The further adventures of Charlene and Spalding – and the river rats who adopted them

Charlene & Spalding

HUNTINGTON, W.Va.  — I conspired to set Spalding up on a blind date with Charlene. Spalding is a tattered basketball Curtis Casto plucked from the Ohio River in the early going of what was to be a 980-mile kayak trip.

Two years ago, I found Charlene floating near a logjam in Lake Fork of the Mohican River. Charlene is a blue bowling ball with adorable close-set eyes. Finger holes, actually. Her name is engraved just above them.

I had arranged to meet Curtis May 15, at the Shady Springs Campground west of Portsmouth on the Ohio side of the river. I planned to spend a few days on the Ohio River and camp out with him. And Spalding, of course.

Curtis expected to make most of the trip alone. A guy can get mighty lonely out there on that big river, paddling mile after mile after mile, camping night after night. (Except for the nights he spent glamping at hotels along the way.)

As Curtis said in one of his dispatches from the river, humor is the key to maintaining morale. Otherwise a man could go crazy. Who knows? He might even find himself talking to a tattered old basketball.

Which he did. But that’s OK. In this case, Curtis’ running dialog with Spalding was calculated to keep him from going bonkers. And Spalding didn’t seem to mind. Although Spalding did complain about having to sleep in the boat at night instead of the cozy new tent Curtis bought in Marietta to replace one that leaked.

To amuse himself and friends — and dispel rumors about his mental state — Curtis regularly posted videos on Facebook depicting his conversations with Spalding.

Not that there’s anything wrong with talking with inanimate objects. I’ll admit that, on my Lake Fork canoe trip two years ago, Charlene kept me company the whole time. During the day, she rode in my canoe. At night, we sat in front of the campfire, talking, and telling jokes — including a few puns about bowling. (After all, she had plenty of time to “spare.”)

My adventures with Charlene were inspired by Tom Hanks’ companion volleyball named Wilson in the movie “Cast Away.”

I’m ashamed to say that, after bringing Charlene home, I abandoned her in the garage. After all she had done for me and my sanity.

I thought it would be a nice gesture for all involved to bring Charlene with me so she could meet Spalding and Curtis.

So, I retrieved Charlene from the garage, brought her into the house and gave her a good scrubbing in the bathroom sink. For the record, I did not talk with Charlene while bathing her. Mainly out of fear that someone would walk by the bathroom door and overhear us.

Who knows, maybe Charlene and Spalding will hit it off. Perhaps they’ll get married and start a little family of golf balls. To go along with the goofballs who plucked them from the river.

Postscript: Originally, this column was datelined STOUT, OHIO. That’s the location of Shady Springs Campground, where I was to meet Curtis. He didn’t make it that far. At around 5:30 a.m. on May 14, Curtis sent a text message saying he’d been taken to the emergency room of St. Mary’s Medical Center in Huntington, W.Va. Ultimately, he was diagnosed with giardia. Instead of joining him on the river, I drove to Huntington to bring him home to Mount Vernon. A bummer to be sure. At least we had Spalding and Charlene to cheer us up.

This originally was published as an outdoors column in the Ashland Times-Gazette and elsewhere.

Curtis takes a glamping break on his Ohio River kayak trip

Curtis chilling at the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta

This originally was published as my weekly outdoors column in the Ashland Times-Gazette and elsewhere.

MARIETTA, OHIO — Following in the footsteps of Marquis de Lafayette, Curtis Casto landed May 6, at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum rivers. Except the Lafayette Hotel wasn’t there when Lafayette landed.

Lafayette, whose mother called him Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, visited the city in May 1825. A Revolutionary War hero, he was on what amounted to a victory lap after the fact. Well after the fact. For that gesture, the people of Marietta recognized Lafayette as Ohio’s first tourist.

Actually, there is a connection between Lafayette’s and Curtis’ visits: Honoring America’s military veterans. Curtis is kayaking 980 miles on the Ohio River to raise awareness and money for Paddle for Heroes. The Mount Vernon-based organization promotes the healing powers of paddling for veterans and first responders. Curtis is a Paddle for Heroes success story. Once overweight and in poor health, the U.S. Army veteran turned to kayaking through the organization.

It basically saved his life. Now he’s a kayaking machine. Not content to paddle his way back to good health, Curtis has taken on an Ohio River journey, which started May 1 in Pittsburgh. Originally, he expected the trip to take 37 days. Mother Nature — and a bout of back pain — disabused him of that notion. He’s wisely chosen to allow for some downtime when necessary. So he decided to spend two nights at the Lafayette Hotel.

