I was just 15 when this happened. My grandfather had always lived with us and grandpa loved his beer. He never drank whiskey. It was early spring and there was flooding in and around where our clubhouse was on a slough off the Mississippi. Grandpa had bought a very small, just 8 foot long aluminum John boat over the winter. He, my dad and a friend were anxious to go up to the clubhouse and see what the flooding conditions were in the area. I was just along for the ride. We loaded the boat in the back of dad’s 53 Chrysler station wagon and headed out. We stopped at the friend’s house and he added himself along with a 15 horsepower motor and a 5 gallon gas tank.
We got up to near the clubhouse area and had to park a few miles away due to the flooding. We unloaded the boat and motor and gas tank and had to drag that behind us through knee-high water until we could reach water deep enough to launch the boat. We were still perhaps 3 miles from the clubhouse before we found a place deep enough to launch the boat. Looking back, I am surprised that no one in the group had the sense to realize we 4 would have to get into a very light weight aluminum boat with a heavy motor and gas tank and then go out on a raging Mississippi river to reach the slough where the clubhouse was located.
We found a deep spot in a sheltered cove to launch the boat, in about 8 feet of water. We were standing on a high spot of ground when the event started. The idea was to put the motor on the boat transom add the gas tank and grandpa and the portly friend would sit in the rear seat; my dad (also heavy) would board and sit on the middle seat and I would push to boat from shore and sit on the front end seat. By the time dad settled in the middle seat the boat was so overloaded the front end lifted and the boat slid into the water and immediately sank to the bottom. In those days aluminum boats did not have the flotations in them like they did later on.
Grandpa could not swim a stroke and was floundering. Dad managed to get to him and pull him to shore. Now the three of them were soaked to the bone and grandpa was shivering. We started walking back those miles to the car. Grandpa was so cold he was suffering from hypothermia. Every time he started to falter dad pulled out a bottle of whiskey and gave him a drink to warm him up. By the time we got back to the car grandpa was shivering uncontrollably. Dad fired up the car and turned the heater on full blast and gave grandpa more whiskey.
We got home a half hour later and as dad helped grandpa into the house, grandpa was bouncing off the wall in the hallway and taking giant steps. Mom looked at dad and asked, "what did you do to my father?" Dad explained what happened and as far as I know got a free pass on the mishap.
One might think that would be the end of the story, but it is not. The next Saturday dad and I left to go up into the floods and find the boat and motor. We walked out through the flooded area in search of where we tried to launch the boat the week before. We found the spot and dad had a grappling hook which he would toss into the deep water to latch onto the boat. He managed to hit the boat two or three times, but the hook would no hold onto the boat. By that time it had started snowing and was getting colder. I knew with dad we would be there until we got the boat back. I decided to strip down to my undershorts and wade into the water and then start bobbing up and down until my feet would locate the boat. The water was so cold I nearly turned from male to female from severe male shrinkage. I located the boat with my feet and then dove down to get ahold of it so I could drag it back to shore. We dragged the boat and motor back to the car and headed home. You again might think this is the end of the story, but it is not.
We drained the motor and took it over to our portly friend's house, trying to do a good deed. We knocked on his door and when he answered we told him we had recovered his motor. He reeled back and as he closed the door he said, "get that thing away from here. I already filed with my insurance company and have a check for a new motor." And that my friends is the end of the story.
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