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June 19, 2005A timeless Father's Day kayaking tripByLocal columnist The paddle dips quietly in and out of the water, gliding the kayak forward. A fawn nibbles on shore grasses along the water's edge. Its cautious mother, barely visible, watches me and a friend in our kayaks a few hundred feet away. Canada geese float in a row like sentinels along the shore. A pair of loons call to each other, taking turns guarding their one baby from the bald eagle perched high in a white pine. A young buck crashes out of the pines and splashes across the shallow water into the woods on the other side. Mesmerized in the early evening light, I enter that place where time collapses. A memory of my father floats in. He is rowing to his favorite fishing spot in a small lake. I am sitting in the back of the rowboat, facing him, enchanted by the way water drips neatly off the oars. I don't talk much because I don't want to scare the fish away. I am eager to drop anchor so that he can worm the hook on the line of my bamboo pole. He uses his fly rod. He jokes that we should trade poles because I catch bigger fish. I am probably 5 and he is 33. I grin because what I like most about these summer evenings is the time we spend together. Sometimes he lets me row, but he doesn't like going through lily pads at the end of a fishing trip. "Raini," he hollers the one time I do to look at the water lilies. "Get outta here." He stands up, yanks an oar from the lock and starts thrashing the water at the back of the boat where he has his stringer of fish dangling over the side. He looks like a crazy man. "Turtles!" he explains, laughing happily, pulling up the stringer. "But they didn't get a one." My father died of a heart attack two years later, and I never really fished again. I've missed him lots in this river called life, but as I paddle my kayak on small lakes and streams this summer I sense the precious things he gave me in the few years I knew him: The beauty of a summer night on a small lake at dusk. The magic of looking at the moon on a front porch, or searching for the North Star, the Big and Little Dippers. The joy of a ride up and down a hilly country road in a baby-blue 1954 Ford with Mom and my little brother. The dance steps I learned around the dining room table while Tennessee Ernie Ford and Molly Bee crooned on our first TV. He showed me how to worm a hook and ride a two-wheeled bike. He gave me a life-long love and sense of connection to the outdoors. His humor, his playfulness, his joy and clear love for me has sustained me for life. I am grateful for my father --- and my kayak for the timeless vessel it is. Loraine Anderson can be reached at 933-1468 or via email at landerson@record-eagle.com
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