the BQE, and as I was about to cross over the East River into Manhattan, I saw a large billboard. Because this was New York and traffic was heavy, I did not take a picture of it, but someone did and put it on Twitter.
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When I saw that sign, I thought of Bill.
Yesterday was the funeral of a dear friend, Bill Kaplan. I had planned on attending, but the night before I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I was to do something else to honor him instead.
 
Bill and I frequently talked about mitzvot (little kindnesses). In the Jewish tradition, a mitzvah is one strand of thread that holds the world together. Added up, they mean a lot. I could argue they mean everything. It doesn’t have to be a big deal; in fact, I would say that if it is a big deal, it’s not a mitzvah.
 

A minyan is not a little yellow guy from Despicable Me. It’s a group of ten men who are needed to achieve quorum for certain religious ceremonies.

So yesterday, instead of attending a funeral, I became a minyan of one. I decided to do ten mitzvot to honor my friend Bill. Being a practical man, I figured he’d rather I do this anyway. Because above all, Bill was kind and generous.

1. The first thing I did was call a friend I haven’t talked to in a long time. We talked for 45 minutes, and although it was a “business call,” we spent 10 minutes on businesses and 35 minutes on fly fishing, family news, and just catching up. I told him about my mitzvah quest. He said, “Well, I feel great! This counts as your first one!”

2,3, and 4. I went to Colectivo Coffee to sit at my computer for a while and do a little work. I paid for my hot chocolate, then left a $20 with instructions to the cashier to pay for everyone else’s stuff until the $20 was gone. She smiled and said that was really sweet. I said “It’s for Bill.” I sat a discreet distance away and enjoyed the feeling of watching someone feel unexpectedly loved by a stranger.

5.  As I was leaving the coffee shop, a woman was sitting in the sunshine by the gas fireplace. She was wearing a knit cap with a flower on the side. Since my wife is a knitter, I notice all things that look like they might be hand-made. I asked her if she made her hat, and she smiled, and said no, that she had purchased it at “the co-op” on the east side. I said “Well, even if you didn’t make it, it’s lovely.”  She smiled again, shrugged, and said “Thanks.” No big deal, but her day was better because of it, I think.

6,7, and 8.  Stephanie made cookies for me to take to the neighbors. We took them to our next door neighbors on each side, the folks across the street, and I tried to take them down the block to some other friends who weren’t home.  I saw the light on across the street at the home of an older couple I hadn’t seen in a while. That’s not uncommon as they are frail and tend to stay in all winter.

The door opened and there stood their son. His parents had moved into assisted living over the winter after a bad fall. We talked about his parents for fifteen minutes or so, I got their details and he said he was on his way over and would deliver the cookies for me.

Mrs. Jones taught my son piano lessons when he was a young man. She was a big part of his life, and I’m glad they’re safe. Yes, they took a piano with them to assisted living.

The cookies were a good mitzvah, but talking to a son still struggling with dealing with getting a house in order was a bigger one. He said he was having a hard time going through pictures and papers, and that once in a while he’d open something and just start tearing up. He told me that it was completely unpredictable; it just happened.

9. I bought an actual physical note card and wrote an actual hand-written note to a friend I haven’t seen in a while. Facebook thumbs-ups are fine, but you can’t hold a pixel. It felt good to buy it and to write it.

10. I don’t think I got to ten. I’ll do that one today.

So the thing that I kept thinking all day was this: “Why did I have to wait for someone to die to get me to think about mitzvot?” Shouldn’t we just do this all the time anyway? Yes, by all means make Brooklyn kinder, but why stop there? Why don’t we all make the world kinder? All of us, irrespective of religious tradition (or none at all)?

Pick up the tab. Let someone pick up the tab. Say thank you and mean it. Hold a door open for someone. Let someone hold the door for you. Smile and wave to someone in a crosswalk. Leave a 25% tip. Pick up some litter. Notice the poor. Notice the rich. Send a notecard. Thank your letter carrier. Be thankful for the people who are invisible that make your life easier. Notice someone’s humanity.

Notice someone’s humanity. That just came out of my fingers. Just now.

