Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 16, 1995 TAG: 9511160005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JERRY GUZI SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
It's a story about my son Clay and me, and how float-fishing is our thing.
One day three summers ago, when Clay was 14, we went to the little town of Buchanan. The James River flows through Buchanan. Near downtown Buchanan, next to the car wash hangout, was a public boat ramp. Across the street from it was a little restaurant called Big Daddy's, where the sign promised ``Pizza and Beer.'' Attached to one side of Big Daddy's was Gene's Tackle Shop, and next to the tackle shop was a fenced-in parking lot about the size of a 7-Eleven parking lot.
The proprietor of the tackle shop told us he no longer rented boats because the insurance was too high. But he told us he had a canoe to sell. For $80. He said he had loaned the canoe to a couple of friends, but if we came back at 4 o'clock, we could see it.
I don't know the proprietor's name; he just called himself the Cajun. Nice fellow, unshaven.
So we came back at 4 o'clock and that's when I first saw Bertha.
She was squatting on the parking lot with fishing stuff and two guys. Empty beer cans were strewn about inside her. She smelled like half-day-old beer. The two guys smelled pretty bad too.
If this were a romance and Bertha were a woman, she would be the woman in ``Throw Mama from the Train.'' Bertha is a long canoe made of heavy, dull aluminum. She's real wide in the middle. Inside, she's an aged, sun-bleached green. Outside, ``Smoker Craft'' is painted on her side, and both ends turn up like an Indian canoe.
Along with her other beauty marks, she has a patch. It's about a foot square, made of aluminum and riveted to her side. (I've been in this canoe in teeth-jarring collisions with boulders, and it just takes a licking and keeps on ticking. It might leave a little aluminum on a rock, but I cannot imagine what happened to this canoe that left that large a hole in it. If canoes made a navy, Bertha could be the Monitor or the Merrimac.)
As Clay and I mulled over our decision, a friend of the proprietor backed his big Dodge into the canoe and dragged it across the parking lot. All nearby Buchanan could hear aluminum screeching and tearing across hot asphalt. The proprietor came running out of the tackle shop, real miffed. The friend tried to make light by saying, "Well, it it'd been a snake, it would've bit me." The Cajun just glared at him. It it'd been a snake, the Cajun would've wrapped it around his ex-friend's neck.
I told the Cajun the canoe now was only worth $40. It had tire marks on the side.
Being a smart shopper, I decided to take it for a test spin. Clay and I carried it the 70 yards across the street to the public ramp and put it into the James. When we stepped into the middle of it, the canoe floor ``THUNK''-ed down like an old sheet-metal roof, and when we stepped off the middle, it ``THUNK''-ed back up. In the deep broad James, this was a little scary. But the canoe floated.
Now an informed buyer, I bought it. Being a power negotiator, I paid full price. Tire marks and all. Gave the full $80.
Bertha was mine.
We paddled a quarter of a mile up the James to the rapids where we wanted to fish. The patch didn't work completely. By the time we got to the rapids, the water inside the canoe was almost to our ankles. When we caught the first bass and got it into the canoe, it swam from the front to the back, between my feet and back to the front again.
Two days later, we went out again - in the Roanoke River, west of Salem. All day. Float-fishing down the Roanoke River. Clay, me, and Bertha. Caught fish. Slammed rocks. Landed the canoe and turned it over to empty the water, often. Lot of rocks. Lot of silver stripes on rocks. Lot of rapids. Lot of fun.
Got to where we were pretty good at it, and pretty cocky about it. We knew how to go through those rapids, and we were having a good time - fearing nothing because we were pretty good at this now and we knew nothing could hurt Bertha. We heard loud rapids ahead, and we thought, ``All right! This'll be fun!'' We got into the rapids - a long downhill bend to the left - and were really booking.
Ride with us. We're flying on fast water, under the trees. We choose to go left and paddle hard, but swift current sweeps us right, into the narrow channel the river has chosen for us. We're sailing when - BANG! - we hit a submerged rock dead ahead. There's a fallen log on the right and a huge submerged rock outcropping in front and under us. It stops us completely, dead, instantly.
The river rushes into the canoe and washes away the cooler, the fishing rods and everything else. Bertha sinks. We scramble out but can't get her loose. She's wedged between a rock and a log under two feet of hard-rushing water, and will not budge. I take a paddle to pry her free. It snaps. We're down to one paddle.
Nice ride, huh? After a harrowing 45 minutes in the rapids, we finally got her loose when Clay found a four-inch log to use as a lever to pry her up from the bottom. After we bailed out and reloaded the canoe and carried it down the rocks at this small waterfall, we humbly limped our way along the rest of the trip - gingerly walking through the rapids, wearily one-paddling through the still water.
We've been on a lot of other trips with Bertha. Clay likes the canoe and fish and mud and sand of the river - we both love it. I have enjoyed misty-morning, smooth-water time on Smith Mountain Lake in it with my older son Matt and his fly rod. My daughter Katie has paddled me, fishing, down a stretch of the Roanoke River, confidently handling the canoe by herself.
Gene's tackle shop has closed and we haven't seen the Cajun. Clay has already brought home a new college friend upon whom to inflict the Bertha experience. Bertha, she's written her silver signature down the river and is now high and dry behind the garage awaiting our next adventure.
And me, because of all the fun and enriching times I've had with my children in this homely old canoe, I do love Bertha.
by CNB