Just a quick post to clarify a few things. I had already restored this dang canoe, 11 years ago, and it is in pretty good shape. Looking at the different canoes at Old Town's site, many look similar to this, but this is the Otca 16'. The Deliverance canoe was definitely an Old Town, but probably not the Otca as the layout of seats looks different than the canoe in this picture from the movie.
I wrote Old Town 11 years ago with the serial number and they sent me the shipping info where they sold it to Pt. Jude Boats in June 1968. It was originally canvassed, but I think Roger's gramps pretty quickly fiberglassed it, probably the first time he had to recover it. They do come in fiberglass now, but I don't think they did then. From Old Town's price list they sent me in 1994, you could buy one from them for $2925. I imagine they keep that price high because they have a strong dealer network and want you to buy from a dealer. Mac, you are right, canoes like this in mint condition are going for big bucks, I've seen them as high as $7K for a canoe from 1920.
This is a pic of the Otca 16, not mine but the same, pretty similar condition. Jeanne is clearly sending me Reiki about the canoe because I am boat whispering it myself. Thanks Jeanne.
As for the peeing thing, I have always had pretty good bladder control and the trip to the rope swing in Scituate was only about 40 minutes. I think there was another trip to Maine or New Hampshire where I tried to enforce the no stops rule, and Pat (was it Pat?) started to hang her ass out the window. I relented.
For marriage preservation I want to clarify that the girls at work wanted to work for me because I was the most hands-off manager (figuratively and literally), and most people had a good time working for me. I think.
Dear John,
ReplyDeleteAs you know this is my first attempt at blogging, although I am a loyal reader of your now famous blog site. I am very happy to hear you are doing OK and I am keeping everyone I see in RI up to speed on your progress. You have amazed me with your memory of when we were kids down at the Salters Grove(ie The Downs) throwing all kinds of things at people like your sticks in your Christmas report. This canoe thing made me respond to see if you remember the crazy canoe trip at Camp Yawgoo including the rainstorm and frog stunnings. I also remember many trips to the treeswing that were fast and nonstop( no pee stops allowed). It looks like you have a lot of time on your hands to have all these projects going , I have very little this time of the year.We are still golfing though, last Sunday we even had heated carts. Keep up the good work and good health.
Bill
Dear John,
ReplyDeleteAs you know this is my first attempt at blogging, although I am a loyal reader of your now famous blog site. I am very happy to hear you are doing OK and I am keeping everyone I see in RI up to speed on your progress. You have amazed me with your memory of when we were kids down at the Salters Grove(ie The Downs) throwing all kinds of things at people like your sticks in your Christmas report. This canoe thing made me respond to see if you remember the crazy canoe trip at Camp Yawgoo including the rainstorm and frog stunnings. I also remember many trips to the treeswing that were fast and nonstop( no pee stops allowed). It looks like you have a lot of time on your hands to have all these projects going , I have very little this time of the year.We are still golfing though, last Sunday we even had heated carts. Keep up the good work and good health.
Bill
Bill,
ReplyDeleteYou're working so hard you're starting to repeat yourself! I remember that canoe trip, with the wild storm that came up and we all got soaked and the counselors stripped down to shorts and knives, trying to lash everyone down. I forget who introduced us to frog stunning, which involves throwing a frog into the air over the water and when they belly- or back-flopped, they would be dazed for some time, just floating there, and then swim away. I felt bad for the frogs but it was bizarre. I miss golfing with you man, especialy ice golf.
john-
ReplyDeletei had no idea there was $$$ in canoes, they are too tippy for me, i prefer kayaks. i think i tried it once with pat and we went in circles on burlingame pond because of me.
good the reiki is working! boat whisperer ......and the trip i heard about is when you and eddie and beauchemin came up to goddard to visit pat and they hadn't peed since r.i. maybe their pain came from all the beer they drank on the way up.
i just hooked up my dsl and am thrilled to not be a slow poke on dial up anymore!!!!
OMG. Pat, Pat, Pat,
ReplyDeleteCould this be true - hanging the waffle out of the car window at freeway speed??? My mind is spinning out of control here. And Pat, was that you in that old rusty Chevy pickup in Pigeon Creek, Alabama, last October on Highway 59? If so, what in the hell were you gals doing with that possum? Pat, please help me out here. My mind may be forever tainted by the vivid images of live possum wiping.
John, ya know how they imbed those musical chips into greeting cards and Christmas neckties? Once the canoe's near completion, it might be really cool to plant one a those chips into the passenger seat that begins the squeeling pig noice when it's triggered - maybe coupled with the theme song from Deliverance.
