If Reader’s Digest magazine ever calls (they rarely do) for my most unforgettable character, it would have to be Mahlon P. Bither, who died this week at 71 in Presque Isle.

We knew him simply as the Godfather of the St. John River, a man who saved our behinds while reminding us just how stupid we were. “We,” in this case, is the infamous Upside-Down Canoe Club. One of the benefits of membership stupidity was the belief that we knew enough to tackle the mighty St. John River, from Baker Lake to Priestly Dam.

We met Mahlon informally on the beach at Baker Lake as he watched with a jaundiced eye while we piled our L.L. Bean gear into our shiny Old Town Canoes, with hardly anything tied down. Bither worked for North Maine Woods out of a small cabin at the head of the river.

We didn’t even know what we didn’t know. Mahlon knew.

On this, our maiden voyage on the St. John, there were three canoes, two paddlers to a canoe. No one told us about the St. John Jet Stream. About 15 seconds after you go under the Baker Lake Bridge, you are in the fastest-moving river you could imagine. The river was at flood stage, right after ice-out. What did we know? We were all in a full panic, trying to stay upright.

It took us several days to learn that canoe No. 1 made the fatal mistake of trying to pull over in the jet stream. Naturally, they capsized and the canoe went upside down and fell in love with a rock. The (borrowed) canoe was wedged upside down on top of a very permanent rock. Total elapsed river trip time for canoe No. 1? About 45 seconds.

We were all so concerned with our own safety and never even missed canoe No. 1, until the current gratefully abated and we pulled in, battered and shaking, at Turner Bogan campground. The longer we waited for our missing companions, the harder we scanned the river for their flotsam and jetsam.

Nothing.

The next morning, after giving the pair up for dead, two passing canoes pulled in to the campground with the news that the missing club members were safe and had walked back upstream to Bither’s cabin. We noted that the passing canoes had gear not only tied down, but covered with a tarp. Our gear was in paper bags, partially tied in with bungee cords. This canoe actually had a winch aboard which was used to pull the borrowed canoe No. 1 off the rock.

Later in the day, a canoe maneuvered down river through the rapids with the aid of an outboard engine. Aboard were Bither and our two wet and sheepish club members. They had lost all of their unsecured gear, including a few dozen fishing flies and assorted expensive trinkets. Towed behind Bither’s canoe were the remnants of the battered and borrowed canoe, looking like the B-26s when they limped back from Berlin bombing runs.

Bither climbed out of the canoe into the campground. He opined that the bunch of us looked like we came from Ogunquit. We didn’t ask what that meant. He lectured the bunch of us, which we richly deserved, and told the pair he rescued never to come on his river again.

You know what?

They didn’t.

Then as the six of us watched openmouthed, Bither took his canoe and maneuvered the outboard engine to go UPSTREAM through the rapids and current back to his cabin. If I live to be 63 (just did) I will never forget the sight of Bither slamming through that whitewater.

The Upside-Down Canoe Club adopted a practice of leaving an offering to the river gods at every stop, to protect us on the day’s journey. It almost always worked. Every time we went back to the St. John, we brought a present for Mahlon Bither.

We always considered him to be a river god.

Send complaints and compliments to Emmet Meara at emmetmeara@msn.com.