ALONG THE WAY

A Canoeing Class for Fumbling Grandmas Turns Out to Be a Hair-raising Adventure

I spent more time in the water than on it during my first canoeing experience and vowed I'd never crawl into another canoe.

After Arizona Highways published my misadventures on the Gila River (May '97), Peter Zwagerman of Permagrin River Adventures in Tempe called to say I was giving canoeing a bad name.

Well, canoeing deserved the bad publicity, I thought. But Zwagerman convinced photographer Bernadette Heath and me, both grandmothers in our 50s, to attend his canoeing school. He promised he could teach us to row in tandem. I doubted that. We couldn't even walk in step.

The class that met at Willow Springs Lake on the Mogollon Rim looked reasonably intelligent. There were Ken Krouse and son Peter, and Jerry Parrot and stepson Judd Rummage. Zwagerman and his assistants, Brian Tuten and Buck Nelson, filled out the group.

Our first great adventure was to cross the lake to our campsite. I felt like Columbus heading out into uncharted waters. I'd already surpassed my personal record of 15 minutes without capsizing and didn't relax until the canoe hit the opposite shore. I will admit, though, I could see how a person might learn to like canoeing.

We set up camp and then practiced maneuvering the canoe. I hadn't realized you could actually direct a canoe. I thought they just went wherever they wanted, and you held on for the ride. We rehearsed a variety of techniques, but Bernadette and I truly excelled in backward circles. Zwagerman said he thought it had something to do with a personality disorder.

My aching shoulders rejoiced when the sun went down and we gathered around the Cole-man stove for Bail Bucket Soup and tall tales.

After breakfast, class got difficult. Not the canoeing part, but stuffing myself into a wet suit. For those who haven't tried it, putting on a too-tight wet suit in a tent too small to stand up in is like squeezing an elephant into a girdle. As I pulled and tugged, my fat rolled ahead of the black spandex, until, with a final yank, I zipped it up, and all my excess bulged out the neckline. I looked like I had rows of bicycle inner tubes under my chin.

Add a pair of brilliant-blue nylon pants with elastic around the ankles and a matching life jacket and I resembled a fluorescent hot air balloon.

I will give the men credit, though, not one of them even sniggered, at least not where I could hear them, though the fact I clutched my paddle like a lethal weapon might have deterred them.

The lesson plan called for capsizing the canoe. I knew Bernadette and I also excelled at capsizing. We'd learned it on the Gila, and now we could show off. Paddling out to deep water, I held my nose and, at the count of three, we bailed over the side.

My life jacket jerked my head above water, but before I could catch a breath, my nylon pants filled with air and shot my legs up like two blue dolphins. My head went under again. Sputtering and coughing, I bounced in the water like a beach ball in a hurricane. Finally, I grabbed the canoe and hooked my chins, all five of them, over the edge.

The men lost all pretense of politeness. They whooped, hollered, and held their sides while I bobbed to shore dragging the reluctant canoe. Bernadette was supposed to help, but she laughed so hard she was useless.

As we prepared for our final exam, Zwagerman pointed to a thundercloud rising above the pines and hollered, "Head across the lake to the vehicles!"

Bernadette and I started paddling wildly, and soon my arms throbbed. I was about to suggest we rest a minute when a crack of lightning rejuvenated me.

I may not be a canoeing expert, but I know better than to be on a lake during a thunderstorm. We started flailing our paddles like windmills, inspired by Bernadette's photographic equipment box sitting between us in the canoe. About the size of an ice chest and all metal, it made a perfect lightning rod.

I had to make a difficult choice. Should I throw the metal box overboard and lessen my chance of being a Crispy Critter?

Now! A lightning strike is nothing compared with a seething photographer wielding a paddle.

Every lightning bolt sent us paddling even more frantically, and we hit shore at full speed three raindrops ahead of a true Arizona Monsoon Gully Washer.

As we ran for the trucks, Bernadette hollered, "You know Zwagerman has a class in kayaking, don't you?"

Kayaking! I'm just learning to like canoeing. If I'd still had my paddle, I'd have laid her low.