Leaving hotel calafornix

Paddling down the river is so much more fun than watching TV. A TV appeared on the side of the river, picture tube intact. Pow! Man, this is good target practice. I really enjoyed this, and another one appeared. These things seemed like they were everywhere, and I shot the hell out of em’ all the way down the river. I started hustling pool for money. After trading stories for money while practicing geometry I was getting a few easy calm night miles in when I came upon a huge buck swimming across the river. It looked like a branch sticking out of the river at first. I started to paddle towards him and he picked up speed. He was a fast swimmer even though all he had were hooves. It was neat to get right up next to him. I pulled back when I realized I was terrifying this creature.

A young woman’s rowing team paddled by as I was slipping on the river in the morning. Wanna race? I floated past Blennerhasset Island and saw four hundred deer. A week into this trip and I was paddling down the river thinking about how hooking up with a young woman would be nice. It’s extremely hard to avoid thinking about this as a 25-year-old guy. It feels natural. As I floated around the next bend I noticed a large fire on the other side of the river, a signal fire. I started paddling towards the fire. One of the group of persons retrieves a pair of binoculars and they take turns watching my approach. This I can see without magnification. The family gathers on the dock about twelve feet above the Ohio. After telling these folks about my trip, they explain that this is “Hooterville” and I’m to get out of the boat and join them. Fantastic, a couple of cold beers and two plates of leftover food from a huge barbecue they were just wrapping up, just in time. The harvest is in and a general feeling of ease permeates the air. It’s kinda chilly but a huge (think shuttle launch pad) fire keeps the whole backyard warm. They were actually burning multiple oak trees.

The sun set. I had to keep maneuvering to keep an insistent Rottweiler away from my food. The dog actually attacks me later as I relieve myself outside of view. The family thought this was interesting and laughed as their dog tried to kill me. I used a no fear drunken master crocodile Dundee trick to calm this ferocious beast down. I was in control and dragged the huge snarling and twisting dog back to the fire almost effortlessly with my pant leg. They were very impressed with this technique.

I had to sit back a ways from the fire so my clothes didn’t melt. The fellow who owns the place had a fifteen-year-old daughter and one of her young friends. I kind of feel like Simon Kenton when it comes to women. He liked young women and so do I. Fifteen is perfect, perfectly, naivingly, pure fun. Remember, this is marrying age in these parts. This particular sweet thing is rolling around on the ground almost rubbing her against my knee like a cat in heat. Like a page out of “Tobacco Road” which I had just read. I was Jeeter. She sure was a rubby touchy giggling sweet wood nymph. MMMMm… Hard to forget about her, but her family’s curiosity about her attraction to me was the same as the rottweiler attack, and this helped to put her in the back of my mind. Hey, put another log on the fire. One of these guys gave me a new pair of leather gloves that turned out to be a crucial piece of equipment.

It seems that Hooterville is especially attractive to trekking canoeists and kayakers, and for the second time I hear the story about the old kayaker with a parrot on his shoulder. As the story goes this guy paddled up the St. Lawrence (patron saint of librarians) seaway and made a short portage to the Allegheny River, descending the Ohio to the Mississippi. Then he paddled up the Miss., Missouri, and Yellowstone rivers. Portaged to the Snake and descended to the Columbia and Pacific Ocean. Sounded like fun to me. As I was leaving the family was wishing me well and the young woman practically throws herself at me. She was trying to get in the boat! Her father assured me he’d be happy to get rid of her. The whole family is laughing. I decided to continue on with my mission to the house of the rising sun. What an idiot I was, I should have taken the girl, they were trying to give her to me.

I made it to Belleville lock and dam at 12:30 AM. Mr. Burns the lock operator traded reading material and gave me some coffee. I slept just downstream on a nice beach. The next day the wind was blowing 45 kts and I didn’t get far. I was kind of sad this evening and cried on the side of the river. I was thinking of my grandmother, Margret “Marge” E. (Clark) Jolley . She was so special to me and had died a few years ago. I decided to name my canoe Marge the barge and I went to sleep. In the morning I woke up and crawled out from under my overturned canoe/hardtop shelter. There was a little old lady who looked like my grandmother up above me on the riverside. The wind was blowing her hair around. She said, “Excuse me”, as if she or I had just interrupted something. I may have been camped in her back yard. As a reader you’re probably starting to see that this trip is intense. I renamed the boat Mar’s regret.

