The Daddy-Daughter Downpour

~ Kana Smith

When our parents used to tuck us into bed at night, Mother usually sang something—they had a broad repertoire of folk songs—and Daddy was our stories guy. He had an ongoing saga about a pair of mischievous alligators, “the Lucys,” who followed us on all our travels, getting into trouble as they tried to keep up with us without being seen. (They were nearly done in with excitement when we stayed on a golf course and they came on the treasure trove of “marshmallows” at the lake bottom. They munched down until they were too full of golf balls to move, and nearly got left behind.)

He told stories that parents probably shouldn’t tell their children, of naughty things he did (and sometimes got away with) when he was a boy—like bouncing a penny-bottle of ink against the white garage door of the neighborhood’s Mean Old Man, and throwing firecrackers at the tires of passing cars from under a bridge. (I’ll cut him a little slack on the naughties. He lived with a mother who sewed his pockets shut so he wouldn’t bring home Yucky Things. Kid needed to live a little.)

And then he told adventure stories, from the two-week canoe trips he and my mother used to lead, into the Canadian wilderness with groups of teenagers.

I wanted to do that.

In fact, I made him promise that we would do that, take a canoe trip, just Daddy and me, when I got old enough.

I hoarded that promise like dragon’s gold, for years. (He promptly forgot he had made it.)

I was twelve or thirteen when I judged myself old enough to cash in on my long and carefully-cherished promise. I’d worked up my packing list. I’d planned a campfire-cooked menu.

Try, if you can, to imagine my utter devastation (13-year-olds being dramatic creatures to begin with) when Dad had no earthly idea what I was talking about!

“The Trip!” I cried—and I am certain he could hear the capitals. “The Trip you promised we would take!”

Fortunately for me, Dad was a good sport, and didn’t object to taking a trip together—although he was a little taken aback when I insisted on the “just us” clause of the original promise.

I insisted. He had promised. He agreed.

So that summer we packed our camping gear into duffels we could swing into the canoe bottom, and we drove three hours to a lake that had an uninhabited island in the middle. That was one of the requirements of The Trip—that we’d camp in “wilderness,” not an established campground. (To this day, I scoff at RVers who refer to their trips as “camping.” It’s not camping unless you’re peeing in the bushes!)

My parents had taught us canoeing at an early age—the steering strokes, the tandem work of two paddlers. Some of those folk songs they sang even talked of canoeing—the voyageurs in Canadian wilderness. On The Trip, my dad entrusted me with a seat in the stern: the steering seat.

“My paddle’s keen & bright, flashing with silver.

Follow the wild-goose flight, dip dip and swing.

Dip dip and swing her back, flashing with silver

Swift as the wild geese fly, dip dip and swing.

(one of the songs my parents used to sing to us)

We set up camp near the island beach where we landed. I’m looking fondly at these photos now—Dad looking young and spry and slim, no gray in his beard. I think he even had some of his hair. (“My face is getting taller,” he joked as he balded.)

I was an accomplished campfire-cook by this age (the only type of cooking I’ve ever mastered, actually), so I proudly served up supper….

And then it began to rain.

Buckets and buckets of rain.

Rain on the tent roof is actually a very pleasant sound, when you’re cozied up in a warm sleeping bag… Until you have to get up and go out in it to squat in the bushes.

Luckily we had each brought a book, because we spent the entire next day lying on our sleeping bags, with a bag of trail mix between us, reading.

It wasn’t what I had planned, but it was actually very pleasant.

On the second morning we decided to forego the campfire breakfast, packed up our gear and our soaked tent, donned our rain-jackets, and paddled our way back across the lake to our waiting car. After slinging our duffels in the back and strapping the canoe upside-down to the top, we blissfully turned on the heater! And we pulled in at the first McDonalds we saw, for Egg McMuffins and hot coffee.

I wasn’t a coffee-drinker yet, but that morning (feeling very Grown Up) I ordered one.

It wasn’t how I had imagined The Trip, but it wasn’t a failure. I got my Daddy-daughter time, and we had a three-hour car trip ahead, to talk and laugh about our “adventure.” The Daddy-Daughter Downpour.

24 thoughts on “The Daddy-Daughter Downpour”

  1. Such a wonderful and heartfelt memory. What a gift to have a dad who kept his promise and made that adventure yours. Moments like that stay with us forever.

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    2. Took many trips to the Boundary Waters as a Scout leader. I was actually ‘requisitioned’ by the NPS to blow up beaver dams when I was stationed at Fort Snelling – stupid practice – they’d rebuild faster than I could destroy them! LOL! They were flooding campsites and portages. Worked out of Ely as well as the Scout Base Camp. Miss those days!

