Father's Day 2007

This pic is from monday night at one of the old camp buildings up the road that is now a hay barn. There is another pic of this building on the post titled "kids all gone.

My girls usually "take me" miniature golfing on father's day but we got jammed up with recording the music for Flicker's (my youngest) talent show and Jelly Jar's (my oldest) review for her social studies final. By the time we got that stuff out of the way there was only time for a trip in the canoe out to an island in the river. We packed up the cooler and I figured out to put the canoe on my "new" truck for the first time. My brother-in-law (who I bought the truck from in January) threw a bike rack in with the deal. The bike rack was the key for getting the canoe to stay on the pickup truck.

We stopped for snack and some subs at the deli in town. It was the first time we've ever stopped in there. I am not sure where the guy is from (somewhere around the Mediterranean) but he had home-made pita bread and humus. We like this stuff and we ate it in the truck on our way the river.

The tide was at 3/4 high and on its way in when we pulled up to the launch. My girls got a little anxious on the paddle out to the island. There was a lot of boat traffic and it was bumpy. When we got to the island, we paddled by a high sand bank that looked like "coop city"(a large apartment complex in the Bronx) for swallows. There were hundreds of holes in the bank and there was a steady flow of bird traffic flying in and out. We wondered out loud how they could remember which hole/nest was theirs.

We found a decent spot on shore, the pulled the canoe up and ate almost immediately. The girls left their life jackets on and floated with on the incoming tide in the shallows. There were some boats anchored off the island and the river was really busy. After a little while, we walked down the the disappearing beach to the little bluffs that held the swallows' nests and watched the bird traffic for a bit.

While we walked along the shore, the sand on the high bank would randomly break loose and start flowing down inside the minature canyons that were cut into the back. They looked like solid rivers with sand water falls in some spots.

-At the top of the bank there were rectangles carved from the weather that looked like they had little tables sitting on top of them. Parts of that sand bank looked like a two dimensional, miniature model of the mowab in southern Utah. ( i've never been there but I have seen pictures and I dont know how to spell it either)

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We spent a couple of hours on the island in all. On our way in we spotted an immature bald eagle roosting in a dead elm tree along the bank. The girls wanted to see how close we could get so, we paddled without speaking. We got within 30 feet; close enough to see a green band on its leg and appreciate how huge its beak was. He never spooked.

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Now the fun begins...

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We pulled the canoe up to the spot where we put in and I ran up to get the truck. The girls were kinda spacing out while I loaded the life jackets and stuff out of the canoe and into the truck. I had parked my truck off to the side because a family of Kayakers were coming in right after us.

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When it was time to put the canoe up onto to the truck I did my usual thing. I pulled it by the center support up onto my knees in one continuous motion and flip it over onto my back. I use the momentum of and leg strength and works well.

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Once I got the canoe up on my shoulders I realized I need to back up a little and turn the whole thing around to put it on the truck the right way. When I made my first step backwards, I tripped over a big willow tree root, fell backwards onto the ground where the canoe slipped off of my shoulders and clonked me in the head.

It hit me hard.

When I got my witts about me, I heard the girls asking,

"Daddy where are you? ... Are you OK?"

I was completely out of sight under the canoe. I just started to laugh and said,

"I'm under here."

The inside of a canoe has very cool acoustics when its top of you and your inside it laughing. It was kinda like I was caught in a "have-a-heart" trap. As I was in there I was thinking about how that family was standing up on the bank watching me. I didn't really want to come out but, I finally crawled out from underneath the thing very, very embarrassed.

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Sure enough, father kayak asked me if I needed help and I said "no" because I AM A MAN and I had loaded that canoe hundreds of times without that ever happening before. It wasn't going to happen again!! . I told him these things aren't supposed to happen when people are watching. I continued to laugh and the girls were laughing too.

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I started to tie the canoe on the truck.

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After the laughter stopped, Jelly Jar started asking me over and over if I was OK and I said yes. Then she got a worried look on her face and started to cry.

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"Daddy, your not alright, oh my god.... your bleeding daddy."
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Gee really?

Sure enough there was blood running down the back of my neck and it had soaked right through my baseball cap. Oh man I am an ass. At this point I did what I always do when I don't know what to do and said (in a very serious voice).

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"Get in the Truck!"

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I think those words are a tacit admission I've lost all control of situation.

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I wiped away the blood and quickly finished tying the canoe on. As the girls continued to cry I told them girls that their sobbing was not making me feel very OK. They stopped and Flicker said.

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"Daddy, your baseball cap looks really gross, you should wash it off."

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I took it off and looked at it. The blood had soaked through to make a pretty big stain. I put it back on.

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At that moment a pick up truck trailering the local fire dept boat backs down the ramp.

Flicker looks at me and looks at the firemen. I knew what she was thinking and I shook my head "no."

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Then she starts mouthing, "Ask them for help."

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I tried to give her my death look of disapproval to get her to stop but it did no good. She whispered/mouthed. "Ask them for a wipe...... psttt daddy," then she mouthed it again to me in very a very exaggerated lip sync, "ASK THEM FOR A WIPE."

It was funny. We escaped as soon as I was done tying the canoe on.

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I was ok to drive but when I got them to their house, I felt loopy. I still have the biggest egg on my head that I've ever had in my life.

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So on Monday at work when people asked me how my father's day was I just said,

"It was pretty good except I dropped a boat on my head."