Here, mostly in his own words, are Curtis’ impressions of the journey so far — primarily culled from Facebook postings. As reported in a previous column, the rain stopped long enough for his Pittsburgh launch. It returned with a vengeance during the first week of his trip with downpours and flooding.

May 1 — Had some very new experiences today. Did not know there were riffles on the Ohio River but I found one, actually two. Also the current when you come out of the locks can be treacherous, especially if the wind is blowing the right way … Had to repack the boat once already and bail it out. Besides that everything’s handling okay.

Curtis stays in contact via social media with his support team — his friends, wife Marsha, dog Sailor (who hasn’t quite figured out where that familiar voice on the phone is coming from), and those along the river helping him with food, accommodations, and other needs. Among them is Scott Freese, part of the entourage who saw Curtis off in Pittsburgh.

May 3 —  It’s a good thing Scott Freese was watching the weather for me and got me to pull over. Waited out the storm under a shelter, which didn’t do much good, but my host was the president of the fire department in Wellsburg, West Virginia. He was cooking steaks and kept on cooking them in the rain; he just put a pan over them. Had a good reception in Steubenville. There were sheriff boats and fire boats out in the water with their lights on. Thought they were giving me a big welcome to town. But it was not for me. They were searching for cars in the river and they had divers in the river so they wanted me to divert out into the middle. After that they chased me down and had me pull into the dock and fed me meatballs and pasta. I told them about my trip and handed out a few pamphlets.

In a subsequent text message, Curtis weighed in on the value of social media for logistics, safety, and more.

Facebook has saved my morale and probably my life several times. It has brought me in contact with people that I don’t know and wouldn’t have known had it not been for Facebook.

To further buoy his spirits, Curtis  “adopted” Spalding, a tattered basketball he found on the river.

I have discovered that keeping your mood up with humor helps a lot with the boredom of 12 hours of paddling. Collecting that basketball and posting little movies of him is a welcome distraction. I hope everybody’s enjoying them.

Taking breaks at the laundromat and the hotel also helped his morale, but Curtis’ heart is on the river. And with the people who have felt the wrath of Mother Nature far more than he has.

May 7 — Sitting here at the Lafayette Hotel. This is a beautiful place, too beautiful for me. I need to be sitting in [my tent or headed downriver.] But, after watching the news, I need to quit my whining and think about those people that have been affected by the flooding.

To be continued.

Curtis Casto’s entourage — human and divine — see him off on his Ohio River trip

En Route to Curtis Launch in Pittsburgh

PITTSBURGH — I’m beginning to wonder if Curtis Casto has connections in high places. Really high places.

As Curtis navigated the streets of the city, enroute to the Ohio River launch site for his 980-mile kayak trip, the wipers on his minivan barely kept up with the rain pelting the windshield. I half-expected the little Buddha mounted on his dash to pull out an umbrella.

I rode shotgun. In the middle seat behind us were Curtis’ wife, Marsha, and our friend, Sonya Bollin. Sailor, a black Lab, sprawled across the back seat. The night before Curtis asked me if I’d mind riding in the back with the dog.

“You’d better ask the dog,” I responded.

Apparently, Sailor objected. I had to ride up front.

Which worked out fine because, on our first restroom stop, Marsha bought us donuts. If I had been sitting in the back, I would have had to share mine with Sailor.

We had come along to see Curtis off on his solo kayaking trip down the Ohio River. He expects it will take him 37 days.

If I were him, I’d take it at a more leisurely pace. Like 37 weeks.

As mentioned in a previous column, Curtis is doing this for a cause — to raise money for Paddle for Heroes. The Mount Vernon-based organization advocates for veterans and first responders, organizing river cleanups, working on community projects, and promoting healing through paddling.

Minutes before we reached the put-in point, the rain tapered off. By the time we arrived at the Westhall Street Launch, it had stopped altogether. The river gods had shown on Curtis. Or maybe it was little Buddha on the dashboard.

The Westhall Street Launch is at the northern terminus of the Three Rivers Heritage Trail — in the shadow of the State Correctional Institution. The prison was built in 1882. And looks it. It’s been said that Charles Dickens visited the original prison, which was built in 1826. Reportedly, the draconian conditions he witnessed there served as inspiration for future writings.

Scott Freese, a kindred spirit and kayaking enthusiast, was waiting at the launch. He had driven there from Mount Pleasant to see Curtis off.

Sailor supervised as we helped Curtis load his kayak. A couple of mallards observed from the safety of the water. Hugs were exchanged and he was off on his 980-mile adventure. May providence continue to shine upon him.

You can follow his adventures on his blog or on Facebook:  https://a-good-paddling-at-65.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/groups/439602364205014 respectively.

