Our pontoon boat, positioned straight ahead and to the left in slip D10, is ready. The canopy is extended, providing a patch of shade against the hot summer sun. A cooler with food and ice cold beverages promises a good time on the river as we prepare to drive down towards Brownsville, Minnesota.
It's an experience that cuts both ways.
During the frigid months of January and February -- while standing in front of the picture window watching snow pile up in our front yard -- I have mixed feelings. I relish the memories of nights on the river to get me through our long, dark and cold winter. But it's agony knowing that we have a ways to go before I can get the boat out of storage. Such is the life of someone with a boat in Wisconsin.
I untie the ropes holding us to the dock and push the boat into an open area between docks D and C. Liz, who is comfortably sitting in the captain's chair, slowly maneuvers us into the marina's waterway leading to a gas hut and new clubhouse. She slows the boat to allow two mallard ducks, with a gaggle of young ducklings swimming behind them, to pass on their way to safer waters. We idle pass an odd collection of houseboats, runabouts and pontoon boats that remind me of an old Skipper Liner ad that ran on television during my high school days -- summer on the river and some are not.
With river levels down, I am able to see a line of white rocks that lead us toward the main channel. Within minutes, we are leaving Pettibone Marina and heading toward our night's destination -- Crater Island Cove. It's an area that holds many memories for me, including a couple of summers from 1978 and 1979.
* * * *
When I was twenty years old, I was part of a small group of young men who traveled down the Mississippi River to take part in a sporting event that pushed our young bodies to their limits.
In Pool 8 of the Mississippi River was a large island of sand -- a remnant of dredging by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to keep the main channel of the river open for barge traffic. Over the years, the amount of sand that was piled onto that island was enough to create a hill that was easily over 25 feet high. In the middle of the island was a 100 yard long area that remained flat. When combined, the island looked like your typical football stadium -- with the flat area resembling the football field and the piles of sand surrounding it resembling the stadium seats.
It was here, in an area surrounded by piles of sand, that the annual event known as the Crater Bowl was born.
The Bob Johnson family was your typical river rat family that spent every weekend and sometime weeks in between, on the Mississippi. One of the areas that they would dock their houseboat at was a small sandbar that attached itself to Crater Island by a strip of sand bordering a small inlet that ran behind it. It was common knowledge that if you wanted such a prime location for the weekend, you would need to grab it Thursday night or at the latest Friday morning.
Their son, Dave, who hung out with some of us during the summer, and his younger brother came up with the crazy idea of playing football in the middle of Crater Island. It was an idea born out of the competitive spirit of young men needing a good excuse to run around and drink beer.
You might think that hot sand and sun would not make for good football. But you'd be wrong. Playing good football was never our intention. Winning at football while playing in the sand and sun was our intention.
Our formula for winning was to stay sober long enough to last into the third and fourth quarters. If the score was close, then we felt like we had a chance. If you've ever walked on a sandy beach or played sand volleyball you know how hard it is to get any kind of traction, so cutting left and right required an equal amount of skill and strength. Our goal was to take advantage of their bad footing and miscues -- an interception or blown coverage -- and turn it into a big gain or score.
Game-time temperature in the bottom of the sand bowl easily reached into the nineties if not closer to a hundred degrees. All of which led to more beer, and then more football.
Our games featured two teams -- the young guys (a group of high school kids led by Dave Johnson's younger brother against an "older" team, with Dave Johnson as our captain. That older team included myself, Tom Carr (Bun), Doug Schoenfeld (Clud), Paul Mundinger (Stein), Tim Wuebben (Wib) and Glenn Gossfeld (Goose), to name a few. None of us were great athletes, but we were still in our twenties with lots of time playing touch football in the grassy field next to Bun's house. What more did we need? We were banking on our experience to bring home the trophy, which was nothing more than the knowledge that we were better than them for another year.
To show our level of seriousness, we video taped the game and kept statistics (thanks to Goose, who would later keep the books for the La Crosse Catbirds and Milwaukee Bucks). Fans -- other boaters who happened to climb the outer edge of the bowl -- would watch with the friends of the Johnsons who were not playing. They must have thought we were crazy.
A newsletter was printed, which covered all parts of the game and sent to participants. After the game, we would eat and re-watch the game and other movies until we dropped from exhaustion. Or a day of drinking. I can remember falling asleep in someone's boat, which wasn't a bad idea until it started to rain.
For me, the Crater Bowl never got past the second summer. If it continued, I don't know. But as I began spending summers with a certain brown-eye girl who I met at Dell's Bar, and later chased to Michigan, my summers on the river dwindled to none. The river was replaced by Lake Michigan, although it was usually from the shore. An occasional night spent on a friend's houseboat kept the flame flickering, but for the next fifteen years most of my time on the Mississippi River and Crater Island was spent in my head.
Remembering the fun we had thinking we were better at football than any of us ever admitted.
* * * *
Leaving the quiet confines of Crater Lake, I reflect on its transformation from the pile of sand we enjoyed in my twenties to the shrinking cove it is today. From 2006 to 2010, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers closed Crater Island and began barging sand from the island to create new islands further downriver. Twenty-six islands were created or protected as part of the Corps Pool 8 habitat restoration and enhancement project built along the Raft Channel in Wisconsin.
When they were done, they had transformed Crater Island from a massive pile of sand into an island with a small cove that filled with water from the Mississippi River.
In many ways it is better than before -- a larger area for beaching boats and for swimming. On a windy day, you are protected and can safely beach the boat, instead of anchoring it so it you don't float downstream. On week nights, it's quiet enough that you can enjoy the beauty and sounds of the Mississippi River. And eat a light dinner of pizza or chicken or sub sandwiches.
But on weekends it's the party capitol of the Mississippi River. Between fifty to one hundred boats crowd the beaches on your typical Saturday or Sunday. A quick look on Facebook will show pictures of bikinis, boats and booze. Lots of booze. As one poster said, "It's the place to party your ass off!"
As I've gotten older, I'm thankful I survived my wild, younger days. Had I known how stupid we looked, I never would have done it. But if you're looking for a party, with the smell of suntan lotion and diesel gasoline in the air, I know a place you can go.
Like football in the sand, it's just not for me anymore.
Every season brings a different look to Crater Island -- from the lengthening shadows of a late summer night, to the colors of fall as they spread across the bluffs rising above the small town of Brownsville, Minnesota. If you're lucky (and have enough notice), you can climb the southern end of Crater Island and wait for the majestic paddle wheelers coming down the river from La Crosse. Or sit back in a partially submerged beach chair and bask in the warmth of a hot summer sun. There have been evenings when we will grab a life preserver and float around the cove area. Climbing back into the boat, we literally feel the aches and pains of the day sliding from our bodies as the water drains from our drying bodies.
In the skies above Crater Island we have watched American white pelicans circle by the hundreds as they migrate south to avoid the inevitable chill of late fall and winter. They will appear in a flash as the sun reflects off their white plumage, only to vanish seconds later as they change direction. Much like our visit to the cove tonight, it is but a stop for these pelicans along the way to another destination.
Liz and I don't know what our destination will be in ten or twenty years. We struggle with talk of retirement and old age. Some of our boating friends plan to leave Wisconsin for the warmer climates of Florida and Arizona. Perhaps Liz and I will follow suit, or find our way back to the Great Lakes and Michigan.
Regardless of where our future takes us, I will always remember the friendly confines of Crater Island where young men played football, and boat lovers found temporary relief from a hot summer day.
No comments:
Post a Comment