As I passed Buffington Island someone fired a gun with a silencer. My money wasn’t any good in Ravenswood, WV. I headed into town to wash my clothes. A woman I was talking to at the VW set me up with a free hotel room at the Washington Hotel, some kind of Christian deal I think. It was a nice place, I couldn’t even pay for sub at the sandwich shop in town. I had dinner with Doug. I enjoyed the room, a hot shower was great and this official christen scenario played out several times going down the river.

Braving chilly conditions and beavers but making easy time, I pulled up to Racine Dam climbed the frozen steel ladder and knocked on the door late at night. Lockmaster McCoy, of the McCoy and Hatfields the legendary fueders, gave me the official Army Corp of Engineers Chart Book of the Ohio River. This is very nice to have.

Point Pleasant got its name from Simon Kenton, who after getting caught in a compromising position was chased buck naked through the winter woods by Indians. He found refuge here with another white guy and I guess it was rather nice. It was the night before Halloween when I pulled up and a few land locked bums were catching a fire. I went into town and said hello to the local newspaper guy who wrote an article about me a few days later and suggested I go to the diner for dinner. The town was celebrating Halloween one day early and included a parade in the evening. Everyone told me to go to the diner. The food was fabulous, a huge chunk of lasagna and a salad. Dessert is the specialty here and coconut cream pie is the best dessert judging by the speed it makes it off the pie rack. Casual storytelling has its benefits. A fellow, who happened to recommend the coconut crème pie, gets up and pays his bill and mine too. Sweet! He said it was worth it for all the storytelling I was doing, the usual good natured freedom type stuff. Americans love this stuff, almost a hero.

During the parade there was a guy selling popcorn, an old cowboy. We traded stories. He said he was a stud out in Nevada and it was a lot of fun. He recommends that I give it a shot when I get out there. It did sound appealing. I hung out with a cute fifteen year old girl for a while. I had purchased a bottle of whiskey earlier and made my way down to the pool hall. I was calling around trying to get anyone I knew to drop everything and join me. No luck here but I found some on the pool table. I left around 10 PM, walked down to the river, dragged the boat out of the bushes, and slipped on to the river. The town of Gallipolis is on the other side. A vehicle parked on the other side of the river flashes its high beams as I pull off the bank. A signal? I paddle across to investigate. There is a couple in a car participating in the some kind of submarine race warm up. They’d seen me leave the riverbank but lost sight of me as I got on the river. So they turned their lights on but still couldn’t see me. This guy gave me twenty bucks and a few subs for the river.

They were having a civil war reenactment in Guyandot, WV when I sailed in. Immediately I was accosted by a gorgeous, hair in “Little House on the Prairie” braids, sixteen-year-old girl who swept me away into fantasyland. My canoe drifted off the bank and headed towards the gulf without me. Fortunately some fishermen were around to retrieve it for me. I never let this happen again. Either pull the boat up and watch it, or tie the painter line to something, and watch out for young women. I took a free river boat ride and enjoyed a complimentary picnic.

Everyone I talked to told me it was illegal to carry my pistol concealed. It was a felony, twelve months minimum. I took their recommendation and went into town to get a holster. I had to make sure it fit, so I had to carry the pistol to the sporting goods store. I couldn’t conceal it in my bag, so I carried it in my hand. This attracted some attention in the store, which didn’t have holsters anyway. I left with directions to a likely spot. Out in the parking lot officers drove up with automatic pistols out the windows. “Slowly put the gun on your feet.” I did this and they gave me a ride to the gun shop with holsters. I bought one and strapped it on. The officers who were very friendly gave me a ride down to a tomato field next to the river. They were a little perplexed, because they wanted to run me through the computer to see if I was wanted, which I was, but the computer wouldn’t work. I narrowed one of my eyes, cocked my head little bit, and did my best Jed Clampet. Well I’ll be… They said it looked like I was free to go.

