MY FIRST . . . AND WORST

Slouching low in his '49 Mercury, Tom Ruhe slugged down another mouthful of cheap red wine, wiped his mouth, made a face as if he’d swallowed straight vinegar, and passed me the jug. Childhood pals, Tom and I were evolving into "partners in crime and adventure." I’d just as soon he’d screwed the lid back on and tossed it out on the pavement. We didn’t really like this stuff, but in those days in Spokane, it was about the only way to get high. When you're feeling the full potential and gusto of age seventeen, but are still imprisoned in some redneck, bible-thumpin' little burg, your mental survival depends on getting high, now and then, until you are old enough to finally get the hell out of town.

Seeing ourselves rapidly outgrowing this smug, white bread little city, where most minds still lurked in the Dark Ages, we were becoming increasingly aware of the Big World out there. Like directionless but high spirited teen-agers everywhere, we rebelled, and in ways we considered outrageous. From the outside I’m sure looked just plain absurd. My old man told me he wouldn’t take me hunting anymore because of my hair: I maintained the locally fashionable paramilitary flat-top but recently had added long sides, "fenders." that swept back into an elegant ”Duck-ass.” But, “ No prob., Man, I am tired of huntin’ and fishin’ anyway.”

Strutting on the sidewalks of Spokane in pegged pants and blue suede shoes — dogging the style of Elvis and James Dean — we no doubt looked more like cheap hoodlums. Tom and I loitered in the pool halls without any real enthusiasm for the game, and messed with the pinball machines until we got tossed out for wracking up impossibly high scores [by stacking our school books under the front legs to slow down the ball] but it wasn’t really our kind of action anyway. Man.

What ee really wanted was to be out of doors. Golf was unfathomable, miniature golf was dopey, tennis was somehow for “the rich kids,” and riding bikes became passé at the stroke of sixteen, when we got our drivers license.

Then, in the Sunday Spokesman Review we saw a climbing photo. At the hardware store we bought a hemp rope, and, on a 40-foot cliff near the river, taught ourselves to rappel and then climb back up — over and over. Back in school, we pondered the world of adventure as we dug festered hemp fibers out of our palms with pocketknives. Our minds were no longer in the mundane world.

My old man, when he found the rope, demanded to know, "What the hell's going on here?" For probably the first time I did not back down, but said, “I’ve been climbing rocks. And it’s something I AM GOING TO DO!” Looking at me with new eyes, he probably saw that I’d “grown”, since the last time he'd paid attention, and had become bigger, stronger, and perhaps more bull-headed than he. His face went white, and he ended the encounter with, “Well, if I can’t control you, the Sheriff can.”

Now, some 50 years later, mentally scanning my personal slide show of 50 years of river running, I see the hodgepodge of exciting moments that make it the “adventure” it is: big waves, deep holes, keepers and sweepers. Traveling in canoes, dories, dugouts, j-rigs, kleppers, kayaks, and so on, along a vast variety of rivers, lakes and ocean from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego. Most trips were pleasurable, idyllic even — at other times risky, scary and downright miserable.

But my first trip was the worst.

That Saturday night, after cruising Main Street in Tom’s chop and channeled purple Merc, we were parked under the Trent Street train bridge. The wino who had purchased the two bottles with our money took his into the shadows beneath the trestle. We swilled the sweet, red fortified muck, hoping to get high before we got sick. Out in the moonlight, the Spokane River surged silently and powerfully by, swollen high in its banks with spring runoff.

Tom remarked, “Hey man, people float down rivers, you know?” Well, I hadn’t thought about rivers much. But, Man, we’d canoed on the local lakes . . . and messed about in row boats. . . . Tom said his uncle had genuine Army Surplus World War II life raft in his garage.

Next morning we dug it out, inflated it, and wiped out the spider nests. It was made of some kind of rubberized cotton, olive drab, of course, and, words like “US Air Force Survival Raft, Four Person, 1942 Issue” were stenciled on it in black letters. satisfied that it would hold air, we found a paddle, tossed it in the trunk of the Merc. “Neato!” we agreed, and roared off, exhilarated with the thought of adventure.

Cruising out of town up river we parked to "think about it," and perchance, to embark. I can still feel that compelling tang of excitement surging through me. Forget thinking about it, man, it's time for action.

The river in spring flood, was moving by with apparent speed. Bobbing in a small eddy, tied to shore with eight feet of olive green parachute cord, our “raft” looked, well, different to each of us. Tom, always the smarter and cautious one, saw it as small and inadequate. To me, it was our Chariot to Adventure. “It looks too small for four guys,” he pointed out criticallly. “Hey man, if your plane was shot down in the ocean it would look pretty good.” I said, always the optimist.

“Well, we only got one paddle,” says Tom. “Besides, how we gonna get back to the car?” Tom Rue was thinking up practicalities that would never occur to Tom Sayer.

“Well, let me just get in, and try it out…” I had to act before we chickened out. I was afloat before further logistical considerations could get in the way.

