A RIVER'S PLEASURE
My latest book: A RIVER’S PLEASURE: ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN CRONIN. This is a collection of essays that celebrates the life and work of my friend John Cronin. He has had a wide-ranging, imaginative career and is one of the most dynamic thinkers about our environmental situation. In some ways, reading this book is a history, through his life and the Hudson River, of our environmental movement.
The first time John and I had dinner, four years ago now, we talked about the Hudson River, Thomas Merton, John Steinbeck and teaching. I knew that here was a person I’d never get tired of. However, you would think that after pulling together essays, editing them, and proofreading them I’d really be sick of him. I’m not. This is partly because my co-editor Michelle Land did the lion’s share of the work. But also because the essays here are wonderful—insightful, smart, well written. There are contributions from Alex Wilkinson, who writes marvelous profiles often for the New Yorker, and a personal account of the early Riverkeeper days from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. I got to interview Pete Seeger for the collection, which was a treat: he sang to me over the phone.
Blind(s)
Late fall paddles have a certain thrill to them. The air warms for a day, but the water has already begun its pull to cold. Sitting so close to the water, my feet begin to numb from the cold of wet feet while I’m in a t-shirt, basking in the sun. I think of it as two worlds: the world of light and the world of dark, the world of warmth and the world of cold. In other words, paddling is a lot like life.
On Sunday I ran into two men who swim with the Bard master’s swim team I join from time to time. They were heading south so off we went together. We debated popping into the North Tivoli Bay to disrupt the happy gunshots of duck hunters.
When I first began to paddle I had no idea that hunters took over the Bays for a period every fall. I wandered in and delighted by the sight of a duck bobbing at the edge of a clearing of cattails, I slowly approached. It was beautiful, that noble teal head, a white ring like a necklace, a brown chest. I got closer scootching along with the current, delighted that the bird was allowing me to admire it. And then I realized the obvious. I swiveled in my seat. Behind me stood a hunter on a ramshackle duck blind, gun slung to the side, shaking his head.
I could have paddled away and left this embarrassing moment in the Bay, a secret held by the unknown hunter, his beautiful decoy and me. But in fact, I tell this story a lot—there is nothing like telling stories that make me look like an idiot. But there is something else to the story. I am gullible, in more than decoys. Though I know people hunt, part of me still doesn’t understand that people with guns want to shoot and kill other creatures. By understand I mean that because this makes no sense to me I choose to live as if people who hunt to kill do not exist.
We stayed on the main river that day, finally dipping into the South Tivoli Bay, wide and open after a season clogged with the beautiful, invasive water chestnut. On the return we bobbed off of Magdalen watching an eagle shred its dinner. The warm air had created low-lying clouds that formed a skirt around the Catskills on the far shore. I felt warm and strong and happy. I ignored that my feet were cold. I also ignored the sounds of guns exploding on both the west and eastern shores. I had journeyed onto the river to marvel, feel free, explore and have fun. And I didn’t want to alter that, even given those shots that told me I am perhaps naïve in how I see this world. This is my own blind.
Full Moon Paddle
Not much blogging this summer, but some adventuring (which I’ll perhaps get to recounting at some point). Last night was the September full moon—not as special as the August full moon, which is the Sturgeon Moon, but it is the Corn Moon and the corn has been pretty wonderful here. I put in at Cheviot, which is just a bit north of Tivoli. It’s almost across the river from the St. Lawrence cement plant, which looms on the western shore. When it’s dark I confess that the plant is magical with its lights.
I put in around 7:15 and pointed north. It’s a great section to paddle because the river spreads wide and shallow so the channel snakes up very near the western shore (where barges dock to load and unload at the cement plants). So I could paddle down the middle of the river and except for the occasional sea monster it’s pretty safe.
Picking up Garbage
“Susie, it’s your duty to keep America beautiful,” Becky said.
And we continued to drift.
My father loved this story, perhaps because he thought Becky had made up this great line. I’m pretty sure Becky had pulled it from a TV ad, though we did not have a TV in our own house. He told the story over and over again, emphasizing how the comment seemed to come out of nowhere and Becky’s seriousness in delivering this mandate. Whether it came from Becky, or from hearing the story so many times, I have taken it seriously. It’s my job to keep garbage from ruining the beauty of the Hudson River and of the Tivoli Bays in particular.