The Great River Expedition

The summer of 1974 was a great time to be young in Leeds, Alabama. There was always something to do, particularly if you had a few friends willing to go along with an idea before anybody gave it too much thought. I had three such friends, and on this particular occasion, I supplied the idea.

Back then, the Little Cahaba River seemed deeper and wider than it does today. Yes, really! I suppose parts of it have slowly filled in over the decades, though I’ll leave the explanation to somebody who knows more about rivers than I do. All I know is that there are days now when I look at that stretch of water and wonder how we ever managed to swim in it.

The spot I’m talking about was just down from my house, behind Rowan Spring, where Leeds Memorial Park was later built. We swam there as kids, and at one time we even had a diving board on the creek bank. If you tried diving into that same place today, I believe you’d come away with considerably more than a refreshing swim.

But that summer, a severe storm changed the creek’s appearance in a hurry. The Little Cahaba rose over its banks and hurried down the valley toward Lake Purdy, carrying enough water to make our familiar swimming hole look like a proper river.

To most people, that might have seemed like a good time to stay out of it. To me, it looked like an opportunity.

My friends Bart, Dennis, and Mark and I were planning a canoe trip on the Cahaba River, starting behind the Cahaba Valley Golf Course and continuing all the way to Highway 280. There was one small weakness in my part of the plan: I had never been canoeing before. However, a lack of experience had not yet become a reliable obstacle to my enthusiasm.

I convinced the others that a practice run down the swollen Little Cahaba was just what we needed. Bart borrowed his dad’s canoe, Mark brought his own, and we hauled both boats down to Rowan Spring and dragged them to the creek. Bart and I climbed into one canoe, while Dennis and Mark took the other.

As soon as we pushed away from the bank, the current took charge. We were heading toward Lake Purdy at a speed that made me reconsider just how much practice we were likely to get. There was plenty of paddling, but very little evidence that the creek cared which direction we wanted to go.

We raced past the sewage plant and approached a sharp bend behind the home of my girlfriend, Melissa, who would later become my wife. As luck would have it, her entire family was in the backyard.

Now, a sensible young man might have concentrated on getting around that bend. I concentrated on being seen getting around it.

Here was my opportunity to demonstrate my skill, confidence, and general suitability as the young man dating their daughter. The fact that my canoeing career was only a few minutes old did not seem worth mentioning. I dug in with my paddle and put on a show.

Then I steered us straight into a rock.

The front of the canoe stopped. The creek did not. The current swung us sideways, tipped the boat, and deposited Bart and me in the water before I could make any improvement in the family’s opinion of my seamanship.

Whatever impression I had hoped to make, I am fairly certain that wasn’t it.

Fortunately, Mark’s canoe had stabilizers, and he and Dennis managed to reach the bank. They helped Bart and me get our canoe out of the creek, while all four of us scurried around like wet rats and tried to salvage a little dignity in front of Melissa’s family.

The canoe was salvageable. The dignity was another matter.

Bart and I were soaked from head to toe, and we agreed that we had practiced quite enough for one afternoon. We dragged the canoes up to Montevallo Road and hauled them back to Rowan Spring. Then the two of us walked over to my house to dry off as best we could before getting both boats back where they belonged.

You might think an experience like that would have put an end to our plans for the Cahaba. It didn’t. We had intended to go canoeing, and being unexpectedly introduced to the water had done very little to change our minds.

The four of us made that Cahaba trip several times. We would set out on a Friday from behind the golf course and paddle downstream until just before dark. Then we’d stop, build a campfire, and settle in for the night. The following morning, we’d cook breakfast over the open fire, clean up our campsite, and continue downriver.

Those trips are among my fondest memories of growing up in Leeds. I remember the pleasure of having nowhere else to be for a while, with good friends along and the next stretch of river ahead of us. Breakfast cooked over a campfire had a way of tasting better than it probably had any right to, and a weekend could feel wonderfully long when we spent it outdoors.

Looking back, I treasure those ordinary adventures more than I could have understood at the time. We weren’t setting out to make memories. We were just four young men with a couple of canoes and a plan that, eventually, worked out pretty well.

And I’m sure Melissa’s family got a good laugh whenever they remembered our first attempt. I had wanted them to see a capable young man confidently guiding his canoe around the bend.

They got to see me go around it without the canoe.

I suppose that made it a memorable afternoon for everybody.