A little verse story about the lakeside written in the city on a sleepy Civic Holiday long weekend. There are a few Canadianisms in the poem
I'll translate if necessary ;{)>
We four took our places along the chute
coming down to the main lake.
the chute hardily rates in the white water guide
but the channel is twisty and the approach narrow
and every canoe trip through here gets at least one
boat trapped in the eddy, one in three winds up wet.
a crew in the water. we’re here to help.
Four row boats. the boats and the boat men well
we’re mismatched. Harry taught English
at the community collages. his boat is an
original rice lake skiff, built in one
of the Peterborough works of copper, cedar and skill
in the days of oars and craftsmen and pride.
Earl is a local, who grew up hunting and trapping
and fishing and never did find a reason to stop
hunting and trapping and fishing. His boat is an old
13 foot cartopper, that cost him 150 bucks
35 years ago from the Simpsons’ Catalogue.
For an aluminum boat it rows pretty well:
must be that big dent in the bow
Capt’n Frank. Let me be Frank. Captain Frank
has the papers to prove that Captain Frank is a captain.
Forty years from the deck to the bridge of the lake boats.
From La Chine, to Toronto, to Sault Ste. Marie
to the Lakehead he plied the inland seas.
His boat is a design that he drew himself
and built in his off watch hours. He is our commodore
Me I am what I am. Mine is a fat dory skiff
one of twenty that Earl and his late dad built for the
Scouts 45 years ago. One is a flower pot, two are laid up
in Earle’s yard awaiting repair. This is the last a float.
She’s about half new wood, I have newer but
none better suited for this work—
a patient old thing., a patient useful old thing.
The trippers are right on time: a ragged mob of
cheap chop gun canoes. Kids don’t care they are
afloat in Northern Ontario, doing something that they
couldn’t do a fortnight ago. Following their leader
they dash down the chute keeping more or less to the channel,
One gets trapped in the middle eddy where Earl and I wait.
We get them straightened out and show then the trick
of getting out of the eddy The campers did pretty well
The counselors, older and stupider, try racing through
the chute; spilling two of the three boats in the process.
Earl had to rescue one of them from the rock at the foot of the chute
We left him for last while we picked u canoes and baggage.
The kids get a kick out of Earl and me running the chute stern first
We escort them half a mile down the lake
then we turn and race ourselves back to Earl’s dock far a Blue
– eight patient, useful, old things.
After a long awaited weekend visitation caused by false allegations of sexual abuse, Glen got to see his children for the first time in over two months. He promised them that they would never be apart again and then they disappeared.
The true story of Cheryl Pierson Cuccio who made headlines in 1986 and her husband Rob Cuccio. Cheryl was abused sexually and physically and Rob died for 43 minutes on Cheryl's 43rd birthday.
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