I look back at the mitzvot I did, and every single one of them had that in common. The phone call, the free coffee, the cute hat, perched on a lovely face, the cookies, the conversation, the note card…all said the same thing:

You are a human being, and I noticed that you exist.
I’m glad you’re here on earth at the same time I am.

Bill, thank you for your example to me.  I will keep the mitzvot train moving along the tracks. I will automatically smile at Volvo drivers, thinking about how you loved Volvos. I will smile at crossing guards.

Respectfully submitted,

Canoelover

 
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claudio


I have a receding hairline. Actually, it’s in full retreat. I’m balding, so I chose to finish the job Mother Nature and testosterone have started.  When I travel, I often use it as an excuse to get a hot shave from a real live barber. Finding one has become more difficult as time passes, but in larger metro areas, finding a traditional barber shop with the red and white-striped pole and a couple of chairs (three max), with old guys manspreading on chairs against the wall, waiting for a sucker like me to walk in. Said barbershop should smell vaguely medicinal, with whiffs of talc, aftershave, blue Barbicide with a bunch of combs in the jar, and something astringent. If it’s one in a sub street level shop, accessible by a few stairs down, it might have a slight musty basement smell, which is fine.  Visually, look for calendars, usually a few years old, and pictures of grandchildren tacked around the mirror. The license on the wall is faded and aged, in a simple frame, hanging from picture wire.  It has expired, probably, and the renewals are in a stack of mail in the back closet. The barber himself, well, that depends on your locale. Sometimes they’re immigrants, in one case from Mosul, Iraq. Ibrahim was a wizard with a razor and given that he cut his teeth on middle-eastern hair that grows as thick as tree trunks, my wispy peach fuzz was no challenge.  But in many cases, it’s an octogenarian, a man twenty years past retirement who would be dead in a week if you made him stop working. When I arrived in Manhattan to visit my firstborn, I was already a day scruffy, and I use safety razors so traveling with blades is somewhat problematic, so when I arrived I started looking online to find a barber, I was overwhelmed with choices. Because this is Manhattan. 40 or so barber shops popped up below 125th Street, many in Midtown and the Financial District.  Most of them clustered in the south end of the island, where there is more discretionary income (financial dudes, real estate tycoons, and movie stars). One place even bragged that George Clooney was a client, as well as a list of other manly men. A shave was $30, a haircut was $70 or more.  Out of my price range, even if I wanted a place that gave me a shot of whiskey or a PBR before my salon treatment. A hundred clams for a shave, even if it does keep going for a while? I wasn’t about to take the subway 40 minutes each way for a hot shave, so I started a little more selective Google search. Lo and behold, I find a place that isn’t on Yelp, has one comment on Google, and is four blocks away in East Harlem.
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I think Claudio is a Democrat. Not sure why.

I love East Harlem. Downtown is cool and hip and all that, and the restaurants are great, the people beautiful, and the parks green and spacious. But it’s almost like being on a movie set. I love Greenwich Village, but I couldn’t live there. It’s as if Disneyland made its own Main Street USA but more swanky and avant garde.
Yeah. This is East Harlem.

Yeah. This is East Harlem.

