Main Street Remington today, looking east toward the railroad tracks.
During the late 70's us Virginian's took the act of surviving the Dog Days of Summer very seriously; especially when the temperature and humidity in my home town of Remington were equal scale. When it got that severe we heaved a hearty guffaw in the general direction of whoever seemed occupied with keeping their steady job and went to soak ourselves in the cool water coursing between the banks of the Rappahannock River.
Remington sits a tad downstream of the confluence of the Hazel and a few miles upstream from where the water of the Rapidan joins up.
These two rivers played significant roles during the American Civil War
and during that troublesome time this little town was called Rappahannock Station.
Rappahannock Station during the Civil War - you're looking west. The large building in front is the railroad station; you can just see the tracks in front. The buildings on the left and behind the station line Main Street. About three hundred yards south is the Rappahannock River.
There was always something for Scott, Debbie and I to do but it was the river that captured the most of our attention and we were always trying to come up with new and exciting ways to float on it. We knew the most popular way was on an inner tube but it's impossible for a tuber to float down a river with pizazz. I mean, come on, really...how much pizazz can you squeeze out of an inner tube? So, we tossed guffaws in their general directions because they were just floating...they weren't doing it with pizazz! They were the dregs of the river, the flotsam...they were floaters.
You see, when you and your pals are eighteen or so, pizazz is very important and we were proud of ours. Hey! I just thought of something...you think Pirates were proud of their pizazz? Yeah, I reckon they had to be or else they wouldn't have set their hair on fire as often as they did.
When it wasn't the river the
town's residents provided a goodly amount of entertainment and none of the saner residents ever tired of watching
their antics. One was Maggie Elam and she presented a most peculiar form. She was a short, crusty curmudgeon who
wore her starched denim jeans pulled way up high - I suspect she wore them this way because the stiff waistband
helped support her sagging hooters. Her voice was a deep throaty sound like that of a sailor's and she exemplified
that by cussing like one. I know this is true because I watched the paint fly off the door the day she came in the
store and started one of her tirades. I was able to catch a few snippets during her rant and I think what pissed
her off was that someone had tipped over her outhouse. Ordinarily this sort of Halloween prank wouldn't have
bothered her in the least but she happened to be squatting in it at the time. Several years passed before the
miscreant fessed up to the deed and the only reason he did was because Maggie's pestilent verbal throwing up wound
down to her only using four and five letter cusswords.
We also had Eddie Andes. Eddie
owned a combination grocery store, gas station, tow truck service
and garage on the southern fringe of the town limits. Whenever you
walked in there you were in for a treat. He didn't give a damn about
anything he said or who he said it to - I believe he got that way on
account of two of his grandsons who, from the very second they were born, kept him hopping and because of that he never stopped hollering so no one was ever quite sure who he was hollering at. In the quiet years before his grandsons were born he used to break the monotony of the store's silence by taking his tow truck out to use it for things other than towing vehicles. To this day three large anchors from vessels destroyed during the Civil War decorate the front of the firehouse. He dredged each one of them from the river bottom by wading out into the water, attached a steel cable then waded back to his tow truck to pull it to shore.
Then there were our antics.
Now, on this particular day when Scott, Debbie and I floated the river we were inspired by her suggestion that our next adventure should have a purpose. Some of the things she cooked up made the two of us blanch - and we were fearless!
It was a hot August day and we were sitting around The Homestead cooking in our own sweat when Debbie came up with what Scott and I thought at that time to be a grand idea. Her proposal was to take the canoe to the river and launch it and while we lackadaisically waded downstream we would perform an ecological service by ridding the river bottom of its aluminum cans.
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The Rappahannock looking downstream from the old, two-lane bridge. In the distance is the railroad bridge. You wouldn't know looking at it today, but this river played the part of referee each time ownership of the town changed hands between the boys wearing Blue and Gray. The anchors were removed from here, about midway between the two bridges.
