The Disc Golf Champion

It was a beautiful day on Sunday (April 17), so we wanted to get outside. We decided we’d take Eli to the park along the Bear River and play some disc golf at the one basket they have set up. We used to play pretend disc golf on the Play Station, so he was very excited to get to play real disc golf. Little did we realize….

Eli took disc golfing very seriously. He had a bit of trouble at first. I was showing him how to throw the disc the way I do it, backhanded. He tried it and got a bit frustrated that it wasn’t working out for him. So he just tried throwing it differently, forearming it. Before we knew it, he was landing them in the basket.

He was so into it, I don’t know if I’ve ever seen him so intense. We gave him the discs and he forgot all about us and was totally focused on the game. After he figured out a way to throw the discs efficiently, he shouted, “This is a great game! Just like Hungry Hippos!”

Now, being right up there with Hungry, Hungry Hippos might not sound all that spectacular to you, but Eli just got it after working very hard to earn money to buy it. He discovered the game on a YouTube video and kept telling us he wanted it. Of course, he always said he wanted every toy he saw, but this time we could tell he was really obsessed with it. I loved that game as a kid and we figured it was a good pick. So we told him he could earn money if he helped out extra around the house. He was earning well when it happened to go on sale, so we helped out the rest of the way. After opening it and setting it up, he played it for hours, totally focused on it.

So believe me, when he says disc golf is a great game like Hungry Hippos, that means it’s really, really good. “This game is awesome!” he shouted right after telling us how it ranked with the Hippos. (Yes, my three year old son says “Awesome”.  That’s awesome.)

The Crazy Canoeer

Just after leaving the lawn area where the disc golf basket is, we heard a loud splash. It sounded like a large tree limb had hit the water. Joanne was looking down into the river and thought she saw something. Sure enough, there was a canoe caught on a branch in the bend of the river, with no occupants in sight. I went running down to see if anyone needed help.

As soon as I got down, I heard splashing up river and there’s this guy bobbing around in the rapids. He made it to shore and said he was okay. He was worried about his wife, who he said he told to go ashore (from which I deduced he had brilliantly decided to go after the canoe through the rapids). She showed up and shouted down that she was going to their house and would be right back (that’s all I picked up of it, at least; she went on at some length about it, but we couldn’t hear more than that standing by the river). Turns out they lived right there next to the riverside park. We could see their roof from where we stood.

So I figured I would help the guy to get his canoe out. The first thing I noticed about it was that it was a wooden canoe. And I was thinking how crazy this guy was for trying to take that kind of canoe down the river with these kinds of rapids. The front was caught on a branch of a small fallen tree in the river. The back was lodged up in a clump of trees. The front end was flooded and sunk. So we needed to flip it over to dump the water and pick the front end up over the branch so the back end could move forward to swing around the clump of trees to where we could pull it straight out no problem.

So I explained precisely that to the guy. I expected he would immediately go collect his belongings still floating about in the canoe, but no. He just looks at the canoe and says, “Oh, I don’t know if I want to flip it over.” And I knew right then that I was in trouble.

He gets into the water again and reaches to the front of the canoe. From the other side of it, he hands me a rope that’s tied to the front and says we need to tie it to something. And I just looked at it, wondering what he was hoping to accomplish and where, exactly, it ought to be tied to accomplish it. And he was probably thinking, “This dimwit” as he instructed me further to tie it to the tree. Oh, yes. So obvious.

And this was going to accomplish what, exactly? I just handed him back the rope and said, “I don’t see what you’re going for there”, and watched him wrap the rope a couple times around the tree (not to be confused with actually tying it, mind you). Good job. Then he starts telling me we need to get the front around the clump of trees it was wedged into. He tries pushing it and informs me it’s stuck on something. So I reminded him what I’d said, that it was caught on the branch, which we needed to lift it up over to be able to swing the front end around. Hence the necessity of flipping it upside down to dump the water out.

And he just ignores me like my suggestion is completely nuts and instead says we pull it straight out the way it’s sitting. Now, the first fatal problem I see with this plan of his is that the canoe is still full of water since we hadn’t flipped it over yet. The second fatal problem I see with it is that the canoe can’t go the way of the clump of trees on account of the clump of trees.

He sets to work tugging at the front of it. I just looked back and forth between the swamped canoe and clump of trees and told him flatly, you aren’t going to get it out that way. He was probably thinking, “Great, this chump isn’t even going to give me a hand here.” And he was right. I wasn’t about to join him in expending precious time and energy so utterly uselessly.

I decided it wasn’t worth staying there and trying to argue with the guy about how to get his canoe out. I’d offered my help and advised him on what needed to be done. He rejected my advise. So I let him know I was bailing. I asked if he had some friends he could call to come down and help him get it out later. Oh, yeah, he replied. Great, I thought. Then they can join you in your effort to perform a miracle by pulling it out while still halfway underwater straight through the trees. Because I’m not doing it. And with that, I said, okay, glad you’re okay, we’re off.

Another young good Samaritan couple by this time had also seen the man in his plight and come down the bank, as had Joanne with Eli, so I took that opportunity to make like a banana and split. Except now Joanne was insisting that I help the guy as I tried to walk away. I urged that we should go, but she was like, can you help him pull it out? And I’m like, No! Go! But he might need help getting his canoe out, she insists. And I’m like, No! Go! Go! Go! I quietly explained the situation as we fled.

Before we left for home, Eli played in the waterfront playground for a while. A great day.