the st. croix river taketh....

.....and giveth back. before i tell you what that's all about, i just want to say that since it's the beginning of december, holiday party time is here again - as if you didn't know this fact already and needed me to inform you. anyway, party time made me think of wine and beer and martinis and so on. my husband and i do not drink much, and, for me, parties do not mean time to get wasted (sorry for being so boring). parties mean getting together with friends and family, yakking non-stop (i excel at that) and laughing uproariously, without the help of a lot of alcohol. ok, so now you have heard my holiday party philosophy.

what does all this have to do with rivers? you will soon see - booze is the common thread here. bear with me. the river in this story is the mighty st. croix in northern maine. james and five buddies canoed the st. croix river this summer. only one canoe dumped during the entire trip, and, not to worry, the two guys in it were fine, albeit soaked to their bones. all their gear floated downstream, and everything was recovered, with one VERY IMPORTANT exception: the extra special, extra large, "the lumberjack!" cast-iron frypan (from l.l.bean) had (naturally) sunk with alarming speed straight to the bottom of the st. croix.

trevor, who had conveniently brought a mask (where did he think he was going, the reefs off the florida keys?), was ready for his first dive in seconds. he had a vested interest in all this -he was the keeper/pan master of "the lumberjack!" frypan, which was an absolutely necessary item on a camping trip where the main food group was meat.

into the river trevor plunged. (well, it was really only 3 or 4 feet of water in this section of the river, but doesn't "plunging" sound so much more dramatic, folks?) each time he surfaced, his hands remained empty. no frypan. tragedy. (how were they going to cook all that bloody meat?) down he went again. trevor's arm suddenly flew into the air. he had found, not the frypan but (drumroll, please) a snorkel! that would certainly aid in the search! unfortunately, things were not going well. after lord knows how many more attempts at locating the pan that the river had obviously claimed for itself, james shouted to trevor over the river's din: hey, man, give up the search!

trevor decided he'd try one final time. down he went, and when he came back up this [hopefully] last time, he was determined not to ascend empty-handed. with renewed vigor, trevor fought the current, and with mask and snorkel in place, stuck his face in the water and looked down into a shallow rocky area of rapids where the canoe had tipped. what was that down there? he reached into the mighty st. croix river; then trevor's arm shot triumphantly up in the air. the river had decided to make a trade: one extra large (the lumberjack!) frypan for......a full, unopened, unscathed bottle of vodka! oh happy day! as trevor turned to his buddies to savor the moment, the snorkel suddenly slipped out of his hand and was never found again. the st. croix, to the very end, was master of the maine wilderness and had the last word: an even trade, one bottle of vodka for one (the lumberjack!) fry pan....