You know, I had one given to me a few years back. It needed a few repairs and I never did get around to repairing it. But some day I will. I'm thinking to make a photo blind of it: you know, put a quiet electric trolling motor in and mount a camera on it, lay down on my belly in it and sneak up through the shallows on flocks of unsuspecting water and shorebirds in my future spare time - birds that I love to watch, birds that I love to paint. I could line it with a soft foam so that I'm comfortable, mosquito proof it so that I can stay overnight in it listenning to the marsh music, the call of the loon...... watch the moon sprinkle it's loving light across the watery horizon on down the marshes' ripples to my kayak's edge. Why, I could write my own "Sounds in the Night!" I could talk to Jesus and He could talk to me. I could even ursurp Mo's position and come out of the marsh the greatest entime prophet the world has ever known - hee hee hee!

Believe it or not, I have NEVER been in a kayak. I have heard that they are safe though - safer than canoes. I used to surf the waves back home as a kid with my canoe and I grew up swamping it many times, even on purpose. I have yet to swamp it accidently, although I've been it on 3-4 occasions when those with me swamped it.

Back before I joined the Fam, a friend and I smoked up a few joints and headed out across the marsh in the middle of the night. A storm out the north was brewing and by the time we were across, it was just about all we could do to get into shelter. I knew the marsh quite well and got us into a strip of land but my bud dumped me as he got out - duh! That wind that night turned into a HOWLER pushing the lake into the marsh as much as 3-4 feet in depth. I knew of these kinds of water fluctuations and fought for an hour through swamp and beaver trails and bush just to get us to where we'd be safe - high and dry. My friend courageously followed, thankfully. We set up a camp, built a fire, dried out my clothes, cooked up a steak or two and drifted off for the rest of the night--er, morning. We woke up to water everywhere but where we were. It was a MAJOR job getting back to the canoe through the bush, swamp ( turned tiny lake) and beaver trails. Fortunately, it was summer. Had it not been, we could have easily perished, as many have out there.

One of my boys was so eager to get off a shot at some passing ducks on the way out into the marsh for a hunt one fall that he up and pulled the trigger while paddling out in open water and over we went. Fortunately, we were in only a few feet of water and it was a very warm September evening. We searched the bottom for our guns and came up successful, although we had to do some work to get some of the decoys that had drifted off in the wind. Normally, one has to push into the cattails and tie both front and back ends of the canee to the stalks so as to be firmly stable. One of my long-time friends always had a problem with that (tying down the canoe) and, during a freezing mid October hunt, ice everywhere, he went over in 5 ft of water. He was born and raised in the city and didn't have the presence of mind on how to get back into his canoe. He just stood there screaming for me. By the time I got him back into his canoe and back into shore, he was PURPLE! Fortunately, I had a survival pack of long-johns, pants, socks, sweaters and parka in the Van - just in case. He accepted the parka and pants, fired up his car and headed home in a hurry. He was ok the next day.

Now Ethel, she's a story all on her own. Her trip into the freezing cold depths was the result of a micro nap. All I heard was, "CHARLIE HELP!" I thought she had caught a big northern pike, or something, as she's cried for help when she's caught a big fish before. But no, she was clinging to the side of the canoe in 8-10 feet of icy spring water, raincaot and all. She had been working pretty hard all week and was tired. She decided to fish the edge of the island that we were camped on while I took a nap. I think that in the quiet of all that was going on around her, the gentle rocking of the canoe in the wavelets, etc... she just drifted off, like falling asleep at the wheel. Ha! I'm still laughing over that one.

Happy prayers to you, Miriam.