It was another big west wind and travel was slow. I pulled in downstream a ways on the other side of Huntington. It was getting dark. I had my new holster, all legal. When I walked into the eating establishment, you could see the young man behind the counter was surprised to have a person walk in with a pistol on his side. I quickly got around his fears with a funny story and asked him what he recommended off the menu. He spoke highly of the chipped ham and sweet relish sauce sandwich and I took his recommendation as he headed out the door on a delivery. I sat down with my back to the front door, tossed my Stetson on the table and proceeded to eat my sandwich while watching a Clint Eastwood special. If I have to watch TV, Eastwood is my man.

I’m reading a local paper wearing my pistol cowboy style. Cruising through my sandwich the front door opens at the same time Clint walks through the swinging bar door. The bell suspended from the door’s chain rings in time with the sound of spurs on the floor. The place gets quiet and I can see in the reflection of the glass on the TV a police officer with gun drawn sneaking up on me. He puts his hand on my piece and asks for permission to see it. I do the Dirty Harry and keep eating my sandwich while replying, sure. The officer takes my gun, checks under my hat and asks if I have any more weapons. No. At this time the cops that gave me a ride to the gun shop earlier show up, the gangs all here, local, sheriff, and state police. I took note in the difference in their shoes with the state police having the nicest, but the sheriff with a pair that looked like he could run you down in. The police recommended I unload my firearm before I come into town, wished me luck and left. The deliver guy came in just as the door was closing and explained he thought I’d killed somebody when he got back as the place was surrounded by cops. He buys me dinner and gives me ten bucks for the entertainment.

The next morning I find a dead buck floating in the river next to where my canoe is pulled up on the shore. Jackpot! This is what I wanted to have, a rack to put on my bow without having to kill the poor creature. He was floating and bloating and I had to burn some tobacco to keep from gagging as I cut the rack and crown off the top of his head with my folding saw. It fit perfectly under one of the tines on the bow cleat. This gave me something to look at as I went downriver, a hood ornament. I got to Catlettsburg and went to the local police station. I could see this whole firearm thing was a hassle and wanted to get a third opinion. The Kentucky sheriff told me he wouldn’t go near the river without a firearm, and that I would be a fool to unload it when I came into town. This officer seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

I ended up discussing this with all the police officers all the way down the river. When they asked me for “proof” I showed them the receipt from the pawnshop that I had folded up in a copy of the constitution in my back pocket. Sometimes, just the sight of this document would cause the officer to retreat. If not, I would read the second amendment and cleverly point out that this right to bear arms was to protect me from the state. I would look the officer and say, that’s you. This usually worked. The funny thing was that when they tried to run my name through the computer. It froze up or something. It seemed like a problem they’d never seen before because they acted perplexed. I didn’t tell them the same thing has happened the last time they ran me through.

Went into the town of Ashland at 12 AM. It was asleep. As I was getting back in my boat a young couple appeared on the river rise. They had a cell phone and said they were going to call the cops. I had no idea who they were. I told them to call the coast guard. They didn’t get it. Cops were everywhere as I hugged the bank and headed down stream. A few days later I went into Portsmouth Ohio and cleaned the pool hall out. In Ohio the booze, that they’ll sell you at a gas station, is watered down, and I don’t think I lost a single pool game in this state. They hunt with shotguns because they can’t shoot straight. At least that’s what the guy’s in Kentucky say. I met an older air force pilot who gave me a can of WD-40 to clean my pistol. He had a chestnut tree in his yard still hanging on and fighting the chestnut blight.

When it gets really windy it’s easier to pole your way down the side of the river than it is to paddle. Of course the easiest thing to do is sit on the side and wait for the wind to stop blowing but I was a short distance from town and it was really windy. Plus I heard there was a great pizza place in Vanceburg. Unfortunately, it was closed. I strolled into town looking for some shelter, it was windy, and supplies. Hey, there are gun stores everywhere. I wanted some tracer bullets to shoot over the bow of the barges that keep shining their one million megawatt light at me at night. I wear my sunglasses around my neck at night for this reason. This is blinding. The tracer bullets were a dollar apiece, so I didn’t buy any. Probably just as well. Vanceburg is firearm friendly, and almost every pickup had a rifle in the rack. People waved to me and honked as they drove by. A cheerful woman inquires about my piece, “Boy that sure is a nice looking pistol. Is it a 38?” It’s a 9 shot 22. “Cool!”

