Back in the Day - Old Photos

[George Locke]

Looking at the Pics of the REAL KAYAKS- It reminds me of my buddy Zeke at Ozark Mountain Sports who paddled a d*ck Held Bronco and he tried to get them to make an official campaign of "Have you had your d*ck Held today" .... It didn't get much traction!!!
Geo.

[RandyJ]

Yeah, if my last name was "Held", I sure wouldn't name my kid Richard.

[Roger]

Or Head!!!! Thanks Mom and Dad!

[Prairie Tater]

Roger said:

Or Head!!!! Thanks Mom and Dad!

Saw that one coming!

[debmoore]

These pics are great! I wish I wasn't stuck with dial-up out here in BFV cause I have some really good old pictures, ie the river rescue clinic we had in 1983 or 1984. Les Bechtel was the instructor and we had it at Long Pool and at the community center. And by the way, those legs do belong to me. It was February and Piney was 6'.5. And the photographer was none other than "Famous hands Hunter"! I had a wet suit on under the jeans and those were Donner Mtn waterproof hiking boots, thank you very much! Maybe it was before paddling jackets and pants were invented?!? Kerry is on the other side of the boat, a Blue Hole of course, just didn't make the picture. We were running the mother, when Kerry took a big paddle stroke and the nylon pants he was wearing caused him to lose it (that's his story and he's sticking to it), and there we went. He commented when I finally did get to the bank, that it looked like someone shot me out of the boat like a rubberband. David sent me the picture right away, but being still young and dumb, I was embarressed. I didn't put is out ntil I went to Ozark Outdoors and saw the picture hanging on the wall. Oh, those were the good ol days!

[turboturtle]

Dang, I remember my first kayak being a Phoenix like Toms. That was one long boat I'll never forget! I figured it was a good Hundred plus gallon boat. Volume is a crutch, I now paddle a sub Twenty gallon boat most of the time.
Whoo Hoo!

[Roger]

And by the way, those legs do belong to me.

And nice legs they are, Deb!!!

[RandyJ]

Volume is a crutch

Quotable. Gotta remember that one.

[George Locke]

DebMoore- The Clinic was October 6th and 7th 1984- Brad Wimberly, James Wright, Lloyd Schlicker and myself attended from the Bend-- Somehow I managed to keep a certificate from "NOC" and Les Becthal-Slim Ray was not there and I think he was hurt and not able to attend but this was before his big injury on the Green(I think) Lots beverages and water under the boat- ur bridge-But it was a hoot and I hope you can scare up some pics-Luv 2 U and K -Geo

[Bullwinkle]

Gee Whiz!!! Randy!! You and I need to get together next time you make it to Dubuque. Greg's current girlfriend lives there now...

As for the 7 pages of pictures, I had to keep a running list of unanswered questions, so bear with me...

1.Joe Spitzmiller's paddle was an orange Seda fiberglass model likely gotten from either Frank B or maybe Doc Van Patter's canoe and kayak shop he used to have under his vet clinic on Cantrell Rd.

2. The Blue OCA greasing the Washing Machine is likely Jim Simmons from Loosiana.

3. The gratuitious photo of me in the Washing Machine at semi-high water has me in a Prijon T-Slalom, the first real kayak to have a huge cockpit for safety. That boat was one of the first to not use wall, but rather realy dense plastic. That was an endering SOB for sure. October 21st(our wedding anniversary no less), I almost drowned on the Tot due to a variety of factors(and well-documented in the ACC Paddler newsletter), but the big one was paddling a short small cockpit glass boat that Jerry Jaggers had built in Texas called a Bronco. He was responsible forbuilding all those really lightweight slalom boats that the Europeans couldn't compete with back in the 80's and the ICF finally made minimum boat weight rules as a result.
Paddle was called a Freeblades and I think Tommy and I may have owned the only two in the state since it was a really light paddle for racing and marketed by none other than then-current world champion Richard Fox. At one of the Ocoee races(maybe spring of 82 or 83) I was paddling a Noah Coup desi9gned and built by Vladimir Vahna, of NOAH boat fame. The boat was so light, a gust of wind picked it up off Hwy 64's shoulder and blew it into the Ocoee. Richard Fox actually rescued it and the boat sponge inside it. I also remember the most classic boating quote I've ever heard to this day. Vladimir was watching all the metalflake-decked glitzy slalom boats going up and down the river and commented, " Man who paddle sparkle boat, must have penis problem."

