this year's canoe trip

Well, my daughter is driving! Yippee...oh my gosh!

The Canoe Group from Fairlawn-West had a wonderful trip on the Buffalo River in northwest Arkansas. Here we are at Duane Ewing's home in Memphis on our way to the river. Duane and his family are former members of our church and he and Bob McKnight to my right have been on the trip all six years. Brian Comunale on the far right is on his second trip. Duane was inducted to the Ohio Basketball Hall of Fame's first class back in May.

I did my first canoe trip in the summer of 1973 on the Eleven Points River in southern Missouri/the Ozarks. I was doing my CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) at the Missouri state hospital in Farmington. A week later I bought my first canoe. I canoed the Buffalo River once before...in 1976 to celebrate my graduation from Eden Theological Seminary. Canoeing has been for me all these years the closest experience to extended serenity until I begin working the 12 Steps of Recovery that grew out of Alcoholics Anonymous (which started just 2 miles from where I live and where our church bldg is situation). Floating on streams and shooting rapids as well as camping along the river, hearing the sounds, seeing the night skies and the wildlife are fabulous. This year we saw a bald eagle catch a fish and a family of river otters swimming along beside us. I will be posting up a web page soon with pictures from our trip.