Michael O'Meara

My daughter, Farrell, is a river rafting guide, her degree in film unused to this point but at least on the shelf. She grew up in Reston, Virginia and lived in various cities along the East Coast.    She’s an artist of some accomplishment, her paintings are vivid and thematically sophisticated.  She loves animals and for a long while, was a dog walker. Following friends into rafting, Farrell worked her way up various whitewater rivers from fairly tame, to challenging and on to the truly dangerous, Class 5, Gauley River in West Virginia.  

Farrell called, a few weeks back, to let me know she was working in California with a company just outside Coloma on the Middle Fork of the American River.  My dragon boat club, the Renegades, had been thinking about rafting and having Farrell as our guide closed the deal.  We gathered a handful of teammates, family and friends, enough to fill up two rafts and headed for the campground in the Sierra Nevada mountains.

My gps didn’t have the rafting company’s address and it took me a couple of tries before I spotted the hand painted sign next to the dirt road, a half mile from the cross road.  The road widened into a dusty parking area, just in front of an open-air reception structure.  The other building had the look of a bathroom, with the promise of actual flush toilets.  Our campsite was a short walk from the parking area down a narrow, rock studded path.  My gear looked to be a few difficult trips for me.  Two of our sturdy, young men, Tommy, who came with his mom and Yawed, who had inexplicably renamed himself, Murray, helped me carry my gear.  It was late afternoon when we finished setting up our tents.  We had brought food for a campsite dinner and people began preparing it.  Farrell was prepping our raft for the morning run and would join us later when the food was set out.  I often say that as a dragon boat team, we sure can cook.   A mishmash of pots and pans appeared on the crooked, weathered, picnic table, wafting aromas from several cultures that reflected our group.  Farrell was held up at work but finally joined us and we ate.  Tommy and Murray had seconds, then thirds, contemplated fourths but backed down.

Everyone turned in when the light was gone.  Farrell wanted to join her friends at one or both of the two taverns in those parts.  She asked me to go and said I might get a chance to meet her boyfriend, John.  I signed on and left ahead of her while she showered.  One tavern had music and dancing, the other, mere feet away, was where everyone went when the music stopped.  I opted for the prior, the quieter of the two.  A couple of Harleys were parked outside, duded up in manly motif.  A rough looking, fat guy, sat in the doorway giving me the once over, deciding not to flatter me with an ID check.   

Inside was a battered, wooden bar, nicked and gouged by 40 years of hard trade and occupied by two burley guys, color coordinated with the Harleys outside.  I said, “Hey” and they sort of glanced in my direction.  The bartender was friendlier, his livelihood depending on that skill.  He asked if I was here for the rafting, my designer shorts, preppy polo shirt and good shoes perhaps suggesting that.  I said, “Yeah, my daughter works as a guide here”.  He asked her name.  I replied, “Farrell”.  He, “She’s a great gal”.  One of the things I really like about getting older is being able to say what I like without threatening large men and pretty, young women.  I said a little louder, “I’m supposed to meet her boyfriend tonight”.  I turned to the two Harley dudes, “If he’s big, I might need a little backup”.  They both laughed and one said, “You got it, brother”.  I ordered a bourbon and settled in for the wait.  Farrell eventually showed, cleaned up, dressed up, a heart breaker.  I asked to the whereabouts of her boyfriend and she let me know it wasn’t really settled on that count yet.  I asked, “How long have you been dating?”  She smiled and replied, “Six days”.   I bought her a drink.   

There was a pool table toward the back and we decided we’d spend the evening there.  Next door, the music stopped and our quiet bar transformed into a noisy, sea of eager, young faces.  Half a dozen of them stopped by to tell me what a “great gal” Farrell is.  I was wondering if adjectives had gone out of fashion lately when a thin, bearded man with long scraggly hair went into much more detail about why she’s so great.  He was from South Africa, having taken a summer job on the river and deciding to stay and make this country and this river, home.  He said that Farrell was kind and generous of spirit and always looking out for her friends.  I liked the kid with the crush and we talked for a good while.  Not yet boyfriend John never showed.  it was late and I said good night to Farrell and her friends and made my way back to camp.

