My Green Canoe

I wasn't much of a reader but I liked the Popular Science that came in the mail once a month. It didn't take much reading; you could almost imagine what the words were saying because the pictures told a good story. It was late in my senior year of high school, 1964, and I found this canoe that you were supposed to be able to make at home. A redwood canoe that became a focus of my last months of high school; much more so than studying or choosing a college. I don't know if we could afford a canoe; I didn't really think about it, I just wanted one. In Mississippi canoes weren't very popular. There were only a few streams that could justify their use. But summer camps used them and I had canoe experience from being at camp. I also liked fishing and this redwood canoe would satisfy my need for boat ownership and fishing. As it turned out, it would have been more affordable to order a new canoe from Sears or somewhere. Redwood is expensive; especially in 2 inch thick boards 12 feet long. I don't remember how many it took to make the canoe but a number. This was a 16 foot long boat and the boards had to be cut into 1/4 inch strips, laid side by side on a form cut to the shape of my canoe to be. My father owned a residential construction company and it took one of his best carpenters pretty much all afternoon to cut those high dollar planks to material suitable to become my green canoe. The Popular Science gave explicit instructions for construction; I didn't like reading. They even would send the real plans for a few 1964 dollars but I knew that wasn't necessary because I had the pictures. Strip by strip that canoe took shape and it became obvious that I would soon have to test my hand at applying the fiberglass skin to those expensive redwood strips. I still remember being pleased that the shape of those strips were now closely resembling the shape of a canoe. Fiberglass is not a user friendly substance. It was also hard to find. Sears had green. The redwood was supposed to show through clear fiberglass but Sears had green. I could order clear but that would take longer than I wanted to wait. My green canoe began a lifetime association with boats and my circumnavigation of Mississippi and life. These writings really are about a lifetime cruise experience that took me and my friend Mickey around the state of Mississippi but it also gives me platform to chronicle a few lifetime experiences for maybe my family to enjoy when I'm gone. I look forward to sharing it... as long as I don't have to read it.