"Well, now, how does this thing work?," I thought. ”No way could "Four Men" fit in here; well, maybe all sitting on the tubes, knees interlocked. O.K., so how do they paddle and steer?" Then it dawned on me: "You don't paddle anywhere out in the middle of the Ocean. These rafts are not made for navigating, just to sit in until help arrives!" Just sitting on the tube by myself tipped it out of balance; I finally knelt on the floor, knees spread against the sides of this donut, and found I could conveniently reach over both sides with the paddle.

“Whoa!” The current was stronger than it looked, and I was swept away, not only down stream but also away from shore. I dug in my paddle and instantly had my first lesson in marine architecture: a round craft wants to spin only in circles. Paddling hard was not productive, I only spun faster, so I quickly taught myself to paddle a couple strokes right, then quickly left to paddle three left, counter-balancing forces in a wobbly sort of way.

I turned to spot Tom and the car. Wow! How’d they get so far upriver?” They hadn't moved: this river water was moving much faster than it appeared. While the water — and its flotsam — moved only slightly faster than me, the bank was speeding by. Man, I’d have to get sharp! The first bridge was looming rapidly, then, now really alarmed, I saw the water mound up where it met the concrete piers into huge haystacks. A large tree trunk ahead was swept up one mound, violently shuddered where it collided with the pier, then was swept rapidly downstream. Although I avoided hitting the pier directly, I was carried up the swell of the haystack, took on some water from the crest, and felt the sickening slide down its slope.

Shooting a glance up and down the bank I wondered, Now, where the hell was Tom,? my good buddy, my “support team.”

Somewhere in that stretch I spotted a bum on the bank, loafing near a shack — perhaps the same guy who’d bought the wine that inspired all this. He happened to look up, saw me and after the moment it took to sink in he sprang to his feet: some fool kid was out there in a damn inner tube! Unusually animated for a hobo he jumped up and started waving and shouting, something about “GET TO SHORE…”

Then I remembered the Falls. OH SHIT!

We’d started all this well above town, thinking [if we’d thought ahead at all] that we’d float a ways and get off anywhere we liked, out in the country, not all the way down town. Hell, we’d grown up here. That Spokane Falls was big — some 60-80 feet high — and with the power to generate the city’s electricity The Spokane Falls was a famous landmark, painted on souvenir dinner plates. One was in my Mom’s china cabinet.

I did not exactly panic, like crap my pants or drop my paddle, but I did double my efforts — frantically. The shore wasn’t getting any closer. Three stokes right, two left. Glancing up to look for Tom, I missed one of those strokes and spun around, getting a quick 360-degree scan of that river. “Pay attention, ya moron!” I berated myself in the words of my father. I focused and dug in harder, and finally, YES! the bank was inching closer.

The current, now channeled in its course through the town, picked up speed. The bridges passed by far too quickly. My enervated mind brought up a rough street map: "That first one — concrete piers — had to be Mission Street. Then Market, then Trent, then Division, then... Washington? Howard? "Oh Cripes! Howard is way down town, city center, the Falls are only a few blocks away!"

Well, I had to make it, and I did [“Duh…” you say…], and with three blocks to spare. My relief must have been huge, though all I remember of the landing were the huge, sharp boulders of the riprap embankment. Somehow I hung onto the boat, got it in hand and up the bank, but the moment I topped out, all the excitement, the thrill of ”adventure” of my wild ride was instantly forgotten, or at least postponed — by an equally awful fright: a huge city cop, hands on hips, waiting for me.

Being a self-styled "outlaw", a wannabe hoodlum, or some such, the “cops” were our nemesis. Crime, wrong doing, were not always so 'bad'. Getting caught was the disaster to always avoid.. . “Oh boy, I’m really in deep shit now!” I was scared to the core.

However, the cop, big and tough as he was, looked confused. He had never dealt with anything like this. A rafter, or any kind of boat on this part of the river? Nobody had done this kind of thing before, so there was no law. I probably was not illegal, and now that I was out of harm’s way there was really no problem [better than a body recovery below the falls, when you think of it…]. He noted down my name, etc, and asked how I’d get home. “My buddy is coming in his car…” [Where in hell IS Tom?” then I spoted the purple Merc skulking a couple of blocks away. Just as well, right now the low-rider image is best kept out of sight.] Cop said something like, “We’ll, don’t do it again…" I replied, "No Sir!" and strolled off.

[No, friggin' way, Sir.]

Many nights later, Tom and I sat parked in the Merc’ at an overlook of the Spokane Falls. Still in flood, the river poured over and crashed on the rocks below in the most hellaceous chaos, our local version of Niagara. We didn’t have any red wine, or even much to say, as I recall. The lesson was obvious.

We grew more thoughtful, I suppose. A year later, Tom joined the priesthood — shaved head and all — and began a serious education towards a medical degree. I proceeded to college, and so on, but the "adventure" bug had bit, I was hooked, still am, but I always try to scope out the down river hazards before putting in. I've had my share of swamping and flips and wraps, but the memory of nearly going over the Spokane Falls is the one that still churns my guts.