Man! We had that canoe loaded so fast the screech of it sliding into the truck hurtled down to the railroad tracks and startled the town's winos. How it traveled those three blocks and beat the sound of us roaring out the driveway is something I'll never be able to figure out.
For Scott and I the bonus of the trip was our canoe brimming with aluminum cans. Debbie's lure of the cooling water was the primer but our overall focus was on the "free" cans because scrap aluminum was worth 9 cents a pound! When her suggestion reached the anvils in our ears we knew if anyone wanted to buy bulk aluminum they'd be calling:
Aluminum Amalgamators
Scott and Joey, proprietors
We thought it was a catchy name but Debbie's instant objection caused us some concern and we paused to listen out of respect for her usual display of good sense. When she got to the "because" part we guffawed in her general direction - that's how we handled someone who interloped in the planning of our early retirements.
We skidded into Eddie's and grabbed some refreshing adult beverages and iced them down in our abundantly sized cooler. From past adventures on that water we knew exactly how many beers to take...as many as we could fit in the cooler. Of course they were cans because they'd augment our hoard. We weren't stupid, we instantly considered this back when we were planning our retirements.
This is Eddies. Gas pumps used to sit where you see the yellow sign. I almost destroyed his store the day my pickup skidded into one of his pumps. Eddie immediately appeared and started his tirade. He wasn't impressed. I was though because my precious bodily fluids weren't being consumed by a fireball.
Debbie wanted to ride in the canoe so we put her in charge of keeping us well liquidated. Her main job was to throw a fresh beer to whoever issued the demand for one. In exchange for us being so lenient we imposed a limit on how many fresh cans could land in the water. The limit was two and we made it clear that if she breached that limit then the resulting punishment would be stimulating.
It wasn't long before the second can hit the water and when it did we yanked her out of the canoe and launched her into the river. After several episodes of this we figured she was enjoying it because now she was merely depth charging our ice-cold beers straight into the eighty degree water by the canoe. In retaliation we changed our battle plan and started dousing her with river water. We then made it her responsibility to keep our hoard of cans from floating away and stipulated that if two cans escaped the canoe then another round of dousing would commence.
By the end of our float we were exhausted and Debbie seemed to be the only one sufficiently cooled off because she didn't have to work to get that way. The canoe was fully laden and although we were tired, the dollar signs floating in front of our eyes helped Scott and I drag that burdensome beast out of the river and up the steep, slippery bank to the awaiting truck. Much to our chagrins part of our retirement bounced out of the vessel and rolled down the embankment only to be reclaimed by the river each time we slipped and dropped the albatross.
From inside the canoe Debbie became discouraged and would lean over the side to ask, "Is that nice?" at each of our disparaging remarks. I believe calling a spade a spade, they weren't remarks - they were tirades! Mine was especially numbing because it caused Maggie to stir in her grave.
"You ball-busting, sumbitch, rotten-ass canoe! You can take these cans and shove 'em up yer nasty stern you foul bastard - git yer ass up this slippery scowl of a slope before I rip off your keel and beat you in half with the bloody thing!"
Scott was busy reciting his own narrative and it was tough trying to stay in harmony with him so I don't recall much of his tantrum.
We had a little cash when we got back to The Homestead but Scott and I were skeptical on whether it cost us more in gas to take them to the recycler's than we actually made. However, we learned a long time ago to place our trust in Debbie who was our elected treasurer and financial matters such as this needed to be handled with financial precision.
She started off doing the right thing by subtracting our overhead before she disbursed any funds. Next, she held court and fined Scott and me 20 cents apiece for each of our offenses:
Mutiny - 2 Counts
Disparaging Remarks - 2 Counts
Littering a Natural Resource - 2 Counts
Then, before we could get to calling her the bitch she was, she found us guilty of:
Drunk in Public - 2 Counts
As near as me and Scott could figure we made maybe eighty cents between us so we ordered Captain Blithe to go get pizza with her share.
We were on the cutting edge once...and young.
