Upside Down Canoe Club in danger of losing reputation

Everyone is getting old. I know I am.

A very few years ago, the Upside Down Canoe Club routinely crashed down the St. John or the Allagash River in the celebrated annual outing, spent four or five nights in the wilderness on the (occasionally frozen) ground, smashed through man-killing rapids with only a silent prayer for deliverance (no movie pun intended).

We managed to spread pots and pans, clothes and camping gear from one end of these rivers to the other in various accidents, dumpings and low-speed collisions with jagged river rocks. We flew down the fast-moving rivers in the third week of each May unencumbered by much knowledge or skill in our endeavors. The week was chosen carefully for the brief interlude between ice-out and bug season.

We spent a small fortune on getting the cars from here to there, and on a few trips we even flew into the wilderness with Folsom Air.

The success of these trips varied wildly. Almost everyone took an unscheduled swim in the freezing river water.

We smashed a few canoes and one never recovered. But no humans died, despite the gloomy annual predictions of whitewater-hater David Grima, an Englishman by birth and an indoor camper by inclination. Pride was injured often, but no bones were broken (fingers crossed).

Now, our reputation has sunk so low that we cannot even fully man two canoes for this year’s expedition. One after another of the transient members have said “no thanks” this year.

It gets worse.

I, for one, have lost the love of sleeping on the ground. Last year, on the effete trip down the St. Croix, I came up lame after a single night on the hard ground. The lameness could have come from loading two canoes unassisted on the roof racks of the Toyota Tundra, but that is another story.

This year, club administration, in an effort to mollify the membership, has proposed that we simply rent the famous Loafer’s Lodge on the St. Croix. This is a spot that is visited for brief rest stops each year on St. Croix trips. This year club administration has proposed using the lodge for all of the nights of the annual trip. This would cut down on expenses, travel and guide costs, to say nothing of any canoeing.

This was Plan B after Plan A, renting cabins on the mighty Allagash, became too expensive for some members. Plus, the logistics of getting the truck in and out of Round Pond were deemed excessively complicated, at least for us.

There is now serious dissension in the ranks.

Club Founder and President Phil Galucki, an adventurer he, has dismissed this Loafer’s Lodge plan as too indolent.

“Why don’t we just get a room for five days at the Holiday Inn and forget the canoes?” he asked.

At this late hour, only a few days before D-Day, the itinerary has yet to be nailed down. One more night at Conte’s Restaurant with three sets of DeLorme gazetteers spread out on the table between the pasta dishes should do it.

Phil will argue for a return trip to the Allagash, damn the expenses.

Me? I am starting to think that the Holiday Inn is not a bad idea, as long as they have room service. We could rough it and get a motel without HBO.

We get a little cheaper every year.

I get a little older every year.

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