The police don’t even turn their heads in this town. It’s the kind of town a river guy can feel at ease in. It’s also the kind of town with muffler/tanning bed shops. The Deep South, where you can get a coke and smokes for a buck, and get a suntan while you get your muffler fixed. With the wind showing no signs of letting up I stop at the local tavern. As I approach the old building I thought I’d better be careful in this place. “Turn your pistol in at the bar”, the owner greets me. I took the bullets out and dropped it in a basket the bartender held out for me. There was a couple more in there. Hey! Everybody else is carrying 12″ knives on their side. I played a few games of pool, won a beer, got my stuff and left. Lunch at the drug store/soda fountain, bought some oil for my boots, got some fruit, and headed back to the boat, too windy.

I stashed the canoe a hundred yards down the bank in some bushes and headed back to the tavern. The sun was getting low and there was a light snow. I brushed the snow off the brim of my hat as I entered the door and put my piece in the basket, back to the pool game and smoking with the locals. This was the only time I played doubles the whole way down and I hooked up with a local guy about my age. This guy seemed like he was drunk off his rocker but he could really shoot well. He carried a huge pair of vice grips in his pocket. I liked this idea. This guy could hit 91 degree shots, he was the cut shot master. I learned a lot watching this guy. I was working the bank. Turns out he wanted to go down the river with me but he’d just bought a black Trans Am with T tops, thought he was “The Bandit”. Cool, just my kind of guy (not really, I’m actually more partial to Sheriff Buford T. Justice and know he’d have caught the dam beer smuggler if he’d had a better driver).

I heard a funny story at the bar. It concerned another river traveler who had come into town a few weeks earlier, on an expedition like my own. He’d come to the tavern for a drink, went back to the river later and found his canoe gone. Apparently, he was working down at the sawmill. It seemed like they were pulling my leg, so I ordered some chicken fingers and took my time eating them. My canoe was right were I’d stashed it.

Going down the river at night on the Ohio. The insistent movement of coal. Power plants lit up like the day. Chemical plants and their plasticy smells. Water treatment plants and there output pipes. Its funny cause all these plants run their outputs at night. Fly by night operations they are. One night I was floating down the river and saw two guys standing about 30 feet above the river smoking and talking. They didn’t see me as I approached, and I didn’t see what they were supervising. The sewage discharge blew me out into the middle of the river. It was sick.

I dropped my flashlight over the side of the boat. You could see the light fade away for a long time and then it disappeared. It was deep. I thought I was better off without it anyway, it just messes up my night vision. Sometimes I’d see these big signs that I couldn’t read, until it was close and it would say stay back 500 ft. INTAKE. Whoops.

I pulled into an island late at night. Kentucky was the Indians sacred hunting grounds. I woke up in the morning to an unbelievable barrage of gunfire. Kentucky’s opening day. I couldn’t believe how many people were out here in the woods with guns. I decided right then I was undergunned and I would get a shotgun. Even it out a little bit.

Floating around the inside bend of the river an empty 2 liter soda bottle is thrown out onto the surface 20’ in front of the boat. A barrage of high powered rifle fire misses the target. I started shouting hello to these guys but they couldn’t hear me. I pulled the boat in right on the side of them, got out still talking to them, pulled the boat up and walked the 10’ right into their midst. I was invisible, hey guys. Finally they realized I was standing next to them. This kind of unsettled them. Cease fire, I’m paddling through. There was a half dozen of them, and they each had less teeth than that. They all were carrying high powered rifles. It was the high powered deliverance gang. Cue the Banjo’s, if only I’d had my radio on. Five of them immediately left. The sixth guy, Billy, wanted to fire my pistol. I let him. He chucked a can on the ground in front of him and quickly missed with 4 or 5 shots. I interrupted his shooting. Give me this thing. I took it back. I never did this again. One of the other guys, the biggest one, the leader, came down and invited me up to trailer for supper. “Surely you must be hungry?”

