river rat: Fire, Ice, and the National Guard I understand feuds and I understand the importance of land rights; many times the two are linked. I learned the importance of feuds and land rights from my eldest brothers' mistakes on the river. To them, in the salad days of their youth, their mistakes were carefully crafted adventures fully planned and perfectly executed.
Working together, my oldest brothers Dave and Bill built our family's first cabin on a scrubby, low lying island on the river as a way to get away from the family for wholesome teenage activities like sneaking smokes and distilling liquor. The materials were 100% scavenged and possibly pilfered as would befit a smokehouse and illegal moonshine still.
The two room building stood on stilts about four feet off the ground which in turn stood just a few feet above the normal height of the river. There was enough room inside the shack to cook meals on a Coleman gas camp stove and sit down to a salvaged table in the front room and sleep six in bunks in the rear room. A small balcony off the sleeping room looked southward while the entry porch on the north side led into the kitchen/dining room and had an excellent view back towards town. The sun setting over the hill on old man Hurley's pasture and hazily reflecting off the water was magnificent.
I can remember the entire family out on the river. Many weekends would find all ten of us spending lazy afternoons doing our own thing. Swimming, playing in the sand, fishing, scavenging, playing cards-all were island activities made special by the sense that we were the only ones out on that little scruffy patch of dirt.
The sweetest aspect of life out on the islands in the river is the serenity. A Sunday afternoon spent on the river with the pealing of town's church bells drifting across the water lowered blood pressure and fostered contemplative thought. The unobstructed views from the rickety cabin porch looking back toward town were peaceful slices of heaven.
When our cousins decided to build another squatter's cabin on an island just upstream and directly between our cabin and the best view of the shoreline, my brother's were ready to torch the place the first day it was finished. Finished is not quite the right word. Completed isn't either.
The pile of crap cobbled together leaked like a sieve with not a square or plumb line to be found. If our cabin was put together hastily from scraps it was at least assembled with some semblance of craft and had a cubist elegance. Our cousins' place was shacky. Shacky the way ghettoes in Bhopal, India are shacky.
If, when looking out across the water from our own hobo's paradise, we were looking at an elegant structure crafted from nothing but the finest materials and skill; well then, that would be one thing. It was another feeling entirely that was evoked from the sight of such a piece of crap lean-to that disgraced the island on which our cousins had stacked the lumber they called shelter. If I use the word crap a million times you still won't quite get the crappiness level this building reached.
I truly believe that my brother's were jealous of the choice of islands made by our cousins. Their island was much bigger and had higher, safer ground on which to drive pilings for support. Their view was a clear shot of town over an expanse of river pleasantly adorned with grass patches, rock ridges, and the occasional sports fishermen.
Actually, my brothers were envious. Envy is not the same as jealousy, you know.
If you are jealous of someone for some thing, you wish you had what that person had also. There isn't an over riding need to remove that possession from the person of whom you are jealous.
If you are envious of someone their possession, you wish to take that away from them and have it for yourself.
My brothers truly were envious, for they intended on taking away what little slice of heaven our cousins had fashioned on an island they wish they had the foresight to have built on.
Like I said, the island Bill and Dave chose to build our squatter's hut on was nothing special. The one thing it had going for it was that it had another island right next to it which allowed them to build a walking bridge to connect the two. The cove between the islands created a safe cove to moor boats, also. Building the bridge and then the cabin made sense to them and gave them the feeling that they owned this part of the river as though it was something they'd purchased.
As far as I know the rights of ownership relative to structures constructed on a state governed waterway are the rights of squatters. As long as one maintains the structure and doesn't let it fall into disrepair, the state game wardens will turn a blind eye to the colonization of an island or islands.
And so it came to pass after a few summers of quiet enjoyment of our bucolic squatter's shack that one fateful winter the envy over our cousins' encroachment on a superior island led to this story.
It was early January and the ice floes had started up in earnest on the Susquehanna River. Ice forming farther upstream where it was usually colder, would break free and flow down stream. The early ice floes are so delicate and lacy, dotting the large expanse of river. They look like islands of fluffy frosting floating slowly down, turning slowly as contact is made with shore or an island bank.
Cold snaps that last over a week, where the temperature stays below twenty five degrees Fahrenheit will start to populate the river with more and more ice. Soon a trip to the river is not as silent as it was without ice on the water. The murmur of ice against ice-shush, shush, shush-was akin to breathy whispers of a thousand grandmothers.
The slow and ominous sound of larger and larger ice floes scratching against each other and against the shore creates a shushing sound that's eerily unique in nature. It's a bit like a field of grain rustling in the wind mixed with the sound an automobile driving through slush on a side street.
Or like a crowd of busy body grannies. It is constant. Shush, shush, shush as the ice flows downstream in a never ending parade.
The shush, shush, shush of the river. The grannies voice of the river whispering the cold words of ice on ice.
The sound is at a frequency that is unnerving in its proximity to the actual shushing one might get as a boisterous child and equally unsettling in its relentless repetition.
Shush, shush, shush...quiet now. The river's gonna get you.
Eventually the ice will reach a point where it backs up and starts to pile up and jam and then completely stop up the river such that all the thin ice bergs cover the surface of the water from shore to shore. I've only seen this happen five or six times and it is very dramatic indeed.
Shush, shush, shush...there, there now. The river's gonna get you.
On a day when the ice floes had started to really thicken, Bill, Dave and their neighborhood partner in, well not really crime, but...ok, crime-Al Smith, all set out in a wooden john boat to the islands. Shush, shush, shush punctuated the scrape and drip sounds made by the pole and brushes of ice against hull.
Shush, shush, shush...the river's gonna get you.
