Kathy surprised me with tickets for an Erie Canal boat tour that she found on Groupon. We’re planning a trip in June. I can’t wait. The Erie Canal has always fascinated me. When it opened in 1825 it was the first all-water route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. It reduced the transportation cost of freight to the western territories by 95%, and was one of the main reasons New York City became the chief port in the United States. It was a fluke of nature that enabled the construction, as the Hudson and Mohawk Valleys form the only cut across the Appalachians north of Alabama. The canal enabled European goods to pass up the Hudson River to Albany and west all the way to Lake Erie at Buffalo, without ever having to be off-loaded for portage (hauled over land to the next available water route). During the process it had to rise over 600 vertical feet, through a series of 83 locks. It turned Buffalo from a small settlement of 200 people to a metropolis of 18,000 in eighteen years, and was one of the major factors places like Cleveland and Chicago grew into major cities. Chicago named two of its streets Canal and Clinton, acknowledging both the canal itself and DeWitt Clinton, governor of New York at the time of its construction, for their contributions to its history. My own personal connection to the Erie Canal goes deeper – literally. It was late winter, early spring of 1983. Kathy was pregnant with Kerry. My sister, Heidi was going to Nazareth College in Rochester on a four year basketball scholarship. Kathy and I were visiting her on one of their “Family Weekends”. We arrived and checked into our hotel late, having driven after work all the way from where we were living in Highland Mills, in Orange County, forty miles or so north of New York City. The next morning we found a place for breakfast and headed over to the campus. Somewhere along the way, I spied one of those cast iron historical signs, for which I am a sucker, and slowed to a crawl so I could read the entire text. Holy cow – the body of water that we had been running alongside was the actual Erie Canal! “We have to stop!” I yelled. “For what?” “I want to be able to say I touched the Erie Canal!” We found a pull-off and I jumped out, making a bee-line for the canal. When I got closer I realized that touching the water was not going to be an easy feat. The canal is lined with concrete, with a sloping lip of a foot or so, then dropping straight down to the water. At the time we were there it were probably two feet from the top edge to the water below. This was maybe the end of March, first week of April, and the ground was wet and muddy. I squatted on my heels, trying to reach down and at least break the surface of the water with my fingers – no go. Between the diagonal slope and the vertical drop there was no way to accomplish what I had in mind, so I decided to sacrifice my left knee to get closer. If someone asked why I had a green stain on the knee of my khakis I could explain in proud detail, and it would be a badge of honor, rather than just a laundry problem. I stretched my left arm to its maximum reach, waiting for the cold wet sensation to tell me I had fulfilled my wish, to touch the mighty Erie Canal. That’s when I lost my balance – and my dignity. With a giant splash I toppled over into the black water. Trying not to panic, I assessed my situation. It was eight o’clock in the morning on a cold and overcast day. I was treading water in a freezing, opaque waterway of unknown depth (I knew it was probably not that deep, but in panic situations – okay, I panicked – all kinds of things flashed through my mind. For all I knew the Kraken could have been hovering beneath me). Kathy, big belly and all, ran back and forth, bending over to try and save me from an unsavory demise. Spotting a ladder molded into the concrete, she jumped up and down, frantically pointing. I swam over and attempted to climb, my feet slipping from the slimy steps, my fingers failing to catch a handhold on the sloping escarpment. Kneeling in the mud, Kathy grabbed at anything on me she could - jacket, belt, hair - pulling and hauling, until I was safely on solid ground, wet and cold. We still had time before we had to meet Heidi and her friends, so we raced back to the hotel, where I showered and changed. Nobody ever had to know about my humiliating incident, but it was too good a story to keep silent. It was the hit of the weekend. I look forward to our tour and the memories it will bring back. I have always been of the opinion that the past is past, and all that matters is the future. Past failures always make the best stories. But touching the Erie Canal has already been scratched off my bucket list, so I will definitely keep my hands inside the boat.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 23:26:11 +0000
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