I knew what this was when I saw it. To not accept a meal would imply fear, they knew I was hungry. I accepted and went up to the trailer. It was up the hill in the woods. As homey as they tried to make the place seem it looked like Mad Max on meth, four wheelers roaring by an old 20′ living can, guys shooting trashcans. Must have been a dozen of them. The obligatory drink of course. Sun drops like a rock. After a few minutes of beating around the bush it became evident that they wanted me to go in the trailer. They were all sitting in their telling me how nice the trailer was and how I should come inside. Sound the alarms, as if I didn’t know this was a trap. They wanted me to eat inside. I went in. It looked like they had some of last year’s deer in the crockpot. There was barely any place to sit. I’d never felt so uncomfortable. These guys were up to something it was so obvious, it was a house of horrors, even if it was just a bunch of tweekers.

I tossed an idea up in the air, slipped my paper plate in the trash, dished off the fork and knife and continuing with my idea, I stepped out of the trailer. They wanted me to come back inside. I went and relieved myself. They came out. They beat around the bush for a while, then the big guy said he wanted to see my pistol. I shook my head. He insisted. You don’t want to see my pistol. He moved towards me and I stepped back. I looked him in the eye. I’m leaving. I did. When I got down to the boat I couldn’t find my gloves. I’d stuffed them in my waistband and they’d fallen out when I’d relieved myself. I thought about it for a few minutes and decided to go back and get the gloves.

As I was hiking up the rise I became able to hear the hillbillies. They were guffawing and exhorting about how bad they’d scared the Florida boy. Another pickup truck full of locals had showed up and the leader was recounting his exploits, how terrifying he was, and how scared I’d been of him. Everybody was laughing, hollering, and cursing me. I walked right up into their group talking out loud in their accent and tone, like I was invisible, again, even though I was trying to get their attention, and then, “I appeared”. I explained to them that I’d left my gloves up there. You could’ve heard a pin drop. They looked like they’d seen a ghost. I found my gloves, thanked them for the supper and left.

I went into Maysville to get a shotgun. The last officer I ran into took my bullets out of my gun and told me not to carry it loaded in town. So I unloaded my gun this time and put the bullets in my pocket. One might think to leave the firearms in the boat on the side of the river, but then you’re responsible if they get stolen and someone gets hurt. Plus, it’s legal to carry them around. Just don’t bring them in the post office. Maysville is one of the largest tobacco growing areas in the country. The harvest was carried to the warehouse by horse drawn wagons. I about choked on my saliva the tobacco smelled so sweet in there, fresh herbs. I headed for the local mom and pop diner. The waitress recommended the special, transparent pie. It was sweet, pure cane. I thought this was hilarious after the night before.

I went to a gas station and asked to borrow their phone book and a map, explaining that I was looking to purchase a shotgun. The boyfriend of the cashier, a huge shiner covering his eye, volunteered to take me to a place and purchase it for me. Out of state gun purchases are discouraged. “Shiner” and I were ironing out the details when the door opened and a large muscular black man asked me to step outside. Who are you? “A police officer.” Show me your badge. He slowly reached both hands around behind his back and pulled out his shield. This guy ran me through and I came up clean. He wished me luck and told me an unloaded pistol will get you killed.

Shiner and I jumped on a bus and headed to K Mart where he bought a single shot click open 20 gauge shotgun. I wrote out two receipts on the bus ride back to the river, we both signed them and took one. I called up the Kentucky State Police and checked the law concerning barrel length. I forgot to ask the officer about the stock, which I cut off too. I’d figured out that it was difficult to shoot accurately at night and I wanted a piece that I could roll out from under shelter with. The sawed-off shotgun was the answer.

As I remember it, slipping down the river past town there was a park along Beaslely Creek, there was a gorgeous woman in a dress leaning up against a hot rod listening to Cathy Mattea’s “454 Rocket”. Also, I ran into a tugboat crew that gave me 30 pounds of canned goods, hot dogs, chips, and soda pop. They gave me a life jacket too. I couldn’t paddle with the life jacket on and tied it to my ankle. I figured at least it would go over the side with me if I fell out.