Shots Across The Bow

The Big Race

Yep, they wanted us in their race. So what the heck; we signed up.

Now we needed a team name, one which would intimidate our competition, show them we were serious competitors, possibly throw a little psychologicaal advantage our way. God knows, we needed every advantage we could get.

So we pondered and cogitated while kicking back and watching a Packers game on TV.

One of the cooler things about being so far west was that football games started at 8 AM local time, which meant you could watch a full day's worth of games, and still have time for a dive that afternoon.

Anyway, we were watching the Packers because Scotty, first seat in the wa'a, was a cheesehead born and bred. During halftime, we were talking about what we should be called, floating ideas like 6 Guys and a Canoe (too dull), Kamelalawahewannawoopie (too hard to fit on a T-shirt), and The Oarsman (sounded too much like a 50's Doo-Wop group), when a commercial for Rold Gold Pretzels came on, featuring that guy from Seinfeld as the Pretzel Boy. The hockey team needed another player, and there was our hero, sitting in the stands, eating his Rold Gold pretzels.

"Hey, Pretzel Boy! Get in here, we need ya!"

Those words struck a chord in our souls, and we fell silent, considering the possibility. Could it be that we had found our name? It seemed so close, yet something was missing. We needed something else to go with it, to add the final touch. We racked our brains trying to find the final piece of our new identity, and failed miserably.

Then the game began again, and the gods smiled on us, and bestowed upon us the final piece of the puzzle.

We had our name. We would be known forever more as

Cheesehead and the Pretzel Boys.

As you may have noticed from the picture, we were not the epitome of athleticism, so we knew we would need lots of practice. We paddled every afternoon after work, plying the waves of the channel, learning to maintain our rhythm and stroke, strengthening our bosies and minds for the upcoming race. Scotty was our lightest team member, so we put him in the first seat. It was his job to steer wa'a to our destination. Jim was our steersman. He sat in the 6th seat, and shouted direction to Scotty in front. The rest of us were grunts, or as they say in Hawai'ian, grunts.

We paddled together, huli'd together, sweated together, and became as one, like a hand with 6 fingers. Well that would be a bit awkward wouldn't it? UNless you were Count Rugen. Hmmm...

Anyway, the day before the race, we went out and ran the course. It was a simple down and back course, covering a little over a mile. There were three lanes set up, with a marker at the beginning, and a bouy marking the turning point. We had to paddle down to our bouy, turn, and paddle back.

Simple, right?

It was during practice.

Then came the day of the race. While there were three lanes set up, there were only two boats in our heat; us, and the Island's top team, the one that went to compete in the real races in Hawai'i. Now we were realistic; we knew there was no way we could beat those guys. Some of them had been paddling canoes since they were little kids. All we wanted to do was be competitive. We positioned our canoes at the starting line, waiting for the horn to sound.

A quick blast, and we were off, paddles churning the water in sprint to get the wa'a up on plane and out of the water. Our practice had paid off, and our wa'a jumped like a goosed debutante and the race was on. Later, the other team admitted to surprise at how quickly we pulled away from the starting line, and they really started putting their backs into it. Instead of an easy win, they had a race on their hands.

The first half of the race went fairly well. We fell into our rhythm and while our lead was shortlived, we were within a couple boat lengths when we started to approach the bouy. It was then that we noticed that we were heading too far to the right, away from our bouy.

Jim yelled from his seat in the stern, "To the left, Scotty; to the left!"

"I got it!" was Scotty's calm reply, as we headed further and further out of our lane.

Jim yelled again, "Wrong bouy Scott! To the left!"

"I got it!" said Scotty, as we approached the wrong bouy.

It was only when we entered the turn that Scott saw the correct bouy and steered us to it. The other team has long since made their turn and were headed back to the finish line while we struggled to get the wa'a to the right bouy. We eventually got back on course, and finished the race dead last and disqualified.

But there's no great loss that doesn't bring some small gain. From that day on, all we had to do to get Scotty to buy a round at the club was to holler,

"To the left, Scotty, to the left!"

And he would get it.

Posted by Rich at July 10, 2003 1:13 AM | TrackBack