In the early morning, we were told to board a bus to be taken several miles up river, the idea being to raft back down to our campsite and break there for lunch.  The old bus was driven by a stout, no nonsense, country gal of a certain age.  Apparently, she was paid by the trip judging by the speed she took the hairpin turns on the twisty, no shoulder, hundred foot drop, country road.  All doubt as to our survival vanished when we arrived at the launch site.  We quickly divided into two groups, Farrell to steer the raft with my group and another young woman to steer the other.  We shoved off, dry and fresh, to confront the mighty American River. 

The Whitewater Rapid Classification System runs from Class 1, safe for grandma, to Class 6, you’re probably going to die.  Farrell had her certification for Class 5 from the Gauley but we had ordered the Class 3 package, thrilling but survivable.  The first hour was easy whitewater, interspersed with a few Class 2 bumps and thrills.  To fend off the heat and to have more to do, the rafts splashed each other. “Thanks, may I have another” was shouted back and forth.  In a calmer stretch, I turned to say something to Farrell just as she did a forward flip off the back of the raft, floating along with us for a few hundred meters, then gracefully pulling herself back aboard. A toss of  her head cleared away the water and she said, “That felt great.  You should go for it”.  I thought, “No fucking way” just before leaping over the side.  The cold shocked me back to the boat immediately and I was hauled aboard like a 170 pound, dead, flounder.

The Class 3 stretches of the river had acquired colorful names over the years, Hospital Bar, Trouble Maker, Satan’s Cesspool.  In the beginning, we found the names humorous.  By Satan’s Cesspool, not so much.  The roar of the river drowned out all sound as we plunged into the Cesspool.  The raft dropped from under us and a wall of angry water knocked us on our backs.  When the screaming stopped and we regained our perches, I noticed Tommy’s Mom floating by, bobbing up and down as the water raced her over boulder after boulder, followed shortly by the young woman who used to be steering the other raft.  Farrell screamed out, “Forward, forward, forward” and we dug our paddles into the churning water.  We caught up with Tommy’s Mom, grabbed her and paddled hard toward the side of the river where the current was less strong.  At the shoreline, we were out of the churning water but the current still pinned us against some thick tree branches, reaching out over the river.  The other raft had hold of their steerer and was racing toward us.  The two rafts collided at the shoreline sending us all to our knees.  We still had a grip on Tommy’s Mom and she had a death grip on her paddle.  With all my strength, I couldn’t separate her from it.  I kept repeating, “Let go of the paddle” until the light returned to her eyes and she gently handed it to me.  I passed the paddle to the back of the raft and Farrell yanked her aboard.  We passed Tommy’s Mom to the other raft and with both floaters now rescued and after a mighty struggle to regain the river, we continued on.

At half time, we pulled back into the campground for the fabulous lunch promised on the website.  I had visions of a chow hall filled with old ladies in hair nets, serving up the best damn diner food.  In the real world, it was a tent with our guides Hell bent on grilling our burgers to a perfect state desiccation.   When they were done with their work, the sad, charred, curled up things sat in buckets awaiting us.  There were a few toppings, pale tomato slices, slightly limp lettuce and an unexpectedly good guacamole.  I wanted to cry out for, at the very least, a kosher dill but knew there was little to no hope.  

Two hours later, we returned to the river for more of the same only more of it.  The second half of the trip was even rougher than the first and Farrell did her very best to take us through the most violent corridors of the river.  It turned into a long day with most of us beginning to show the strain of it.  A few days earlier, there had been a debate, sides drawn mostly by age, as to the full day package verses the half day.  Around hour seven on the water, no further debate was necessary.

As we neared the end of our trip, the river widened and slowed.  Our journey had become peaceful, all the rapids behind us.  Farrell and I had a chance to chat a little, she telling me of her life among the river folk and me actively listening.  We passed under a tall highway bridge. She pointed toward it and mentioned the locals liked to jump off the thing.  I commented that it looked ridiculously dangerous.  She replied, “Not really, Dad.  I did a back flip off it last week…..naked”.