Shrieks and laughter told Sue and me that today was a busy day on the Huron River, even before we could see the water through the trees. People were clearly having a fine time, both on the main body of the river and on the Argo Cascades. The Cascades is a series of nine gentle chutes that canoers and kayakers and tubers can shoot, separated by stretches of river with undemanding current. Nearly everyone who traverses these engineered rapids goes back to the top and does it again. The Cascades are a rush.
Tubers tend to favor groups experiences in the Cascades, some of them family groups. This morning, one mom had two daughters in tow—one of them literally. Mom held a rope that linked her tube to her little daughter’s tube, so that the daughter followed her closely. A second daughter, slightly older, was willing and able to follow serenely on her own.
Another mom shared her tube with her little daughter, and the child was shrieking from some excess of excitement or emotion; it wasn’t entirely clear which. As their tube approached the next cascade, Mom asked, “Are you okay?” And the little squirt answered, at shouting level, “Yah-ha-ha-ha!” Which seemed to mean, this is so fun I can hardly stand it, so they sailed on through that cascade and on to the next, the little girl shrieking all the while.
Next came a couple of young men in a canoe, who were doing just fine as they lined themselves up for the next chute. Suddenly, they looked to be trying to reverse course mid-chute, where the river was fastest and there was no room to turn around. They so muffed the passage that they tipped over their canoe. They stood right up and got underway again, no harm, no foul. Fortunately, everyone we saw on the river today was wearing a life jacket.
We’d walked nearly to the top of the Cascades by now, and glanced up just as a man flipped his kayak. It happened so quickly I couldn’t be sure, but it almost looked like he tipped over on purpose. Ah, he did. We could tell because he rolled the kayak again, over and over. Every time, he’d right the boat with seeming ease, and paddle back to his favored spot. Maybe he knew the water was deep enough for him to practice there. Sue says that dedicated kayakers can spend hours practicing.
We walked on, entering Beckley Park, which has a playground, a large sandbox, room to run, and—of greater interest to us on this hot, muggy day—shady places to sit. As we approached our bench of choice, a father and tot had just arrived in the park. Daddy was carrying three balls, and child was kicking them. Quite creditably. We marveled that a child so small could be so coordinated, at an age when simply standing on one foot would be a big deal.
When the child toddled over to the sandbox, we saw that the focused little kicker was a girl. Dad said her name was Cindy. The sandbox in that park is chock-full of toys, and Cindy chose one that would hold sand and fit in her hand. She filled the toy and threw the sand, which caught in the breeze and settled back down. She did this over and over and over, with the same look of concentration she’d shown when evaluating her kicks, the same one the kayaker had when practicing rolls at the Cascades.
My sweetheart stretched out beside me, the other night, and reached his arms over his head to open his side of the window. Excellent! Open windows tonight. I stretched my arms up to adjust my side of the window, but could not budge it. I tried repeatedly. Then, glancing up, I started to laugh.
“I was pushing the window frame, not the window,” I explained.
“Did it move?” my husband asked, not missing a beat.
“Nope, not even a little.”
“Well, that’s good news,” he responded. “It’s one of those things that keep you awake at night worrying about, but you never think to check. Thanks for checking.”
How you experience these hot summer days depends in large part on how you approach them. You can embrace them, reveling in fun, thrills, and spills on the water. You can carry on with your plans, regardless of the weather, practicing kicks, throws, and rolls, and improving your technique. You can nurture relationships, no matter what you’re doing, and you can find the humor in them as well. It’s all in the wrist.
5 July 2024