Raftin on the Crick with Chuck

When you wish upon a star. Makes no difference who you are. Anything your heart desires will come to you.

When we were kids, Chuck and I, used to try and spend a lot of our time down by the crick. Eagle Creek was the proper name. I think crick was just easier. You know we used that crick for fishing, and crabbing in the rocks. We caught our minnows with a minnow seine. Two of us with our jeans pulled up to our ankles would walk along poking the net deep into the rapids, up would come about a hundred minnows, a few crabs, and once in a while a turtle. Chuck and my dad didn’t eat turtle so we put them in a bucket to see if we could race them later. One particular day we hadn’t seriously been trying to catch minnows. but we talked and talked and talked. We probably talked about Beatles or The Wings over America tour.
Or black Oaks Jim Dandy to the rescue.
Or hey lets try to call that girl on the phone.
Chuck actually did talk to them. I wondered what it was they talked about. If I had the guts to get on the phone, then as soon as I heard them giggle on the other line, I hung up. (That’s funny I still do that) My sons friends call now.
Anyway this particular sunny afternoon, not to cold, not to hot, was perfect if we could take my raft out. We either got permission or sneaked it out. We got our gear together (wrist rockets that shoot arrows) the paddles, and we pumped up the raft. It was one of them pretty darn good canvas ones. Nice Brass Valve stem with cap. The valve was made so the raft could be bled down at a rotating part of the valve under the cap. Mom’s probably junked it by now. We had a great time down in the creek that day; we shot our arrows with the skill of an Eagle Creek local with a wrist rocket. No fish, but we scared a turtle which was extremely exciting because some of those snappers would just as soon eat you as look at you.
We had a ball shooting the arrows and retrieving them. Then we headed downstream. (Not what my mom had in mind but precisely what we had in mind) Under Lincoln Street bridge. Oops, gotta hide the raft and head up the creek bank to Lawsons on the corner of Lincoln and Blanchard to get a candy bar or ice cream. I always felt a little nervous when the cashier looked me over. Me dressed in my creek clothes and sporting the big hunting knife on my calf that my brother brought me from Arizona. Lord only knows what Chuck was wearing. I’m sure he would know. I always kinda thought of Chuck as Huckleberry Finn. I was always the one to have to find out if I could go to the crick or to the field, or anywhere outside my yard for that matter. Chuck had more freedom. So more often then not he would come down and help me come up with a plan so I could ask my mom in just the right way if I could do something.  And it worked! Well, sometimes. I guess a lot of time we got permission on kind of a limited basis but then we fudged the limits a little, or a lot, depending on whether we got caught. So we got our Lawson supplies and found our raft right where we hid it. We then headed for the Sandusky Street bridge. We just went under this one. I’m sure we looked up at the exposed re-bar and the crumbling cement, and the little stalactites that somehow form under there. Those bridges were sturdy bridges just spanning two lane streets. We could touch the bottom going under them. The problem was when the Crick froze back then. (It used to every winter) Then it would thaw. Ice jams of six to twelve inches thick ice piled upon one another in four to six foot sheets. They would pile up several feet high and just rip the concrete off of the reinforcement bars. If you had seen it you would be surprised that the bridge was still standing. I always had faith that the engineers would keep track of that sort of thing.
We traveled right on down the crick to the Blanchard River. It was awesome to look at the widening creek and the big bends in the river.
The most awesome thing for me was the city water department looming up in front of me. A huge yellow/gold color block building, and lots of pipes and steel and concrete on rolling green grass.
The bad thing was is that my dad worked there and he might see me. He didn’t though and we rounded the bend and I guess I need to call Chuck about the rest but skipping to the end which I remember well was: Chuck and I got a ride back to his house and put my raft in his garage. I think his dad took us to the store. When we came back the entire front seam had burst out of the raft from us leaving it in the sun and our rafting days ended right there.