The Green Canoe .....
As our green canoe turned 20 last spring, I think back and wonder how many stories it could tell. You see; it's part of our family and certainly deserves a place of honor on the Family Blog.
It has primarily lived it's entire life on the Harpeth River and, when not in use, it patiently sits in our back yard waiting for the next trip from the rope swing to our house. Cold winter snow, driving rain, and months of heat and summer sun; all this builds character for a green canoe!
In it's youth, it was paddled upstream and parked on a gravel shoal day after day, while boys built forts and shared dreams and schemes. The green canoe heard it all and never gave an opinion of it's own. On weekends, it would take the entire family, with Max the dog, on river trips looking for herons fishing and turtles basking on logs. How much fun for a geen canoe!
Then the real work began, as the boys became teenagers and the stories got more interesting! It was paddled and floated and hoisted on cars. Up muddy banks, pulled over rocks, trown into trucks and then to rest again...but not for long. It took daylight trips and moonlight floats and never stopped helping love and friendships form for a lifetime. It took brothers and sisters and cousins and friends, and safely returned everyone home again. If only the Green Canoe could talk; the stories it could tell would be priceless. Claudia Gifford