You know I think there's something to this concept of Whisperers. I played golf yesterday and I'm sure there was a Golf Whisperer around. Every time a put a wedge in my hand, I could hear this little voice say: "You're gonna chunk it asshole." If I find that little prick he's history.
Hey, ya know the frog stunning thing is pretty weird and frightens the hell outa me. What is it about young men and frog abuse? I did my share as well and every time I think about it, it makes me a little sick. And perhaps more importantly, I hope the hell we're not gonna havta pay for that shit at some point. What a fuckin shame to find ourselves going south on judgement day because we were 10 year old assholes to all those poor little Amphibia Salientias. I just can't bear the thought of doing eternity in hell on a damned frog rap. Could it be things like this that separate which way the elevator takes us when we bite the big one?
Whatyagonnado?
Mac
The Frog Rap
ReplyDeleteWhen you bite the big one, one fine day
Watch out for hell’s fury; it’s coming your way
Because you stunned a frog & then wrote it in your blog
Hear it whispered in the wind
Hear it battered in your brain
Pray all you want; it won’t improve your game
Cause you tortured those frogs
Now your bait for wild dogs
A little red wine and on your carcass they will dine
It’s the river of life in a tippy canoe
Now the frogs and dogs are coming after you
Do not pass go, you can’t get away.
No deliverance for you on judgment day.
Geez Manitouboo, here I'm a thinkin I'm a gonna get a whole bunch a support here - having bared my soul in public anall. Shit, now you're throwing my sorry ass right under the bus already. Nice poemry though - I'm impressed.
ReplyDeleteBesides, maybe it's not our fault. Remember, there were, and probably still is (is this right, Dana?), a shitload of those biology teachers strapping down those poor little frog bastards under the schoolhouse lights and microscopes, impaling their slimy little bodies with pins and disecting their tiny little organs so the class can learn - what? How to kill shit (in this case a frog) and make it look like science (I can see John Kerry reading this and wondering how to turn it into an Iraq thingy).
Well shit, I think we oughta take a page from that biology class book and round up the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Kim Jong Il, strap their rotten asses to a table in a fourth grade classroom and spike them down with some old rusty railroad ties and start a new chapter in American biology. Bring em on down here to Alabama. We'll do it fer y'all. Now that's what I call teaching our children something of significant importance. Beats the hell out of buying them video games or electronic equipment where they'll learn how to shoot cops.
What the hell, so long as we're going to teach our children to kill shit, we might as well make it worthwhile and get some real collateral benefit out of it.
Okay, here I go. I'm onto something here. Now just think about this for a minute. Had we done a better job thinking about this entire educational process, sort of a Six Sigma approach, we could have covered a whole lot more ground with a, what shall we call it, a Co-connected (is that a redundant word?)Learning Process. Yeah, that's it - I like it. The CLP approach to American education.
Here's how it works. Let's substitute the whole frog class with killing a rabbit. We could actually cover an entire group of topics/classes in this CLP educational fashion. Now listen to this. This one idea/event can teach Gym, Sports, Geography, Biology, Home Economics, Language and provide Lunch as well.
Gym: The class is outdoors getting exercise while they're stalking and hunting the rabbit.
Sports: Shooting the rabbit helps to build discipline, respect for others (don't shoot the teacher or fellow students) and marksmanship (markspersonship for those requiring political correctness --- read: puke, puke).
Geography: Learning how to get around without their Blackberrys, laptops, cell phones or IPods. Even better, learning how to get back safely.
Biology: Doing the frog gig on the rabbit.
Home Ec: Cooking the rabbit.
Language: Can you say Lapin a La Cocotte? How bout Hasenpfeffer?
Lunch: Viola
So would it not have made more sense for the biology teachers to just take the kids hunting, shoot a few rabbits, use the carcasses for the biology class, send them over to home ec for a cooking class, wheel it all into the cafeteria for lunch, etc., etc.?
But I digress.
Have a nice weekend.
Mac
Mac:
ReplyDeleteAll great ideas, except that bunnies are just too cute to cut into. But gophers, now that's another story:
Critical Thinking: Where the f**k did all these gophers come from
Sex Education: How do we prevent these little f**kers from f**king.
Poly Sci: Hoe vs. Spade and other methods to prevent the little f**kers from procreating
Sports: Chip shooting the gopher.
Home Ec:Creating gopher pelt fur coats
Ecology: PETA – no animals of any worth were hurt in the creation of this product nor were any petroleum resources or synthetic materials used in its production.
Geography:Finding places where gophers don’t live
Biology: Nature’s food chain -Supporting the gopher’s natural predators
Shop: Building barn owl houses
Arts and Crafts:Fun and creative things to make with gopher skulls and bones.
Language:“Holy f**k, I killed the f**king gopher!”
