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Life on the Salmon
Yet, there stood this puddle about the size of two bath tubs and not much more than two feet deep. Stay away, I thought. If we were going to have any mosquitoes on this rafting trip, it would be around that standing water. A glance gave confirmation that the puddle was teeming with life. I hurried up onto the sandbar to get away. After all, I needed to get our part of the camp in order: erect the tent, unroll the sleeping bag, and empty the dry bag containing what dry bags contain. I would shed the long sleeved shirt and long pants made of fabric designed to protect against the bright sunlight. A swimming suit would be proper attire for the late afternoon.
We had alternated traveling on one of the two supply rafts or traveling on a paddle boat designed for seven people. Also, there was what we called the double-ducky. Riding on supply rafts was like sitting on the front porch watching the scenery go by, watching for wild life on the shore lines, or laughing at the wild life riding in the less secure rafts. The paddle boat was lots of fun as it splashed through rapids. Anyone riding the double-ducky was in for the biggest adventure. Getting soaked in the double-ducky was simply the way it worked. This craft was too tempting to resist; we all tried our hand with the double ducky one time or another. Two of our party turned out to be champions in that craft: my son and my sister-in-law. They would sometimes almost disappear in the boiling rapids. There was a fourth boat choice: the kayak. Only one person tried rafting in it. The crew had to rescue him. That was the end for us land lubbers trying the one-man kayak. It's no surprise that we saw a variety of animals: a mother bear with three cubs, another young bear, rams and ewes, a coyote, golden eagles, and lots of other western birds. On the last night in camp, I did not need to be messing around with a mosquito pond. Getting things in order was what I needed to do. I was doing that when I heard one of the children yell that there was a snake. That got our attention. We all followed behind the river guide as he walked toward the child proclaiming his sighting. It was not a snake. It was a small eel swimming around in that pond I had skirted. There was more: tad poles sprouting legs, minnows, and larva. The guide called the children to the side of the pond and gave them a new understanding of life teeming in a puddle. The adults might have been too sophisticated to get down on their knees to peer into the puddle, but we listened. Who knew that eels gather about 60 percent of their oxygen through their skin? The guide talked about gills and lungs, about animals that switch from using gills to using lungs, and about animals that have both gills and lungs. We learned more than a little biology on the side of that puddle. We adults get caught up in constructing our world and in trying to avoid the unexpected. The rafting trip on the Salmon River gave me a chance to remember the importance of greeting life with the curiosity and the marvel of a child. Maybe it took a week to have that lesson sink in again. Maybe we all need to take a child out of the environment we have created and take time to look with the child, to just stop and look with curiosity and wonder.
Jim Herod is a retied Georgia Tech professor living near the Nethermost in Grove Hill- when he isn't riding the Salmon River, that is.
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