East Harlem has families there.  Mostly Hispanics, mostly from the Dominican Republic, and the rest a mixture of other minorities, except here they’re not minorities; I am. No supermarkets, just bodegas and fruit stands. No restaurant chains to speak of (except for the ubiquitous McD’s), but lots of little taquerias and bakeries. The streets and not spotless; in fact, there is a significant amount of micro-trash, waiting for a storefront operator to sweep it into the curb and scoop it up into the trash. Bags of trash are piled up here and there, but for the most part, I like it that way. Yes, there are homeless people, but no more than any other place I saw in Manhattan. Yes, the storefronts are locked down tight with impenetrable doors and padlocks the size of hamburger buns. Yes, there is crime and inner city problems, but I walked around without blinking. I was treated with respect if not deference, which just made me uncomfortable. I handed out a little food here and there to the homeless folks I met, and it was graciously received with a God bless you, man. But at the end of the day, I don’t know that it’s any more dangerous than any other place in a large metro area. I’m not setting my laptop on a bench and going to get a Coke from the machine, mind you, but I wouldn’t do that in downtown Madison. But as usual, I digress. Located on 116th Street between 1st and 2nd avenues, Claudio’s is as old-school as it gets. It was half a mile walk from my daughter’s apartment, which in New York is a short hop. In most places we’d hop in the car, sadly, but it was a nice morning so it was a welcome diversion. It was early Memorial Day morning. I passed a few folks walking their dogs, but that was it. I peeked in the door and saw no one, but an older guy standing outside the door indicated that Claudio was in. Three steps down and I saw him, feet up, reading the paper. I knew from the internet that Claudio was Italian, from Salerno, near Naples, so I greeted him in Italian. He ignored that and said “What do you want?”  Not in a rude way, but he wanted to get to the point. I told him I needed a shave, beard and scalp.  “Sit down here,” he said.  I complied. Then suddenly he started addressing me in Italian. In fact, he used voi, a strange and anachronistic honorific, used by older Italians, often to their parish priest or someone like that. I don’t know if he was pulling my leg or just super-polite. After a few minutes I decided he was just being super-polite. He was too sweet to be mean-spirited. We did the usual chit-chat, me being more careful when his straight edge razor was hovering over my Adam’s apple. He started with the typical Italian fatalism surrounding the presidential election.  “We are on the edge of a knife, he said, and things could go very badly.” He’s right there. A local dude with a thick Brooklyn accent came in and asked if he could put up a political sign. “No.” “Aw, c’mon, we’re neighbors.” “I no nothing about the neighbor, capisci? No Powell.”  He pointed a poster of retiring Congressman Rangel. “He have my back. No Powell.” “Well, sir, I hope we can change your mind.” Claudio made a sound familiar to people who have lived in Italy. It’s a cross between ‘meh’ and ‘nah,’ but more nasal. It means “I’m done with this conversation.” Back to work. He was just finishing behind my ears when pretty boy came with his Powell poster. He never looked up. He rubbed my scalp with some weird tonic, then stuff that stung a little, then talcum powder. Seriously, I looked like a mime. He must have seen my expression and dabbed away, muttering Maybe I put a little too much, eh? It had rained earlier that morning. “Ah yes, boom boom and a lotta rain.” I asked him if clients stayed away during rainstorms. He smiled and said “Good! I have enough of the clients. My health is good. I have enough money. Why I need more client? I want to go home at two, I go home.”
Frankie (see in the picture) came in and they exchanged greetings. Frankie was a regular. “Hey Frankie, you remember Johnny, come in here a lot, since he a boy? You know, him, yes?” Frankie indicated that yes, he knew Johnny. “He dead. He die at fifty, his brother, he die at forty-eight, his dad, he die before he sixty. They all sick in that family.” Frankie said something about bad genes. Claudio said, “I don’t know nothing about the genes, but they all sick, and now they all dead.” I went to stand up and he said “aspett…” which means “wait a sec…”  He grabbed a pair of small scissors, grabbed my nose and lifted the end skyward and started snipping nose hairs. It tickled and I stifled a sneeze. “Ecco,” he said. I pulled out my wallet.  “Quanto devo, signore?” “Lessee, for the shave, seven…for the head, ten. So seventeen.”  I handed him a twenty and said thanks, and I would be back again the next time I visited my daughter.  “Arrivederci.” He grunted a reply, I waved to Frankie who smiled back, and took off. Two minutes later I was back.  Forgot my glasses.  Arrivaderci. Grunt. Two minutes later I was back again. “Why you come back? You forget something else?” “No, I wanted a picture of you, for my daughter. The one who lived in Milano by your sister.” “Sure! Go ahead. Frankie, it’s okay he take the picture, okay?  Frankie gave his consent. “Adesso parto per l’ultima volta.” He grunted, turned back to Frankie’s haircut and said “I see you next time.” Respectfully submitted, Canoelover
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river notes – the lower yahara


Second installment of my podcast, this time on the lower Yahara River with my sweetie.

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