GEORGIE WHITE

In this push-button age of assemblyline, mass production, many of the sturdy products, with American trademarks, seem to have been pushed off the shelves. Strangely enough, although we still admire their style, most people do not seem to take the time to make them at home, and the efficiency expert has not come up with any factory models, so they cannot be turned out wholesale. It is refreshing, therefore, when one does come across, for example, some genuine, dyed-in-the-wool, Pioneer B and Courage.

Georgie DeRoss was born in Chicago the year the Phillies beat the sox off Chicago, to take their first World Series pennant. Had there been no discrimination against women in the National League, perhaps she might have stayed in Chicago to help get it back.

From New York City, where Central Park was her favorite haunt, Georgie drifted west on a bicycle! in winter! I would like to hear a first hand account of that trip, but the request would bring up a tragic memory. Some years later, in Los Angeles, (which she had found as warm and friendly as advertised) her fifteen-year old daughter was killed by a hit-run driver, while the two of them were cycling together.

By then, she was Georgie White, as she is now, and her husband, "Whitey," encouraged a hiking trip through the desert as therapy. I have hiked in the High Sierra and called it fun. My trips, with burros backpacking supplies, pup tent for rainy weather, and water galloping down every canyon, were the red-carpet kind, compared to Georgie's. Starting off with a pocketful of dried edibles and a measly quart-size canteen of water, to brave the open Navajo Indian Reservation, would be another matter. A jeep is more my style in the desert than shank's mare. Nor has the Colorado River, particularly in rocky canyons, appealed as the best place to swim. It did to Georgie and Harry Aleson, who counts the rugged Colorado Plateau his own special playground.

After a jaunt, building muscle and know-how, the Chicago woman came across the BIG RIVER, and fell under its spell. That is not just a manner of speaking. The Colorado may drop silt when restrained in lake form behind a dam, but its hold on people who once succumb to that vivid personality is as potent as an electricpowered magnet, with no turn-off switch.

Lacking cash for the outlay which cataract boats or a guided trip in them entails, Georgie and Harry took to the water sans boat, a little food tucked into a life preserver, worn over a bathing suit. To swim 185 miles through wilderness, as she did, is really starting "at the bottom" in the travel business. For not content with enjoying the exhilaration and profound beauty of wild rivers personally, Georgie wanted to share the experience with as many other people as possible. The happy solution she reached came after graduating, first to the tenman rubber raft, and then the thirty-foot neoprene bridge pontoon, a threesome lashed together. The now popular, "Georgie White Share the Expense Trips," provided an answer to cost-cutting for all takers.

Queen of the Rivers

Nor was the Colorado River her only field of operations. While she does consider the GRAND as the supreme thrill, her parties roll off thousands of river miles in a given year. Scheduled trips include such choice spots as Cataract, and Glen, (Colorado River in Arizona and Utah); The Mexican Hat run on the San Juan River, (in Utah); Snake River, (in Oregon and Idaho); Hell's Canyon on the Snake, (Oregon); The Middle Fork and "River of No Return" on the Salmon, (Idaho); Green and Yampa, (Utah); Big Bend of the Columbia, and the Fraser, (Canada). In Alaska she has included the Chitna, Copper, and Kenain Rivers, and in Mexico, the Aros, the Rio Grande, (from Guadalajara to the Pacific Ocean), and the full lengths of the Balsa and Griapalpa Rivers.

Some of the finest of adventure films have come out of these trips, multiplying to almost astronomical figures, in proportion to the few who ordinarily experience such unusual scenes, by TV presentation. On "I Search for Adventure," Georgie made her debut in 1956, and has been called back three times. "Bold Journey," "To Tell the Truth," and Art Linkletter's programs, have been other vehicles for her talents. For this woman, who is not afraid of lonely places, loves people, and they reciprocate.

Each year, between river-running seasons, members of her own organization, "The Royal Order of River Rats," gather from all over for a happy reunion, and to pay their respects to the "Queen of the River." They do not mind in the least having to drive or fly across the continent to do it.

For those readers who tremble for the future of Georgie White's trips, and the hundreds who hope to join her next year, (or the year after) there are some reassurances. On some streams, construction of a dam may wash out the rapids, or even turn an exciting river into a quiet lake, but there will be still others to conquer or rediscover. Even when the flow is stabilized on the Colorado, as little as 6,000 second feet of surging stream, between Lake Powell and Lake Mead, will carry raft or pontoon on their joyous way.

For more proof, before signing up for a front-row seat on the BIG ADVENTURE, you might write for a preview. Films available for showing include: The address is: Georgie White 435 West Laconia Boulevard Los Angeles 61, California