Re: [Paddlewise] Who We Are

.....while I obviously cannot compete with luminaries such as Dr.
Iverbon, et.al, permit me to introduce myself as well, and give a bit of
my paddling pedigree.  (Dr. Iverbon brought to mind a Geographic article
and photo essay on Peary which included a bevy of comely Inuit maidens,
linked shoulder to shoulder, grinning, in what could only be described
as a kick-line formation, often seen in arctic ceremonies, no doubt.
The wry caption of the group of photographs was ..........."ethnological
studies".)     But that was ZEN.....this is now.
    I was but a lad of 10 back in 1963 when I began the process in
earnest,   of wheedling and haranguing my tin-banger- union- man father
for a kayak.  As one might have guessed, the options were somewhat
limited at the time.....one couldn't just simply pop down to the local
kayak outfitter and select one from off the peg, quite a different
prospect from the happy scenario today.  (Some kid named Georgie Dyson
in Princeton N.J. a few miles away, I learned late in life, was making
his first skin boat in the living room of his parents house, at the same
time, and I have absolutely no question that his career was launched by
artistic espionage, somehow watching my Dad and I put together our
aluminum and skin, albeit not baidarka, kayak.)   But I digress.........

    Dad had a friend with a low temp welder weld up some thin-wall
conduit  into a double-ended shape of his own design (that Hungarian
could do anything he set his hand to), and he and I sewed a canvas skin
on and glassed all but the deck.  Spray skirts were unnecessary as a
coaming occurred to no one in the fabrication.  The only store bought
item was a take-apart wooden double bladed paddle. (No, we didn't grow
our own canvas and fiberglass).  We launched on the Millstone River of
central N.J. about a quarter mile downstream from the Griggstown bridge
(across from my house).  That was the last time I appeared that summer
at the family table for regular meals.  There was entirely too much
interesting stuff that would wash up in the eddies of the frequent log
jams on the Millstone, and entirely too many painted turtles to be
caught. That part of  New Jersey was all dairy farms and silage corn
back then, as landscaping with strip malls was slow to catch on.  If I
had already picked through the flotsam  in my little stretch of the
Millstone, awaiting the next flood, the boat was light enough for a
smallish kid to pick it up on my shoulder and cross the heavily treed
no-man's land between the Millstone and the Delaware-Raritan Canal, and
cross the tow-path and paddle the canal for a while.  That having been
done you were teleported back to 1850 -- or so it seemed ,what with the
lock-keepers quarters and the houses still standing spared by the Brits
who swept through in 1812 when they burnt the courthouse. Except for the
hiss of tires on wet pavement of the occasional Sunday driver on the
adjacent road, all was nearly like it was in 1850:  only the sound was
of your paddle drip and occasional turtle plopping off the bank as you
passed too near for turtle comfort.
    Summers, sometimes  for  6 weeks, we would load the kayak and my
brother's Wind&Sea longboard with the glued in skeg, (he still has it),
into the baby blue two- tone Studebaker  wagon encrusted with lawn
chairs, and barbecue grills and all things necessary for  extended beach
homesteading,  and head through the Pine Barrens to Sea Isle City/
Strathmere N.J.
    That kayak surfed as one would expect any kayak with a open
manhole  to surf......but that didn't stop me.  My older sister might
have tried it once and declined a second offer.......older brother was
content with knee-paddling his longboard.....so the beach was mine!  Get
out beyond the break await a swell, engage the wave, .......broach....do
the rotisserie thing.........slogg in........empty out........start over
again until dark.   Repeat the entire process at dawn, following the
"arise Tiki" ceremony (he was coaxing the sun to rise, Polynesian
style), officiated by my brother on the beach.
    Fast forward 32 years............kayakless for that long
(sob)........as that homespun boat washed away in a flood when I was 16
(brother Davie didn't tie it up, or someone felt they needed it more
than I)......Relocate from Sonora, California to Savannah, JAW-juh, and
there, at the Charleston Symposium lay  a screaming yellow Wilderness
Systems Seacret that had my name on it.
    Then came the discovery of okome and the good people at Chesapeake
Light Craft, and epoxy.  And the subsequent discovery that there is only
so much that straight panels of plywood can be expected to do.  Next a
plastic Necky  Kyook, the trading of which made this posting possible.
Finally at long last, the nitch into which I settled was a skin on frame
Baidarka of some 42 pounds ........a Bruce Lemon interpretation of the
boat in the Lowie museum.  We both put it together at the Charleston
Symposium a years ago in four days. (!)  Oh yeah, and surf boats.   Man,
have I got surf boats.  An early Necky proto-type of the Rip, and
recently a Mega Jester, but it doesn't stop there....... I have, at this
moment the skeletal beginnings of another surf boat on my bench in the
same garage where the family Volvo was evicted some years ago.....it's
all benches and tables and kayak racks to the ceiling  now.
    Last summer my brother visited me and he used one of my longboards
(he immediately started stroking into a wave from a kneeling position,
caught it, executed a drop-knee backside bottom turn, for the
uninitiated, that's reallllllly core,  rode it till the skeg ground...
........he didn't miss a beat, I was so proud of him....), came back
through the break grinning from ear to ear.  I was in my Necky Rip and
the surf was uncommonly good that day..........the thought occurred to
me, and I shouted over to David......." Hey Dave........It's 1963
.......again!!!"
                        Thanks for your indulgence with my ruminations:
                                                Christopher Kohut


> From:                   rcc7 <rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com>
> Send reply to:          rcc7_at_ix.netcom.com
> To:                     PaddleWise_at_lists.intelenet.net
> Subject:                [Paddlewise] Who We Are
>
> My former friend Richard Clifford writes ---
>
> >  Jack (Joq) Martin also is a great guy. But what
> > happened to this year's cold water clinic that CPA had last
> January?!
>
> I'm deeply disconcerted by the obfuscation of an attorney --- sorry
> to be redundant, List --- and a former friend, Richard Clifford.  It
> is
> my understanding that I'm being mercilessly maligned on the
> CPAKayaker for blowing off coordinating another Cold Water
> Workshop this winter. This couldn't be further from the truth.  There
> was, in fact, no intention of having another Cold Water Workshop
> this winter in Annapolis.  What I blew off was a promised Newbies
> Clinic for this winter.  Just to set the record straight!
>
> That said, the winter isn't over yet.
>
> And I'll get to work on a Y2K Cold Water Workshop, Richard.  I'll
> get right on it, in fact --- tomorrow.  Or next week.
>
> Jack Martin
>
> "Never put off to tomorrow that which you can put off to the day
> after tomorrow."
>
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