I’ve lived near rivers my entire life but only now as an adult do I see how much their meanderings have taught me.

My Grandma Forney’s tiny kitchen filled with the savory aromas of a pot roast cooking with potatoes, carrots and onions. As a kid, my eyes couldn’t roll hard enough and my protests could not have been more ungrateful.

“Uh, meat and potatoes again?!?”

What was wrong with Totino’s pizza rolls? Why did we have to eat all this “old fashioned” food?

I’d do almost anything for one more pot roast from my Grandma today. That was real food. She took the time to prepare meat and potato style meals so we’d have real nourishment. I feel the same way about my growing up near rivers. I didn’t fully appreciate the experience at the time,  but with hindsight, I can see just how fortunate I was to have that upbringing. Anyone who’s been raised by rivers ought to be familiar with these distinct aspects of that life.

Better Than a Counselor

A river is therapy, only there’s less talking and it doesn’t cost so much. Driving down to the river was something everyone did and there was a general understanding as to what that meant. You were going to collect your thoughts. To cool down. To contemplate. To refocus. Watching that mass of water move past you was existential. Even at normal flow, peaceful and calm, it was a silent behemoth that could not be stopped. Watching was the only thing you could really do to it. You left the bank with a better perspective on life.

How High’s the Water Mama?

 

A dingy white five gallon bucket hung suspended from an oak branch 20 feet above the Meramec river bottom trail I was running. Months early, turbid flood waters roiled through this forest over a hundred yards from where the river presently slid quietly along its bed.

Living near rivers taught me that things change during the course of a year. The meek and demure stream in August will be a destroyer of homes in June. The life giving waters that created the fertile river valley are the very same that drown the life out of a careless boater. Floods are a regular reminder of the temporal nature of this life.

The Waters Taketh

All my friends and family who had been raised near rivers can tell tales of people that they knew who perished below the surface. In high school, I remember getting word that my brother’s childhood friend had lost his life while duck hunting on a backwaters of the Illinois. 

Some folks drown by accident; others by design. Periodically an individual would leap from a bridge, desperate to escape this life. The river rescue squad would activate and begin the grim task of dragging hooks along the riverbed to recover the body, the townspeople looking on from the bank with dark curiosity.

Being that close and personally knowing people who died in the river instilled in me a reverence for the water. Undertow, strainers, deep holes; some secrets the river held were only discoverable under penalty of death.

Ole Man Whiskers

Growing up and even into my adult life, sitting with a rod tightlining a wad of chicken liver in the current has been my idea of a good night. We all catfished. Some more than others, but we all did it. The attraction was a mixture of reading the finicky surgical bites of a channel cat to know when to set the hook. It was also the specter of a monster flathead unspooling your reel as he made off with your tail-hooked bluegill. Eating your catch wasn’t so bad either.

Dad and I would sit in mutual silence along the Fox River as mayflies swarmed to our propane Coleman lantern. When it was my buddies, we talked about girls and hockey and who still had chips or beef jerky to share. There’s nothing like the taste of Cool Ranch Doritos eaten with hands that were just in the bait container.

There were also legends. Someone always knew someone who knew a guy who did commercial diving and had seen a cat so big on one of his dives that he refused to go back in the water. Every one of us secretly thought we’d be the one to catch that Volkswagen sized catfish.

Highways in the Sky

Rivers weren’t just another terrestrial travel corridor. They served as templates for the flyways of migratory birds. As the years passed, you became familiar with the regular seasonal travelers, like an attendant at a KOA campground. Frigid winters often brought the eagles down in search of open water and fish. Rusty autumn trees brought northern flocks of Canada geese into the crisp skies.

You always kept an eye out for the rare wandering traveler; a gull from Europe scooting through or a honker that was far from home, like a Ross’s goose. Never knowing who was coming through made keeping an eye and an ear toward the sky that much more interesting. Living along a river flyway was  a reminder to be on the lookout for life’s unexpected surprises.

Every time I go back and visit a river I grew up near, the experience is strikingly similar to reconnecting with an old friend. Their banks may have widened a bit. Maybe they’re a little slower, but their core, their bed remains the same. When I step into a new river, it’s as though I’ve been introduced to a friend of a friend. We’re kin by a mutual association.

I’m thankful now for my Grandma’s home cooked meals, despite my protests as a youngster.The same holds true for the life lessons I’ve been taught stream-side. They’ve made me who I am and caused me to realize that it’s a fortunate life to have been raised by rivers.