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      1. I’ve always loved my parents’ stories of those trips. As a teen I did several week-long canoe trips, following in their footsteps (paddle-steps?), definitely inspired by their stories. They don’t have any stories of blowing beaver dams, though! ;)

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  10. We had two daughters and both joined Girl Scouts. My wife, being a full time mom, soon became their troop leader. Since she could not find a reliable assistant, I joined as a Girl Scout Dad and became her co-leader. We had many a camping adventure, and the memories of those times grow ever sweeter.

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  11. Kana,

    I grew up camping with the family and some of my fondest memories of childhood were on those family camping trips. We tent camped. My dad would pick out a state park, and we’d set up for a week. We did most of our cooking over an old pump-up white gas cook stove. My dad would build a camp cooler to keep some things cold. But the biggest part of the adventure was that my parents would find all of the local spots to visit. We’d use the campsite as out base and spend most of our time traveling all over to historical or cultural sites within a day’s drive. We lived in Ohio at the time, and we either visited or camped at every state park in the state – and there were a lot of them! But we also ventured out to visit other neighboring states as well.

    Our biggest adventure was our East Coast camping trip. Remember this was back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s prior to a lot of the completion of the Interstate system so our trips crossed a lot of state and county roads. I can remember looking at all of maps and seeing the little roadside rest areas. They were usually a pull off for a picnic with a table, sometimes covered, a fire pit or iron charcoal barbeque grill and if you were lucky a water pump. Here in rural West Virginia, I’ve still found a few of them, but they are no longer maintained by the state roads.

    During my time in the military, I took a lot of survival courses, jungle warfare, desert survival, arctic survival etc. But stateside I got heavily involved with the Boy Scouts as a scoutmaster, assistant SM, WEBLOES den leader, Cubmaster, etc. I was involved in Scouting for almost 30 years.

    When I came home from Vietnam in 1971, I was assigned to Fort Snelling, MN as a Reserve advisor. As an officer the first thing that I had to do when I arrived was to sit down and meet my new boss, Colonel Rice. He looked at my officer file and noted that I had been in scouting as a boy (I made Life rank I never finished my Eagle- we moved) I told him that when I was a kid everyone I knew was a Scout, “Good as an additional duty-as-assigned you are the new Scoutmaster for the troop her on base. Col. Rice was a big proponent of scouting and a member of the local Scout Council’s executive board.

    The best part of the assignment, other than dealing with the scouts, was the level of support that I received. We had small US Army Reserve detachment spread all over northern Minnesota. The local Air National Guard would fly us into Duluth on Friday after school and pick us up on Sunday evening – all ‘training flights’ LOL! The local recruiters and Reserve Advisors would pick us up and take us to Ely, the entry point to the Boundary Waters. We’d spend the weekend camping and canoeing in the wilderness. Lots of fun and lots of neat experiences.

    When I had my own kids, and they were old enough we started camping. My oldest son went on his first camping trip at seven months, and the other two boys were even younger. We camped all over Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas. My scouts formed the first official ‘bicycle troop’ after the Arab Oil Embargo and spent the spring-fall biking all over the Nebraska area.

    When my boys were old enough, I took them canoeing on the Niobrara River along the Minnesota/Wisconsin border as well as trips to the boundary waters. Fun days and fond memories!

    Later in life, after an injury forced me to give up marathoning, I started backpacking in earnest. I’m living in West Virginia and I have a cabin in the Shenandoah Valley on Massanutten Mountain. I spent years on that mountain. In fact, I even maintained eleven miles of the Tuscarora Trail until my back finally forced me to admit I was getting too old for this stuff! I still go out twice a year with my trail maintenance group and serve as a ‘trail ambassador’ when we do Trail Days and National Hiking Week events.

    Between 2009 and 2012 I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and l the following year I hiked the 252-mile Tuscarora Trail (Virginia-West Virginia-Maryland-Pennsylvania)

    My back got so bad that I had to give it up. In fact I finally had to take my backpack and gear out to the shed and ‘hide’ them. I’d get teary eyed every time I opened the closet and saw them hanging there!

    My biggest thrill no is introducing my grandsons to hiking and camping. We’ve already started them with tent camping, in the back yard when they were really small and now trips to the cabin where their uncles take them out for new adventures. I hope the two of them continue the family traditions!

    Regards

    “Hardcharger”

    http://www.ptaylorvietnamadvisor.com

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    1. They certainly have a solid example to follow—and the best thing you can do is start them young. Somewhere there’s a picture of me in my “baby walker,” wedged into a canoe (with two cats!)… I started my kids young, too, and have sweet photos and memories being on the parent-end of the stick as well. :)

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  15. Your writing is so evocative—it feels like you took us on that trip with you. I envy the relationship you had with your dad. There was a lot of wilderness in my relationship with my dad—some of it actual and much of it metaphorical.

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