The Words to the Cicada song

Pre-boomer meets Brood X 

Brood X Cicadas provided the background music, instrumental and rhythmic, of the sort that allows your own thoughts but influences them. I had their song in my ears days before as I drove the same roads that lead to Sugar Creek. How can we float between rows of cicada filled trees and not hear the words to their song? The seventeenth time the soil warms to 64 degrees, after 17 freezing winters, they dig out of the ground and throw off their old clothes and dress up in new. They live and sing and procreate and die. Their children dig into the ground and repeat the cycle.

There's a canoe outfitter who sends dozens of canoes downstream through the state parks and takes them out at the Jackson Bridge. Where they leave off, we start. I have a problem right away and it is that the water is moving swiftly. I've been practicing to handle the 12.5 foot sit-on-top kayak since Christmas but on lakes. On moving water, I am the least experienced in our group. I don't like being a 64 year-old rookie but that's what comes from being submerged in the details of a career. You start working on something and before you know it, 20 years have passed, then 30 and then 40 and you haven't looked around outside the corporation to see what life's about.

I want to lag behind let Bryce, who has been canoeing and kayaking since he was a boy scout, show the way but my kayak is of a new design and wants to jump ahead. Nancy says that there is a "V" coming towards her and Bryce points out that one should always avoid the V. I begin to realize that even though we're not paddling, we're moving downstream at a pace that makes a log anchored to the creek bed so that it is a few inches beneath the surface appear as a "V" speeding toward us. The thought that this is not what we want to do today flies through my mind but I resolve to stay away from obstructions rather than turning back.

Soon after that, the current took me over a log seen too late to avoid completely. Maybe I could ride over it but my first instinct is to lean away from it and I put myself in the water. The water is deep but I find a sandy bottom a few feet away and I have control of the kayak and the paddle. Two full water bottles not properly attached to the seat are lost. The cart for the takeout and the soft cooler with my lunch and another water bottle are safe. The emergency gear is safe in the dry bag and the kayak is not difficult to right and remount.

Before starting on this adventure, I shed all my cotton clothes. I left them like an insect carcass on the floor of the closet and started out for this adventure with polyester Ts, briefs and board shorts. My neoprene river boots served me well. I've taken some water into them when I spilled but it is trapped and warmed by my feet. The inner layer of polyester wicks, as advertised, moisture away from my skin so the water does not seem cold to me. When asked, I say it is refreshing and invite Dean to join me but he declines even though he and Nancy are wearing wet suits. We are all, except Bryce, wet before the take-out.

I'm still getting used to the way my boat handles. It tracks well but that can be a handicap in some situations. It wants to fly to the front and I need to back paddle to give myself time to decide which path to take. Later I paddle upstream from time to time and I get much needed exercise that way. Going upstream is safer, I'm thinking, but I only do it in the wide stream and would have no chance where the stream is narrow and swift. There are wide calm places along Sugar Creek between the Jackson and West Union bridges where we can paddle 4 abreast and talk. Other places present hazards. Sometimes you have your choice of hazards as when there is some impasse in the middle of the stream, sandbar or uprooted tree, and there is a shallow rocky flow on one side and a number of submerged logs on the other. If the current does not carry you too quickly one way or the other, you might get to choose.

At first I tried to power paddle through water that might otherwise be too shallow but even when that technique works it might have me going too fast to see the next hazard in time to make a decision. In time I learned to handle each single hazard and to relax after that and reflect and try to remember what I did right and sometimes we discussed it floating side by side on peaceful water. I might need to change the 60 degree offset of my paddle so that I have better back paddle control.

Dean cleared a tree branch that was submerged across the stream but Bryce got caught on it and Nancy and I passed him on his right. I could see that our path would carry us between the limbs of a large downed tree and the trunk was a solid block inches above the water surface and the current was strong. I paddled hard as I could with my right and it was almost enough but another submerged limb caught the right side of the kayak and I went in again. My feet found sandy bottom and it was little more than waste deep. I wedged my kayak and paddle into the tree and tried to help Bryce, who had freed himself from the first hazard, and Nancy. They were both against the tree trunk and would have to paddle upstream and make the turn I barely missed. Dean was trying to give advice from the downstream side of the tree and Bryce was explaining how he was going to get out of this jam. Bryce came by me first struggling to control his kayak. I gave him a pivot point with one hand and he was downstream and free. Nancy, paddling at right angle to visible strong current, said she was going to tip over but I said she was not and I pointed to where the clear water was steadied her kayak and guided it into the current that Bryce had taken. Then I walked my kayak to the opposite bank and remounted.

Nancy ran up on a log and tipped over in deep water. Bryce helped her to shallow so that she could remount. Dean and Nancy think the water is a lot colder than I think it is but they are warm in the wet suits so Dean volunteers to go for a swim. He loves to swim and it was great to see him enjoying it. Only 3 months ago, he was having heart bypass surgery and now he splashes like a kid.

Notes so far:
o - Hazzards come in bunches. If your plan to overcome one hazzard leaves you unable to recognize or solve a second one, you need a new plan.
o - When there is more than one kayak on a stream, don't bunch up.
o - Talk at the breaks.
o - Decide upon some hand gestures.
o - Each hazzard demands its own solution.
You can neither power your way through nor go with the flow.
Sometimes you do one, sometimes the other and sometimes you go slow and try to control your position and put your kayak where the current will help you get through.
Sometimes you use your paddle as a pole against a tree or the bottom.
o – Put a lead rope on the kayak and a clamp for the paddle in case you need to swim with them.
o - Have fun.
o - Enjoy nature, identify the hawks, the squirrels. You win if you see a bald eagle. We won.
o - When passing the canoeing couple although she has a remarkably athletic body, try not to stare.
o - Listen to the cicadas to see if you might understand their language. Try to hear the words to their song.
o - Let's do the math. When Brood X comes back, I'll be 81 years old. I am glad I didn't miss them this time.

Pictures won't show just how steep the sandy bank of Sugar Creek is at the West Union Bridge take-out. Climbing it while pulling 47 pounds of kayak and 15 pounds or more of gear was harder work than I had done all day but it felt good to breathe heavy. The wheels of the cart rolled smoothly on the covered bridge and I pause to take a picture out a covered bridge window of Dean and Nancy preparing their load.

Later, when I am helping Bryce bring his kayak up to the bridge the lady of a nearby farm approached on a four wheeler. After telling a fisherman to move his car from her property, she began to eyeball Bryce's kayak and said she thought it was a kayak.

Bryce told her it was a sit-on-top and she studied it carefully like a prospective buyer before spinning her ATV around and heading home. I'm told that she still rides horses too and I suppose that, if she thought about it, she didn't expect to see and hear another Brood X. She is 83.

The words to the cicada song:

Do it now, do it now, do it now. (repeat)