Suggestions for the crimson canoe’s pirate flag came in from around the globe last month and many were wicked good, as they say. I like Aussie GS’s ski crossed with a paddle and Javan’s bottom’s-up cocktail glass under a rainbow and Jackie’s picture of Blackbeard’s skeleton impaling a heart. Oddly enough, two other e-mails on entirely different subjects suggest possibilities that I wish were true or that I aspire to live up to. RM from India asked how it was that I seem so free. Hmm. Do I feel free? Well, “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose,” as the song says, but that theme would look good on a flag spiriting the crimson canoe through a foggy dawn or into a sun-splintered sunset, wouldn’t it? And BestNurse said that the iconic white feather (in many past newsletters) was like my guardian angel. I’d like to get that in an emblem for the SS Carousel too, but so far all I have is a Guardian Angel that molts. Thanks, and a Betsy Ross Award to all of you who sent ideas.
Also, David McIntyre of Florida warns me that going to Tonga may cause marriage, as that’s what happened to him…twice. “Never” is the word God listens for when he wants a good laugh, Dave, but I’ll use it here anyways. The trip is still a year away, and I plan to go alone. I’ll be meeting my friend Grant and his soulmate Fiona, and then we’ll embark on a 12-day ocean kayak and camping adventure from atoll to atoll.
A foretaste of that adventure happened in August when my Taz friend, world-famous artist Peter Adams, and I hit the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. Lake Shagawa, huge, black and dotted with numerous islands, was lined up with storms horizon to horizon on our arrival. When we asked for a canoe, we got that look reserved for idiots and people with terminal illnesses. That just made it better, of course, because we had an ocean of a lake to ourselves. But we must have looked like a still life painting out there for most of the afternoon as we tried to paddle into high winds. It was a different story whenever we notched a couple of degrees off dead reckoning. Then the rolling waves heaved and bucked us, or caught us broadside with intent to commit drowning. Cheap thrill (we had life jackets on). Not to mention, when the storms eased there were some placid and beautiful lulls in one cove or another. We ended the day with a swim in the lake out beyond the rocks and boulders. Second day: new lodge, new lake, same weather. Burntside Lake was its name, and God was extravagant in the making of this one. We quickly found ourselves setting course for distant points on an 8-mile long stretch of black water where angels fear to paddle. Highlight was getting caught with more challenging waves than we could handle and jamming the canoe up on boulders so that we could take refuge on a 30-foot diameter island in the middle of the lake until the winds settled down a little. Did I say refuge? I’ll go back there anytime. We were at the crossroads of the universe under a vaulted firmament with lost horizons and waves scurrying for infinity in every direction. When a new sky scrolled over us all calm and sunny we headed for the next island, which had a seaplane in front of its single private residence. Apparently a woman who lived there had spied us on the outcropping stripped down, because as we canoed past she peeled off her clothes -- as if to say “in your face...” -- before she entered a sauna on the rocky ledge above the water’s edge. By contrast, at night we had a terrific gourmet dinner at The Chocolate Moose -- well actually several gourmet dinners as we dallied a couple of hours chatting with people and re-stoking all the fuel spent canoeing and swimming.
Biggest laugh for me came back home on my lake when we canoed to a local waterfall one night. Pete, who is 6 foot 4 and swims with Great Whites after dark off the beach he lives on in Tasmania, is usually as crazy as I am. And it’s a dinky waterfall, maybe 20 feet vertical height, but the water levels were high, and the cascade, whose edge I like to get within inches of, was pretty good. I was paddling like hell to reach the lip and couldn’t get any steam up. Yeah, you already know where this is going. I look around and Pete is back-paddling like hell to keep us dead in the water. I couldn’t persuade him to move even a foot beyond the white warning buoy. I believe he would have leapt out of the canoe had we done so. Hundreds of white herons nesting high in the trees watched us through this whole fiasco – i.e. Oh, there goes the night’s entertainment! The next day, on a 20-mile bike trip, we got to see the waterfall from the business end, and I have to admit it looked a little more daunting with debris whipping over the top. Pete left here saying that thus far -- four months into his global travels -- our kayaking/canoeing in Minnesota was the highlight. Yeah, I take that as affirmation of my good fortune in living where I do. Life does have its rewards...
We are not, however, ready for prime time as musicians. Turns out that the uke and the T-sax are best-suited for shattering glass and causing small earthquakes, as was proved in the garage...with the doors down. Blessedly no one set it on fire while the noise ensued. It is tough to play “Long Tall Sally” on the ukulele (Pete), and tooting “Turkey in the Straw” on the T-sax (Sully) just sounds like gastric distress, not to mention that if you think of the number 7 while you are playing said Turkey, it turns on all the TVs in the neighborhood. (Oh, dear, I just commanded Dragon NaturallySpeaking, my voice activation software, to make “Turkey in the Straw” into an anagram, and it gave me TITS. Be careful what you ask for.) Pete and I go way back to swimming days and a place called Patton and the Lawndale Hotel where I lived as a young man for a while (see: http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/thomas-sullivan-empty-boxes-i-have-worn for some interesting descriptions where Pete has weighed in).
Photos below include Pete cooling his heels in Lake Shagawa; three shots of Boundary Water islands -- one showing the canoe jammed against boulders where we rode out some high winds; yours truly playing air guitar on a paddle; and a shot of Rice Lake behind my house at sunset. The picture that looks like body parts in a mass grave is Doc Foto’s follow-up after he talked me into buying a book on Hatha Yoga.
This month’s column over on StorytellersUnplugged returns to Crosslake. Glenn Frey's concert there last year -- and in particular his son Deacon Frey's solo debut -- have gelled into some thoughts on emerging Fame & Fortune. Here's that link: http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/thomas-sullivan-are-you-ready-for-fame-fortune-crosslake-redux-with-glenn-deacon-frey#respond
May I invite you to view the comments of 140 characters or less I’ve been trying to post daily on Twitter? Just click http://twitter.com/thomassullivan It’s anonymous and you don’t have to do anything after that. Even if you join in order to follow me or others, nothing comes to you and you don’t have to utter a peep...er Tweet. It’s just an informal ear to the wall to overhear things on almost any subject. Example of my recent Tweets: “Playing T-sax in garage. 2 9-yr old boys hear 6-7 songs, circling on bikes, then come up and cautiously lay 2 quarters on floor. Hysterical.” And “Revelation: my brain and my heart have always told each other the truth.”
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Thomas “Sully” Sullivan
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
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