Twenty Bucks! Twenty Bucks!
Chapter Four of the Saco5 adventure
By JON GRANEY
Saturday, August 10, 1996:
Well, we had a short breakfast, as the sun came up and damp sand began to dry. We loaded up the canoes and headed back down the Saco.
The water was high and swift, and we were making remarkable time. Our goal was to land at Sizzleback Beach early, play some frisbee and generally goof off.
Sizzleback Beach was a small beach on the inside of a curve in the river. It was named in the summer of 1993: It was a hot, sunny day, and I thought I was tough enough to NOT wear sunscreen. My shoulders and back burned horribly, and I was in severe pain.
And since the Jerky Boys' "Sizzlechest" was popular, Jay called me Sizzleback. Since then, our second-day campsite has been called Sizzleback Beach.
On the first three Saco trips we had stayed on that small beach. Over the years, we carved stuff in the trees. But this year, the water was so high it covered the beach, and we slipped right by.
We will return to Sizzleback someday.
But we missed it this year. We floated downriver until we reached a calm, sandy-bottomed curve. I looked down in the water and there, six feet down, was a familiar face...Andrew Jackson.
With my shirt, baseball cap and sunglasses still on, I furiously jumped out of the canoe. I dove down and grabbed at the sand. But I ran out of breath and surfaced, without my sunglasses.
"What are you doing?" Jeff asked, laughing.
"Twenty bucks!" I said, breathless, trying to swim against the current. "I saw a twenty dollar bill!"
Rich and Jeff2 paddled upriver and spotted the bill. Rich threw me his goggles. I swam up, grabbed the bill, and surfaced again, his time $20 richer.
And I found my sunglasses!
Jeff and Jeff2 decided to celebrate by pulling ashore and relieving themselves in the woods. They grabbed a roll of toilet paper and headed into the brushes.
Screams quickly filled the air and they both ran out of the woods, pulling up their shorts. Covered in mosquitoes, they ran right by their canoe and dove into the water.
After the mosquito cloud diminished, we got back in our canoes and set out. Within minutes, Jeff2's skin was covered in pink welts from hundreds of mosquito bites. But we paddled hard, outran the vicious bugs, and stayed in the middle of the river, away from danger.
The current was so swift, we were quickly approaching our pull-out location. The bugs were so bad, we decided to hightail it and end the trip early. Another canoeist passed us, failing his arms in a futile attempt to shoo the mosquitoes.
"Hey, do you guys have any bug repellant?" he asked.
"No," we answered.
"Well, what are you using to keep the bugs away?"
In unison, Jeff, Jeff2 and I pointed at Rich.
"Him!" we said.
We reached our pull-out and headed home. On the way, Rich stopped for gas, collecting receipts and stapling them to a tally sheet. He planned on splitting every cost -- including the 50-cent tolls -- among the four of us.
"Uh, don't you think you should get a receipt Rich?"
"Hey Rich, don't forget the receipt!"
We taunted Rich's anal behavior all the way home. As darkness fell, we returned to Connecticut. Rich dropped everyone off and we headed back to our homes in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Our Saco5 -- Back To The River adventure was over.
I hope you had as much fun reading about our trip as I had writing recalling it. It was a fun trip despite the snags, and hopefully we'll return to the river next summer on Saco6.
Stay tuned for details.
~THE END~
"Is that Dave Boatwright?"
~JON GRANEY, August 10, 1996~
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