Our parents weren't really all that concerned; having grown up on the river and been out on the river in this very condition themselves, they knew the boys had skills on the water. It was necessary to be careful and apparently Dad and Mom knew that Dave and Bill could handle themselves in most situations. Who knew that the river was going to stop up while the boys spent the evening at the cabin? Certainly not the boys, or our parents.
Shush, shush, shush...come play in the slush. The river's gonna get you.
The trip out was uneventful, fun even. I've poled a boat in light ice and it's a challenge and not nearly as dangerous as it sounds. The river is moving slowly at normal levels and the ice is thin with little momentum and inertia. Dave possessed poling skills unsurpassed by anyone on the river at the time and Bill wasn't far behind him in strength or skill. Al rode emperor.
Shush, shush, shush...enjoy this ride. It may be your last.
Once on the island, who knows what went on exactly. The three of them probably messed around with whatever was their idea of fun, hopping from island to island or playing cards and smoking, maybe sneaking some booze.
Shush, shush, shush...play today. Pat, pat, pat...your luck's about to change.
While the day passed them by, the river stopped up with ice. The ice jammed and covered the surface from shore to shore and then Mother Nature decided to send in a snow squall to add to an already scary situation.
The shush, shush, shush went silent and was replaced by cracking and groaning as ice stacked and jostled for position in the giant frozen jigsaw puzzle that was navigable hours before.
The only thing more disturbing than the shush, shush, shushing, would be the sudden silence of an ice jam making it impossible to ride back to the shore by boat. The thousand grannies whispering about your foolish boat ride have gone silent.
When Dad saw the river stop up, he became concerned for the boys. Sometimes when the river jams solid with ice the water level can rise a few feet very quickly depending upon how deep the initial jam is and where it is relative to the narrow parts of the river. If the jam is uniform and steady it will not cause a significant elevation at all, but one can never tell.
The snow squall didn't make our Mom's nerves any less frazzled. She wasn't a boy like our Dad, after all. She had the worrying mother's genes and two of her sons were a mile up the river with the river jammed in ice in the middle of a snow squall.
It's not clear at this point who it was that called someone in the volunteer fire department, but our guess is that it was Mrs. Smith worrying after Al, Jr. I fully believe that my parents would've not been to the point of extreme worry just yet, but I can't be certain.
The fire department set up their bullhorns directly across from the cabin and tried to signal to the boys. No luck. The storm was too blinding with driving, thick snow and white out conditions.
Meanwhile Al, Dave, and Bill were enjoying dancing across ice floes from island to island in an awesome snow storm. Can't you see these three knuckle heads just playing like fools, oblivious to the danger all around them? I can.
At the ages of sixteen or seventeen mortality is the farthest thing from most kid's minds.
Somewhere in the fun on the river the trio made it over to our cousin's shack. It's so easy for me to imagine either Dave or Bill kicking in the door and deciding to torch the place. I don't think I've ever gotten an accurate accounting to who it was that lit the match, but the rest is all history.
From the shoreline the fire department could only see smoke. Smoke was a sign of fire or a signal of distress. What if the boys were caught in a fire in our cabin as they were trying to keep warm? What if someone is injured? What if they're all burned over 90% of their bodies and slowly dying of hypothermia and loss of bodily fluids? There was panic on shore and a party on the water.
Night was falling and there was truly not one single thing that our parents or the Smiths could do.
The next morning my father had to, had to, had to be at work. His job would not allow him to miss work one single day as he had just changed jobs and was low man on the totem pole at a time when a spot-any spot-on the totem pole was highly sought after. The mayor who was also chief of the volunteer fire department, told him to go to work and that he would contact him the minute anything was learned about the boys' welfare.
Out on the island the three adventurers spent a chilly evening close to the wood stove playing cards and napping. Early the next morning they attempted to pull the wooden john boat out of the protected eddy where they'd moored the boat the day before.
When the three pulled hard on the bow and chain attached to the bow, the boat came apart. The boat's bottom and transom pulled apart, rendering it useless other than for fire wood.
Out on the river with limited supplies, a boat broken to bits, very little food or drink-things looked bad. It was at that moment that Dave and Bill were beginning to wonder what the hell they were going to do.
Some time around noon, the local news media had arrived and found out that the mayor had called the Air National Guard for assistance. It was 1967 and the Guard had a very active training facility in Camp Hill where large Huey Helicopters were stationed.
The Guard flew up in a monstrous, dual rotor Huey and lowered a basket down to the island where, one by one, the three boys were extracted from the frozen clutches of the river and their own dumb, stupid luck. They were delivered to the shore at the northern part of town in the Lutheran Church parking lot where, with surprisingly little fanfare, they were ushered home.
For the next year our parents had to dispel the rumors that our little town of 700 souls had the added burden of paying for the rescue mission. Nothing of the sort was true. The Guard wrote off the five thousand dollars of cost in personnel and fuel to a training mission expense and no harm was done.
One would-be mayoral candidate the following year, practically built his platform on having my siblings and yours truly removed from their custody because he thought Mom and Dad should've had closer reign on their children. My father confronted him in the presence of several of the town leaders at that time and he was ridiculed out of even running for office and chastised for being such a ridiculous jerk.
Nothing has ever been mentioned by my cousins' about the torching of their cabin. I guess they figure the embarrassment of the whole affair was payback enough for Bill and Dave.
Embarrassment my ass. Dave and Bill both loved that ride up the basket and into town in a helicopter. It's a wonder the whole town didn't hear the hoots and shouts of glee as each boy rode the basket up to the Huey. The ride up was something they knew they'd love and remember forever.
The next summer they also loved the unobstructed view from our cabin's front porch just after the spring thaw.