The Old Woman's Canal
Mom, Dad and us kids were looking to buy a new family home. We found ourselves meeting with an old woman who might have some land to sell us in her private valley.
She was amazing—90 years old and in great health, with amazing energy and a mind in perfect working order. She kept farm animals, pets, flower beds all pver her property, a big vegetable garden. Said she’d be happy to show us the property for sale. “Everyone get in the boat,” she said.
There was a canal running the length of her valley. She piloted us to the far end, where we surveyed the land she was selling. We didn’t make a buying decision, but it was looking very good. We liked this unique old woman and her canal, her secluded and beautiful valley.
It was time to head back to the car. The old woman and our parents went back by boat. Us kids let them go on ahead, then stepped into the water to float our way back to the woman’s house.What an interesting canal this woman had built! The water could be made to flow either direction. She had just set it to flow back towards her house in order to carry the boat that direction. So us kids had a nice current to ride, following along well behind the boat, on our own to play and explore. I was the first to jump in. I hesitated, not being a good swimmer, but I decided to take the risk. The water was not very deep at the jumping-in point, and I just decided to take the risk that it would be shallow all up and down the canal’s length. And that is how it turned out.
It was just wonderful, being carried along in that cool water. The current was fast enough to be a thrill, but not so fast as to be dangerous. And it was a long ride, through an interesting landscape, sometimes running past one or another quaint and beautiful old two story farmhouse with a well kept lawn that came right to the canal.
Billie Erisman had joined us at some time during the visit. She knew this valley well, and was our guide. Trouble arose. There were two men of vaguely criminal intentions, a pair of comical but dangerous bad guys, like lower class villains out of a Dickens story. To avoid these men and find clues, we had to ride the canal back and forth, several times. We climbed out to investigate a two story wooden structure that arched over the canal, perhaps a mill with a water race, I’m not sure. There were narrow escapes. Sometimes we got separated. And after each adventure we were back in the water, traveling along under daytime skies and nighttime skies, carried by that benevolent and utterly desirable current of cool, rushing water, our own little Mississippi and each of us a Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer.