For starters, there was no global warming. Rivers came from glaciers. Glaciers were large piles of unused ice created by ski areas irresponsibly using snow machines. What water that melted from them had to be measured on the Kelvin scale, as the temperatures we boated in failed to even reach up to the lower ends of the Fahrenheit or Celsius scales. Hypothermia would often set in immediately - and this was before reaching the river.

 

While putting chains on, a conversation along these lines would frequently ensue:
Bob: You are having an affair with my girlfriend!
Bill: I am not!
Bob: Denial! The first signs of hypothermia.
Bob to the others: Bill's hypothermic!
Bill: I do not have hypothermia!
Bob: You do!
Bill: Do not!
Bob: Do!
And so on, until the unavoidable fight warmed everyone back up.

Evidence of hypothermia on the river was easier to ascertain: the blue lips, the glazed eyes, rigor mortis, quickly followed by those accompanying the victim going through his wallet and divvying up his boating gear. Because the rivers were that cold we used to wear rubber clothing known as wetsuits - something now banned in every state except Nevada and New Jersey. We bought them at sex shops. They were called wetsuits because they were always wet, that is unless they were frozen. No one ever successfully dried one between trips. Those who tried eventually enrolled themselves in mental institutions.

The theory of wetsuits was that your personal body heat would warm the water in them, insulating you from the cold (I'm not going to mention the zipperless models, when the wearer had consumed gallons of coffee), but really it was more like a carpenter saying to himself each morning, "Well, since I'm going to be hammering nails today I might as well just smash my thumb and get it over with." How wetsuits really worked was that the stench they emitted was so strong it overpowered all sense of cold the wearer felt. Even after the wetsuit was removed from the bearer - and burned - the skin was thoroughly marinated with a smell that not even a steam cleaner would remove.

Unfortunately, this presented socially embarrassing situations, like returning from river trips hungry, wanting to stop at some drive-in for something to eat. If we were waited on at all, it was usually in a vacant lot adjacent to the establishment, where the waitress approached us donning a gas mask. Food served was inevitably accompanied by a note asking that under no circumstances would we ever return.

Sometimes, it was just beer we sought. Whoever was volunteered for this mission would stuff their pockets with Limburger cheese in a feeble attempt to camouflage the smell, and enter a store. Nine times out of ten they would emerge empty-handed, pursued by an irate manager waving an Uzi.

It was the notion of drinking beer after river trips that brought up an ill-fated plan conceived by . . .  well, I shall refer to him as Pete, as that was his name. We had just put a hard day in on the river and had worked up a powerful thirst. Pete's blockheaded idea was to slip into a biker bar still in our wetsuits. In such a dingy and low-class dive it would be - so the theory went - impossible to discern the difference between leather and rubber.

Together we must have smelled like a large animal lathered in sweat, rolled in a manure pile - and dead three weeks. Whatever the smell, it offended the bikers, who reckoned we were far too casual about our personal hygiene. One of the few redeeming factors of wetsuits was that they cushioned the impact of our reeking bodies as the bikers attempted in vain to fuse human flesh with pavement. It was a pity Pete had not thought of wearing helmets. I know for a fact that I've never encountered a group of such evil-spirited women since.

The other valuable attribute of wetsuits was that they protected the wearer from fiberglass, a derivative of itching powder they once made kayaks from. Should a kayaker be idiot enough not to shield himself with a wetsuit, he ended up scratching and tearing at himself as if home to a troop of famished fleas trying to eat through not only a heartbreaking case of psoriasis, but seven-year-itch as well.

Kayaks in those days were not like they are today, not the modern, over-priced cereal-toys a 30-pound weakling could toss one-handed into the trunk. Trunks were an empty storage space put on the non-engine end of cars but were removed by car manufacturers in the late seventies to make room for traffic. Kayaks were spine-fusing monuments that took at least four people and three hernias to lift onto and off of a roof rack. Although heavy the cold water made the kayaks fragile and because of this boaters - I'm not kidding - used to go around rocks.

This led to patching boats - an innocent activity at first, where a group of friends stood about a damaged kayak, passing a resin container around, inhaling large whiffs and giggling hysterically. But it was a dangerous endeavor and quickly led to more sinister habits, like boat building. These were the original meth labs.

I was lucky not to have hit too many rocks, not to have gotten hooked; fortunate that I did not degenerate into a boat-builder with the eventual intellectual capacity to carry on long meaningful conversations with people such as the entire Bush administration. For example, here's an actual conversation between two boat builders:
Tom:
John:
Tom:
John:
Boats today have grown so much smaller because the rivers have grown so much smaller. Then, they were not something you wore. The unique thing about kayaks then was they actually looked like kayaks. They were designed foremost with storage space for the cases of duct tape one needed for temporary repairs made below each drop. Otherwise, up front there was more leg room than in five Japanese cars combined. The sterns were equally cavernous although I don't believe any high school girl got pregnant in one. Any other favorable effects this spaciousness had on a boat's maneuverability were coincidental. We were not concerned with the ability to hang upside down in a boat: we never tipped over. Those who were fool enough to do such a thing certainly were not encumbered with a complicated escape route - that is if all the multitudes of trout in the river weren't hampering the endeavor.

The paddles then were simply paddles. They weren't made from a NASA byproduct or twisted with half-a-dozen geometric shapes requiring a triple-jointed contortionist to use them. Paddles were left-feathered, no-feathered or right-feathered. Anyone who showed up for a trip with left- or no-feathered blades was never asked on a trip again, as their paddle did not fit securely with the rest of the paddles on a roof rack.

Finally, there was color. Kayaking was not socially acceptable or politically correct. In fact, it was one of the few sports the homeless could participate in, as I myself was at the time. So you certainly didn't wish to be zealously enthusiastic about outfits with color. Today, color is splashed over boats and life jackets and helmets and drysuits with such abandon that it looks like the work of lunatic manufacturers. It was only with extreme torpidity that color crept into the sport. In fact, it was accidentally introduced by a color-blind person. (Coincidence or not this also coincided with the first documented case of not only a Republican kayaking but driving an SUV to the river).

Unfortunately, the first day I decided to try color was the day I trespassed into a certain city's watershed to claim a first descent. I donned a flaming red paddle jacket so loud it hurt the eardrums. I completed the run - and, soon after, the watershed personnel completed their arrest. After chasing me the entire way down river, the red they were seeing was not just on my paddle jacket.

But I digress. Today, with many thanks to global warming - and especially Al Gore - the sport has changed for the better. The sport looks like so much fun. I know: I've seen DVDs of it with of all those boaters going over waterfalls. Even with all their teeth knocked out they are still smiling. I'll admit, that makes me nostalgic. In fact, right now I'm going to do a little smiling myself. Just mix up a little resin and . . . ahhh, there!, much better!