As Sue and I started up the path by the Huron River today, we could see that the Cascades section of the river was full of activity. Canoers, kayakers, and tubers, as well as little guys with just lifejackets for flotation assistance were everywhere and so excited.
“It looks like an outing,” Sue said, “like maybe kids from a summer camp.” It turned out to be more than one outing.
The first wave was a bunch of eager adults in canoes and kayaks. They’d already made it through the nine chutes of the Cascades. Now they were headed through the big chute that would take them out to the main body of the river. It was hard to tell which side of the footbridge over this chute would afford the best view of the action; I ended up running back and forth. Sue was more dignified and only walked over to the main-river side after a kayaker flipped his boat and ended up in the water.
The man who flipped had tried to head upstream while still in the thrust of the current from the chute. He stood up on his own immediately, held on to the kayak, and didn’t look upset. Also, an instructor was suddenly right next to him, making sure all was well. The young man who’d turned his boat over had been wearing his lifejacket pretty casually before the mishap. He put it on correctly and fastened it while standing in the river, and the instructor helped him get back on the kayak.
Everyone else in that group sailed right through the chute, although some were wobbly lining up their approaches. At least one had to use his paddle to shove himself away from the rocks at the end of the Cascades, and some of the others ended up going through the chute two boats at once, in a space intended for singletons.
Meanwhile, a family of mallards lined up on the downstream side of chute, watching the boat traffic go by. They looked like spectators at this entertaining human event but, when the traffic cleared, it turned out they were just waiting for a chance to swim past and continue upstream.
Near the top of the Cascades but out of the current, lower-elementary-aged kids stood in the river receiving instruction from a counselor. They wore lifejackets, held on to their tubes, and listened earnestly. More counselors were already downstream, ready to supervise the children’s runs. It made my lifeguard heart happy to see how well organized the fun would be.
As all this was happening, unaffiliated paddlers and tubers kept sliding down the Cascades, some of them playing on through, and some going back to the top for another run. Two kids ahead of us were carrying tubes up the path for another ride. We could tell by what looked like large, orange mushroom tops making their way past tall grasses. All we could see was the underside of the tubes bobbing along; we couldn’t see the children at all.
On a walk with Rascal, a small buzzing sound called attention to another turnover situation. This one was a cicada, on its back on the sidewalk and unable to right itself. It was a pleasure to set it back on its feet. Non-periodic cicadas don’t live long. I hope this one lives a happy life. Rascal wasn’t much interested in it, one way or the other.
He was more interested in a smallish sparrow we saw later. It was standing on the sidewalk, by itself, and didn’t fly away as we approached. Both of those behaviors are odd in the world of sparrows. It never did fly off, and there was something not quite normal about how it walked. The bird watched us closely, demonstrating, in fact, that at least this sparrow can turn its head a full one hundred and eighty degrees. It was looking at us with its beak centered over its back.
Whatever was wrong, we decided to let the bird be. Perhaps its difficulties were temporary. There was no sign of it when I drove past the spot an hour later—no little bird and no little pile of feathers.
My husband and I saw something unusual as we walked the neighborhood lately: a pink car. This was no shy, retiring pink, either. This Chevy’s paint was bright, saturated. It had the courage of its convictions. I also saw a Maserati in a deep, greenish brown. With orange door handles. It was sensational.
You just don’t know what you’ll encounter when you’re out walking on a hot August day in the Midwest.
2 August 2024