 |
river rat: Girty's Crotch
A rocky thumb projects from the mountainside where the river changes direction south of town, creating a crink in the smooth curve turning west to east binding the river's smooth flow into choppy, foaming water. That thumb and the crook it creates where the river's pace picks up is called Girty's Notch. The natural projection of crumbling stone looks out over the water with a clear view up and down stream and once provided good cover for the man whose name the rock bears.
We always knew the Notch as a roadside rest featuring a good view of the south side of Millersburg and the clear, open expanse of miles downstream towards Duncannon. Two hundred years ago Simon Girty, Jr. grew his first facial hairs hiding in the notch from the British. Legend has it he hid in a cave near the notch while fleeing north to New York on his journey to become a river pirate and to become an adopted scout for the Seneca Indian tribe.
The distance between town and Girty's Notch was too far to comfortably ride a bicycle, though we often did, skirting the big three lane highway on the older, abandoned highway's cracked concrete slabs, making a day of hunting for arrowheads and the fabled cave that was Simon's hideout.
Paddling our canoe all that way down stream, knowing that to return we'd fight several bursts of rapids and constant current was extreme for two ten year olds. Arrogant young minds rely on healthy, invulnerable bodies and make no attempt at connecting reality to fantasy. My pal Tim and I planned our trip meticulously, to the last detail, except for figuring on complete muscle fatigue, poor water skills, and illicit activity at the rest stop.
Paddling down was fun. Smaller channel islands south of town provide a spooky corridor full of dank river imagination where it was easy for two boys to see a savage hidden behind every tattered water birch. Wind blowing through a glade of birches flapped their sheeting skin like a million tiny flags waving noisily over the water. Large stretches of bottom land, swampy and steaming, glided by full of lush, green ferns and scampering muskrats sliding playfully into dens we'd later map out for trapping season.
The bogs we passed flowed in and out from broken down canal walls and man made channels beneath coal sluices and abandoned mining operations stacked high with coal sand refuse in pyramids three stories tall. All the piles, uniform in shape, varying in size, looked like elves' felt hats collapsing on muddy brims. Their bases, eroded by high waters carving wide concentric bands where black strata of sand and coal peeked out, featured moats full of tadpoles rippling in miniature waves from the slightest movement. Great blue herons stood still at their shores feeding to full, looking like undernourished yet graceful back hoes painted ghost blue.
Our dad took us down the river many times on the same path Tim and I followed lazily in our canoe, only Dad's voyages were in his airboat, the Mud Hen, flying like a bat out of hell. Very little of the trip looked the same due to the shear speed of a the boat where we had to sit on our ball caps lest they turn to powdery shreds from being pulled into the propeller. Seated in the airboat moving forty miles an hour with the steady, deafening roar of the airplane engine and prop was a thrill of a different sort. Flying through narrow passages in inches of water under a canopy of dense trees induced an adrenalin high difficult to match legally.
Floating slowly down that path was a thrill of spiritual proportions possessing a rush all its own, distinctly removed from the more obvious physical high of speed and danger.
Tim took it all in with innocent eyes appreciating the wildness of everything around us. It took two hours to make it to the dangerous portion of the trip at the rapids and along the way we managed to see hundreds of wild animals and thousands of jumping fish. To me that was a normal trip down the river's edge, but to Tim it was a real wilderness adventure full of secret eddies and fairyland mysteries.
The lazy pace and lull of magical scenery probably had a lot to do with how unprepared we were for the fast coursing water of the rapids at Girty's Notch. We hit the first rapids and Tim lost his balance suddenly, immediately. My flailing, thrashing friend went into the water faster than I would ever have guessed. He hit his head on the first rock he could find and went underwater, out of sight. He bobbed up quickly above the surface and looked at me with tired eyes, gargling a sad cry for help.
"Just stand up," I called to him.
He stood up in the roiling water, only three feet deep, and was swept over, but laughing now. He had no idea the rapids were so shallow. I watched his paddle float away thinking I would get yelled at more if I lost Tim than if I lost a paddle.
Alone in the canoe it was easy to maneuver, and pulling up alongside the now floundering Tim wasn't even a challenge in the rushing shallow water. Maintaining a safe distance so he couldn't lunge at me and flip the boat over, I guided him to the shore just twenty yards away in the shadow of Girty's Notch. He dragged himself up on the bank and I moored the little Sea Nymph canoe ten feet down stream and hopped out to lend a hand and see that he was okay.
Tim's eyes were glassy and he was tired, soaked, and a little embarrassed, but he seemed ok. With only one paddle there wasn't any hope of getting the canoe and him back up to town, so we decided to climb up the side of the notch to the roadside rest area and then hike a mile up the highway to one of our schoolmate's house. Dad would carry us down to the notch to pick up the canoe and the rest of our gear.
"We could hitchhike!" Tim suddenly became animated. He always wanted to hitchhike after hearing about his parents doing it in college from one coast to the other. I knew that my parents would kill me if I ever did that, but figured it might be a quick way to get back to town I figured that what they didn't know wouldn't hurt me.
We pulled ourselves up the rough path from the water to the parking lot at the rest stop, falling backwards several times dangerously dangling over the rocky ledges. At the top we saw a beat up looking Dodge in one corner of the asphalt and a huge refrigerated tractor trailer with a long sleeper cab sitting at the far end, it's engines idled a low, grinding purr.
The way Tim ran the length of the parking lot and scaled the side of the truck made me think he'd been stranded on a desert island for a year and just saw a banana split. His uncle drove big rigs so climbing up one was second nature to him, but his enthusiasm must've had something to do with the lick on the head he took when he fell overboard.
As quick as he got up to the door he fell straight back down on his back and threw up all over his shirt. By the time I got to him the door had swung open revealing a trucker with his pants down around his ankles and another man leaning over him. The trucker was yelling loudly and the man in his lap was laughing just as loudly, pointing down at Tim and me as if we were the ones doing something stupid.
I dragged Tim away and together we headed towards town. Tim took off his shirt and rolled it up carefully so the vomit wouldn't touch his skin and then he tied it loosely around his waist. We walked on the side of the road opposite the river quietly; kicking a flattened beer can between us in a silent game of roadside soccer.
"So that's why they call it Girty's Crotch." Tim said finally, glad to be walking away.
"I guess so," I told him.
After a minute or two and after I kicked the aluminum can too far into the highway to retrieve, Tim said, "Now I know why Dad always calls it the 'lollipop stand'."
