The Narrative Image

Plans are the outlines of narratives cast into the future…subject to change. Early Saturday morning, my brother Fred and I had to resort to one less car than planned upon. Our daring river assault on the gates of hell… Hell’s Gate …morphed into a more pedestrian exploration of Horsethief Lake. Horsethief Butte At first, I didn’t even know I had a brother Fred until I found various historical documents. But that’s another story. Family Photo Front center: Haley Back Row, Left to Right: Roland, Fred, Scott, Dexter, Rose, Troy, Henry, Pa and Ma Luckily, Fred is a master brewer and also generous in nature. Here you can see Fred loading his kayak with home-made beer. Halfway up Horsethief Butte, it became evident that the name “Horsethief Lake” uses the term “lake” somewhat liberally. “Horsethief-little-bit-of-Columbia-River-trapped-by-a-railroad” with unfamiliar east side (at least to me) of Mt. Hood in background. In the olden days, before European immigrants swept across the continent...

Prologue: paper boat cast adrift on the current sent on an indeterminate voyage bound to get soggy destined to sink fun in the journey (for the creator?) silver fry cast adrift on the current sent to the ocean bound to return destined to spawn (and die) (Fun in the journey?) the River the Current carries us along Maybe we understand the river is a metaphor. Maybe we learn to read the currents and risk the rapids in order to live out the story, to wager our lives and prove we can win…sometimes. Maybe. The Narrative: Well, I don’t know about all that philosophical crap, but my brother Fred, the Monkey-cam and I decided to try kayaks on the Sandy River. We started at the far end of Oxbow Park with the intention to make it down to Lewis and Clark State Park. None of us had ever taken kayaks down a river before, not even the Monkey-cam, and I don’t think I’d taken my canoe down since before the floods in November – the floods that significantly rearranged the landscapes of the Northwest...