4. The slalom photo of me in the C-2 was likely of a clinic and not a race. I think all the races we did had the colored poles, although the 1983 race on the Piney we used the square poles(that the wind made 'em spin) before the ACC funded getting better race equipment the following year. The bow paddler was Chuck Cullom and I think he had a twin brother Richie. The C-2 was designed by Paul Bishop from Pittsburg Kansas and there were only 3 of them made. Dale Barton had a short version of it made and Dan Hammock of Texarkana had a cut down version made. I sold mine to someone in Wisconsin a few years later as the boat didn't turn well enough to be competitive, but I'll bet Dale and Dan still have theirs.

5. Speaking of folks not mentioned, has anyone mentioned Robert Booth? He was pretty much my mentor as the West Side YMCA class he and Stewart Noland taught pretty much got me going in the sport. January of 1977 I think?

6. As to what Mikey Beard was doing floating in the water? I imagine he was "adding to the CFS" of the creek.

7. PROJECT RAFT- I'll start a second post just in case my 60,000 characters are getting close to being used up here. There's more to come.....

[Bullwinkle]

PART II
7. PROJECT RAFT- I wrote a lengthy trip report on the whole week and it's in one of the later 1990 ACC newletters if someone can dig up the huge newsletter archive I saw at Rendezvous back in 2001 or 2002. Walter? Gordon? Deb? One of you guys or gals out there has it in a closet somewhere. I know my copy is buried beyond retrieval!!. BTW, I got a letter some time after the event from some vidoegrapher in Iowa that had VHS tyape of us competing and would I like a copy?. I probably filed th letter away and accidentally discovered it a year or two ago, contacted the guy and he's still around in NW Iowa and he said he'd try to dig it up. I said "no hurry, it has been 15+ years!!"

Some thoughts on the upcoming 20th anniversary;
A. It took some serious coaxing to get Mr. Jackson to join the team. His paddling skills and blazing running speed were vital to the team's success despite a calf muscle issue he was dealing with, we lost the Triathlon event by 6" or less and I thought we'd won or at least tied. Kent D. had fared well on the Mtn. bike portion getting us to 7th place and RJ reeled in all but 1 runner. The 4 remaining team members did the 8 mile raft run on the Nanny and we had 45 seconds to make up. We caught them, but our big mistake was chosing the smaller raft for the race instead of a bigger raft with a stiff self-bailing floor. As it turns out the SB was MUCH faster!! No, my memory isn't that good and yes, I cheated and looked it up in the diary I kept back then. FWIW, that was the night Arkansas beat UNC in the NCAA round ball tourney.

B. We worked out a deal with the Moscow team that they could borrow one of our kayaks for the kayak slalom and giant slalom if we could use their really cool cataraft. Kent and I paddled that thing like pros and barely missed winning the regular slalom on Tuesday and won the Giant Slalom with a clean run by 30 seconds over the rest of the field on Saturday. The Giant Slalom required the cat and the 6 person raft classes to run Big Wesser. We did really well in the 6 person raft too finsihing 2nd by like 4 seconds.

C. The Noichucky Downriver Race in the 6 Person Raft was the last event and we had little knowledge of the river collectively(I'd only run it once like 10 uears previously) so it was a comedy of errors. At Railroad, Beard almost fell out of the raft and Shelle was thrown out and once we got her back, we had a bunch of water in the boat(no self bailer available for this event!). We finished 9th and almost beat Team Amazonki from California, and all girl group of raft guides. We ended up finishing 5th over all with the Orienteering Race on Section 3 of the Chatooga killing us(31st) and the Rescue Rodeo where we didn't do so well either.
D. Considering that the NOC lower parking lot had the Nanny flowing through it the Saturday before the event, and snow falling one night, the NOC did a fantastic job of organizing the food, team meetings and awards events and having entertainment for all the visiting countries. I still have my race bib hanging in my shop up here and hopefully that video footage will show up someday.
E. The photo of all of us in the 6 person raft, I see Randy is using Joyce's canoe paddle, a Dagger wood canoe paddle that Steve Scarborough made in Long Creek SC, way before Dagger Canoe and kayak company was ever dreamed about.. Even to this day, those are sweet paddles. I think I bought them at Ozark Outdoor in the early 80's.

8. Randy, the hood canoe story is priceless!!
9. Roger's trio of pix, the bottom photo is of then co-owner of Ozark Outdoor Supplu Mike Crowell and the guy in the back is using a wooden paddle from Germany called a Kober. They were reallly Cadillac sticks back in the day.

Yes, I have a ton of old slides, photos and video myself, including that magnanomous shot of Cossatot Falls on Friday moring December 2nd(I think...not cheating this time) 1982 and although Robert Colvert and I ran the Little Mo that morning, I did go up to Hailstone the next day and have a very similar photo to RJ's of the Boxley bridge with all the floatsom on Hwy 21. We didn't put intil noon and did the last 1/4 mile in the dark pretty much. I think Pat McCutheon, Junior and Pam Wynn, and a few others were on that trip, but again, I'm going from memory, a failing one at that.

Thanks for the trip down mewmory lane.

DM&FS

[Roger]

Max, I don't remember where it was exactly (probably the old parking lot at Long Pool), but I gave you some photos from that same time frame (year-wise) of Kennon's pic. You were in a long skinny yak and playing at Surfing Wave on the Piney. Think you were piloting the original Millenium Falcon at the time!

At the time, I was paddling a red Bluehole OCA tandem with a lady that we bought from BOC at Ponca. The boat had two or three trips on the Buffalo when Mike sold it to me for 8 bills and no warranty! Who needed a stinking warranty with that boat!?

[Bullwinkle]

Along with all the other threads that could come from RJ's post, we should do one about Canoe School memories, including the origin of the HEX bottle.

I do remember the 1990 School where Kenny Holmes and I put our OC-1 class in at the FS bridge at 2.7 feet with impending storms coming, and a bit past Redding we saw the feeder creeks turn brown, giving the Mulberry a "marbled" look to it and the rain wasn't lightening up any. NO electricity so far, but we had to cancel the class. Kenny took the students up the bank and hiked to the road, and I ran solo sweep the rest of the way to see if everyone else's classes had made it off the river safely. When I got to Turner Bend, the gauge read 9 feet.

I should dig into the diary and see how many current and former ACC club officers were in one of our classes over the years. Only two presidents that I can think of.....

The year that Pres. Clinton came through?

Sam Carr's restaurant that usually fed me on Saturday nights....


Ohh, and the rescue clinic on the Piney? That probably was 1984, as Karl Walker and I organized one with Les Bechtdel in 1983 after I talked to him at one of the Nantahala races the year before. I remember being totally shocked when he said yes, he'd love to come to Arkansas and teach a class. The ACC Board let us run with it and as I remember, it was a great awakening to all present. We did it at Rockport before the old bridge went down in 1990(?). I don't remember who all was in that class, but I'm thinking that Cowper and Beard were for sure; maybe Kerry Moore too.

Speaking of Rockport... I first heard of it from either Gary Morgan or Winnie back in 1982 and we doggedly used that bridge for slalom practice because it was so easy to string the PVC pipe gate poles off that bridge. It would be some time before anyone even ventured upstream to do the ledge, much less float that 6 mile stretch. The bottom rapid was too much fun as it was... at least before all the metal entered the picture.

Then there was the slalom clinic in 1985 (I think) when we got Carey Ashton from NOC fame(she was a mainstay at the NOC for years and was one of the K-1W slalom team members for the US in the very first Olympic Slalom in Munich circa 1972) to come and teach an open canoe class. I think Karl and Dan Hammock helped set up on Friday at Long Pool and by 10 AM or so, all the gate wires were under water from the rain. Piney crested at 11 feet so we ran the lower river to Twin Bridges. She was paddling Dan's kevlar slalom C-1 and after a mile or so, needed to stretch her legs and managed to get her legs out of the cockpit, stretch them on the deck of the boat, and get back in the boat and get the skirt back on, all without gtting any water in the boat. Yes, you read it correctly, she did this in a flooded Big Piney Creek. Instant guru status was attached, as if she needed any further props. We ended up having the clinic on some small creek north of Clarksville on some paddler's property named Bob and I have forgotten his last name and I apologize if he ever reads this.

Well, I've spent the afternoon doing this instead of outfitting a tandem teaching canoe I'm refurbishing and it's time to go to a friend's birthday party tonight.

More later,....I hope.

DM&FS

[Bullwinkle]

Roger: That would've been my infamous Phoenix Match wildwater kayak!!. Fast as hell and tippier than that. I once put in on the Piney at Helton's and timed the run to Long Pool at like 7' on the gauge. Took 46 minutes to do the run. Almost beat the shuttle driver down there!! Still one of my greatest paddling accomplishments was successfully completing 3 or 4 race runs down the Ocoee in that boat. Tablesaw is a real trip when the boat doesn't turn at all and running through Accelerator at warp speed is definitely the fastest I've ever gone in a kayak. Finished the race once in 24 minutes and change, but the winners were in the 18 minute range, so I had no illusions about getting good at that part of the sport, but it did teach me to read water and use it to help turn the boat. I think I used a Homer King Silver Creek paddle specially designed for that kind of racing. Have no idea what ever happened to it. I think the Match was stolen while on loan to a friend.

Now, really, I gotta get in the shower!!

DM&FS

[Roger]

Good is relative, DM! It's what you bring to the sport! Gotta love this stuff!