Canoe You Come Out and Play with Me

More than fifty years ago while I was stationed at the Naval Training Center in Orlando, Florida, chief petty officer Fuller decided to retire. He’d accepted the position of the Park Ranger of a newly established state park on the Saint Johns River. It wasn’t officially opened, yet but he’d invited several of us naval corpsman to spend t weekend there to check it out. The park could only be accessed by boat, and no motorized vehicles were permitted on the island. We six corpsmen were to be test campers and to look for anything not finished or any improvements that might be needed.

We needed three canoes to carry all to the island, but were only able to borrow or rent two. It meant instead of one trip with three loaded canoes, we had to make several to ferry all of the supplies and people to the island. Once in the park, we hurried to set up tents and made the campsite ready Three of us decided to try our luck at fishing and that’s was where the problem started, a fourth person decided to tag along. He’d been drinking beer while we were driving to the park, unloading supplies, and while we were setting up camp. Let’s just say, he was feeling no pain. Three of us tried to slip away unseen, but the fourth was sober enough to know what we were trying to do and followed us to the canoes.

I was the poor unfortunate soul that ended up with him as a passenger. He’d brought more cans of beer and wasn’t interested in fishing, but may have been a blessing in disguise for him. The fish that we were catching were gar; ugly, ferocious-looking, toothy gar. With my passenger so intoxicated, I’m sure that he would have lost a finger had he caught one.

The section of the Saint Johns River we were fishing was shallow and murky. It wasn’t a place that I’d choose to go for a swim, but that almost happened when my inebriated passenger decided his bladder was full and stood up in the canoe. His aim was good and voided into the water over the gunwales of the canoe, but his wobbling stance kept me busy trying to prevent the canoe from tipping over. I was upset that I couldn’t stop paddling long enough to smack him beside his head without risking that I’d join him. I was disgusted and when he sat back down, I paddled back to shore spending the rest of the afternoon by the campfire.