In some ways, it was a miserable weekend for whitewater boating: cold, raining, cold, dark, (did I already mention cold?). But, since a strong sense of optimism is a prerequisite for whitewater paddlers living in Texas, my girlfriend and I packed gear to the roof, strapped the canoe on top, and left early from work Friday afternoon convinced it would be warmer in Arkansas (further north). Before us lay a seven or eight-hour drive to Big Piney Creek. The rest of Charles Smith's whitewater canoe class had been there since the evening before and had, no doubt, spent the entire day catching eddies, ferrying, surfing waves, and having more fun than is legal in many southern states.

My anticipation of the weekend was even greater than usual because this was my first opportunity to put my new boat in moving water. Since buying it a few months earlier, it had been either too cold or too dry to paddle. I was anxious to see how it would handle on this class II-III river.

We arrived at the campground around 11 pm, after everyone was asleep, worn out from having fun. Unable to work up much enthusiasm for pitching a tent in the middle of a cold, drizzly night, we pulled everything out of the back of the SUV, covered it with a tarp and squeezed into a space about a half-foot short of comfortable.

Shivering over coffee the next morning, we heard how great the river was, but how cold everyone had been. Cold enough that Charles had made a bonfire at the lunch stop, rumored to be the first time he'd done so in 20 years of class trips. Everyone agreed it seemed even colder this morning. Not terribly encouraged, we put on almost all the warm gear we had. I began thinking the wet suit I'd decided not to buy had been an incredible bargain.

We launched in Long Pool, where the gauge indicated a little over four feet, a level indicating some respectable whitewater downstream. Charles and an assistant instructor sat in eddies on either side of the rapid that exits the pool. Assigned to assistant instructor Diana's group, we fell in line behind some of the other canoes, waiting our turn to enter the rapid and catch the eddy on river left. I had a growing sense of uneasiness. Though my tandem partner and I had practiced a few eddy turns in Long Pool, I wasn't sure we were coordinated well enough as a team to hit an offside eddy in a rapid as active as the one we were looking at.

Soon it was our turn, and we paddled into the rapid. As I reached forward to drive across the eddy, all of a sudden my whole world was very, very cold and very, very wet. We warmed up fairly quickly and did OK for the next couple of hours. Then we lost it again on a back ferry, but this time we couldn't get warmed up. We shivered like a couple of wet puppies. We looked like a couple of wet puppies. Hell, we even smelled like a couple of wet puppies.

Luckily, we stopped for lunch and built a fire so we (and a few other paddlers working through the mysteries of boat lean) could get warm. I took off the nylon pants layered over my swim trunks, exposing my bare, goose-fleshed legs to the warmth of the fire. It was then that Diana made her move.

She'd brought an extra pair of polypropylene long johns that I was welcome to put on. I resisted her offer, but she grew insistent and was already digging into her dry bag. She handed them to me and I saw they were ladies' underwear, kind of a peach color with little pointelle florets. My objections grew weaker, for now that they were in my hands, they felt warm and inviting, even a little "sensuous". She really wanted me to put them on, and so did a lot of other people, so I bowed to public pressure.

A few minutes later I emerged from the woods feeling like a new man, the lower half of my body covered by a dry article of clothing. Also, I felt . . . well . . . "pretty". I guess a lot of people thought I looked that way, too, because I got a big hand, a few whistles, and an indecent proposal or two as I made my way back to the fire.

The rest of the day went pretty well – at least we stayed dry. Diana kept a close eye on us. I think she couldn't get over how good her underwear looked on me.

The next morning, I put on my own pair of long johns (which I'd mistakenly thought unnecessary the previous day). Diana seemed upset by this and wanted hers returned. I told her where I come from we don't view the sharing of underthings so casually (actually, I thought it the gentlemanly thing to wash them before returning them). The rest of the morning, before we got on the river, she made increasingly strident threats to go through my vehicle to retrieve her underwear. And all day long, on the river, we all had to listen to her whine about her misappropriated underwear.

We started from the same spot. I felt more confident about entering the first rapid than the day before, but my confidence turned out to be unwarranted. This time, however, I was determined to roll back up, and the cold water added some additional motivation. Hoping my bow partner was doing the same, I swept and braced and hip-snapped as hard as I could, thinking, "Keep your head low! Stay low!" After we came up and I'd dragged my head as low as possible across the boat, I tried to straighten up, but something was holding my head down. It was under the thwart in front of me. "Guess that was low enough", I thought, disengaging.

Amid cheers and clapping, we climbed out of the boat and emptied it. Someone paddled up to ask if I'd had my head between my knees so I could kiss my ass good-bye (there's one in every crowd.) We had a real good day from then on. When we reached the takeout, Diana made yet another threat (she claims it was not a threat, but a promise) about what she would do if her underwear wasn't returned promptly.

But that's how women of the 90s are. I miss women of the 70s. When they gave you their underwear, they didn't want it back – they were liberated and would just as soon you keep it. I decided to return Diana's, if only because she didn't seem like someone I needed as an enemy. Perhaps this would be a good time to point out that those stains were there when she loaned them to me.

I'm reminded of some advice my mother once gave me: "Don't put on someone else's underwear. You don't know where they've been." Probably your mother gave you the same advice – probably just before the prom, like mine did. She also said things like, "Don't go outside when it's wet and cold. You'll catch your death."

Mom would be disappointed in me about the entire weekend. She'd shake her head and make that clicking sound with her tongue. She'd mutter about having "tried to bring me up right, and for what?" And the next time I visit, instead of a home-cooked meal, I'd get cold cuts and jello with wierd, unidentifiable fruit bits. Let's not tell her, OK?

© Ray Gulick, 1995