Religion:See Holy above
Lunch: Gopher – the other meat!
Still impressed???
Sweet heavens, you're all getting deep. When I was a groundskeeper for the school district, we were at war with the ground squirrels at Los Osos Jr. High, and man, my karma was squashed by the time we were done. We poisoned them, gassed them, flooded them, trapped them and even hit them with shovels. They are still there. My solution was a fence that went 6' down and 4' up, surrounding the entire campus. Would have cost less than all the stuff they are going to use trying to keep kids from breaking their ankles on the fields.
ReplyDeleteYes, I am still impressed. It's good to see that level of focus on most anything.
ReplyDeleteIt makes one wonder if the gopher was a design flaw. I mean, what the hell is it here for? Perhaps it was originally intended to be much bigger and domesticated. When you think about it, almost all creatures appear to have either some obvious purpose or simply are good to look at. Then there are those that are just a pain in the ass, i.e. gophers and racoons. Maybe the ultimate purpose for racoons was to have road kill for crows to eat. Then you have to ask what the hell the crows are for. Are there too many species - or not enough?
This is all too much for me to deal with so early in the morning. I'm off to the golf course shortly. The Golf Whisperer better come up with some better dialogue shit today or he's taking the big dog up his butt.
Mac
it was NOT Pat out the window...
ReplyDeleteI trust your honesty if not either of our memories, but I figure what I lacked in modesty I made up for in lack of coordination--plus I was never allowed to go on those long guy trips like Maine because suddenly when you didn't need my extrordinary basketball shooting talent or my mother's tolerance for late night card games I was not considered a guy anymore.
Jeanne I still only save one post at a time--so now that you are speeded up, let me know when a new blog comes? I'd hate to miss anything important like Mac mistaking me for Granny and Elly May.
Frog-stunners lament:
ReplyDeleteI stunned the frogs,
it's true I did,
but on this action
I've put a lid.
I went to confession
way back when
and said I wouldn't
stun frogs again.
If they hold it against me
at heaven's door,
I'll head south
to a warmer shore.
Sure I'll go
but with a lurch,
knew I couldn't trust
that dang church.
In the canoe
I cross the Styx,
Cerberus drools
and his chops he licks.
He'll get a taste
of my chemo'd meat
and then he'll beat
a hasty retreat.
I'll smack the devil
with my stick in a rock
and close down hell
barrel, lock and stock.
On another note, I just received in the mail the ultimate stick and rock, or stick in a rock. Pat sent me this strange thing, like a walking stick through a piece of quartz(?). I will blog soon with a picture as it is too hard to describe. Who made this thing?
Pssst Mac, I have friends that have had great success with Zanax and Buproprion. Slow everything down a little, good for the swing.
John didn't it have a "sticks and stones" card on it saying "walking sticks that rock"
ReplyDelete?????
it is made by your old pal, Mo and geeze he packaged it so I didn't check to make sure it was labeled.
let me know if you don't find it and I will try to email you a copy to put up with the stick--because right now he is out in the vacant lots around the Quonset shipyard, looking for sticks to use to make more of them.
because we only have about a hundred in stock (I almost typed stick).
maybe you could market some from home when you are not making bonsai, whispering canoes, collecting jade or prescribing golf medicine.
hope you like it and
rock on
John,
ReplyDeleteScrew slow. I can't think of a better way to go out than with a martini in one hand, a cigar in the other, hitting a 300 yard drive and yelling:
"Man, what a ride!!!!!!!!!"
Mac
Mac, are those 2 pieces of advice? I like to vary my speed. And on a similar note, I can think of a better way, but this is a family blog.
ReplyDeleteAs soon as my blue dress comes back from the cleaners I will meet you boys on the golf course!
ReplyDeleteSorry John. I'll try to communicate without the normal embellishment. Not sure I can do that though. And it will certainly be much less interesting.
ReplyDeleteMac
John, just wanted to tell you I was thinking of you. I am glad to hear you are still hanging in there strong. You are a tough old bird. I just celebrated my 10 year Cancer free Anniversary in Dec. It was a great feeling....you will get there....you are always in our thoughts. Mary, Tracy & Heather Berger
ReplyDeleteJohn, i own a sticks and stones walking stick and love it! Maurice gave it to me for my birthday. I can always use it as a weapon if need be on a walk alone.
ReplyDeletejeanne
Mac there is nothing normal about your embellishments--please don't start editing now!!!!
ReplyDeletePat,
ReplyDeleteI can take that two ways. Let's see how it goes.
John, One year today for you. YOU DA MAN ! ! ! ! !
Hey, The Little Woman is on her way to SLO and Fiore & Company today. I think she gets to your place tomorrow. Please take good care of her. We need to keep her employed.
Mac