“When you see someone putting on his Big Boots, you can be pretty sure that an Adventure is going to happen.”
– A.A. Milne, “Winnie-the-Pooh”
At 5:30 a.m. the only light in the backyard is the soft, red glow of the greenhouse.
We got the thing several weeks ago. It’s a white, featureless, cube-like structure that could be a prop in a Stanley Kubrick film. For us it’s a winter parking place for ferns and potted plants unable to withstand the cold. At present it’s 28 degrees out.
After a fruitless search locally, I found the heat-lamp bulb at Holcomb’s in Macon. I vacillated between the red and clear bulbs, the red ones being $4 more.
When Norman Jr. said baby chicks prefer the red bulbs, the decision was easy.
The first order of business is coffee. While the water heats, I grind the beans with a hand grinder my brother gave us several years back.
Plenty of time. Ross isn’t coming until 7.
Paddle, sprayskirt and PFD are in the kayak and my attire is laid out.
Though it’s going to warm up as the day goes on, it’s wetsuit weather. Not only is the neoprene a good insulator, but it traps water next to your skin and magically keeps you warm should you capsize. Most of our group wear neoprene boots and gloves, too.
HD has warned us about deer hunters and I encourage Ross via text to wear orange.
Wildlife, deer especially, seem to be on the move in subfreezing weather. It’s not uncommon to see a family of them swimming across the creek.
This morning I’m listening to a downloaded episode of “Creature Comforts,” a Mississippi Public Radio program where listeners call in with questions about litter boxes, heart worms and raccoons in the attic.
On today’s show a guest is talking about black bears, which are slowly returning to the state. Wildlife biologists estimate there are about 200 black bears in Mississippi. A trickle of those came up from Mobile Bay, but the majority swim across the Mississippi River.
Ponder that image a minute: Black bears swimming across the Mississippi River. What a sight that must be.
Time for a quiz. The most famous bear hunt in American history? Where and when?
OK, a clue: Teddy Bear.
Ask my buddy Roger Truesdale and he will reply in the next breath: “Sharkey County, 1902.”
It was there and then President Teddy Roosevelt refused to shoot a bear captured and tied to a willow tree by guide Holt Collier. The event spawned a political cartoon in The Washington Post, which led to the ubiquitous children’s toy.
Roger is a native of Rolling Fork, which has chainsaw sculpture of Teddy, Holt and the bear gracing its town square.
Ross shows up at 7 and we load my kayak atop his Volkswagen. We’ll leave my truck at the takeout where the Luxapalila goes under Highway 12 and drive to Hays Crossing about five miles, as the crow flies, northeast of Steens near the Mississippi-Alabama line. There we’ll put in on Yellow Creek which merges into the Lux just below Steens.
The water is up, though not dangerously so. It gurgles as it swirls around trees and through underbrush. A mist floats over the river’s surface, a prelude to a morning that will soon turn bright and crystalline.
Drybags with extra clothes and snacks are in the bulkheads; the car is secure. Slowly we ease our kayaks into the moving water.
“Come,” says the river as she takes us in her hand, “I have things to show you. Wondrous things.”
Birney Imes III is the immediate past publisher of The Dispatch.
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