Midway through his trip, I’ll join Curtis for a couple days on the river and a few nights camping. I’ll need to adjust my paddling to keep up with his breakneck pace. I’ll also use an old trick I learned for keeping up with tandem paddlers; I’ll stay behind his kayak, riding in his slipstream. That will reduce the drag on my canoe.

For good measure, when he’s not looking, I’ll attach his stern line to the bow of my boat.

POSTSCRIPT: Donations are still being accepted to Paddle for Heroes. All proceeds go to that organization. Curtis is covering his own expenses entirely.

‘Euell’ never know who you’ll meet in the column writing business

This originally was published as an outdoors column in the Ashland Times-Gazette, Loudonville Times Shopper and elsewhere online.

For me, writing is an adventure. When I set out to write my outdoors column — generally in the quiet of a Sunday morning — I don’t know where it’s going much less where it might end up. Or who I’ll meet along the way.

Last week, while writing a column about foraging, I met Euell Gibbons. 

Like a lot of folks my age, I knew him only through his iconic Post Grape-Nuts commercials, which aired in the 1970s. They typically depicted the robust, outdoorsy Gibbons foraging in the countryside then sitting down to enjoy a bowl of Grape-Nuts. In the commercial for which he’s probably best remembered, Gibbons asks, “Ever eat a pine tree?”

His eccentric ways and folksy persona made him the butt of jokes. From the Carol Burnett Show to the PBS children’s program “The Electric Company,” on-air personalities poked fun at him. Sometimes Gibbons got in on the act himself when he appeared on TV talk programs such as the Johnny Carson Show.

Gibbons once made a parody of his own commercials. Sitting down to dig into a bowl of Grape-Nuts, he says, “Of course, I don’t always eat it in a bowl like this. Usually I just eat it in my shoe. Sometimes I just eat my shoes. You know, the other day, I ate some goose poop I found on my lawn.”

That was the Euell Gibbons I knew. Until last week, I dismissed him as an eccentric old coot who might have gotten ahold of the wrong kind of mushrooms while rooting around in the forest for dinner.

I suspect a lot of people saw him that way. Although I always admired Gibbons’ adventurous spirit and resourcefulness. Perhaps, in my heart of hearts, I really wanted to be him. (Frankly, I always did like Grape-Nuts. But I attributed that to false hunger associated with herbal misadventures common in that era.)

In doing research for a previous column, I Googled Euell Gibbons and came to know him better. Since then, I’ve done some internet foraging and learned that he really was a fascinating guy. An accomplished author, he was recognized as an authority on wild food cuisine and nutrition. How thorough was he? He sent the things he foraged to Pennsylvania State University for analysis. His first book  “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” influenced a generation of Americans longing to return to their natural roots (literally and figuratively). The book has been in print continuously since 1962 and sold more than a half-million copies.

I never believed the rumors that Gibbons died from something he found in the forest or that he choked to death on a pinecone sandwich. He died of a heart attack in 1975. He was only 64.

Cigarettes and saturated fats likely contributed to his early demise. He was known to add bacon grease, butter, and egg yolks to his foraged food concoctions. His diet included meat, which he obtained by hunting, trapping, and fishing.

“These risk factors combined with his hard life and lack of exercise in his later years undoubtedly led to his death,” John Kallas wrote in the November 1988 issue of Wild Food Adventurer.

Gibbons was born in 1911 in Red River County, Texas, one of four children. Times were hard then, particularly in that part of the country. His mother taught Euell and his siblings to forage. At the age of five, he prepared his first dish for the family — using his beloved wild hickory nuts. (His tagline in the cereal commercials was that Grape-Nuts reminded him of them.)

In an article in Adventure Journal, Brad Risser wrote: “Gibbons left home at 15 and migrated between Texas and New Mexico, working wheat harvests, panning gold, trapping, riding fences, digging postholes, carpentering, among other gigs (Gibbons would work a mind-boggling variety of jobs through his life, from schoolteacher to crossword puzzler to entertainer in a hobo camp).”

He later ended up in Hawaii, where he lived as a beachcomber. There he met is second wife, Pennsylvania native Freda Fryer. He studied at the University of Hawaii but didn’t earn a degree. In the 1950s, he and his wife moved to Pennsylvania, where they were active in the Quaker community. Gibbons championed simple living and warned against the trappings of technology. He would have been appalled to see a generation of Americans glued to their smartphones.

Earlier in his life, Gibbons briefly identified as a Communist but denounced the party after Russia invaded Poland. Somehow, he escaped the wrath of McCarthyism.

However, his Grape-Nuts commercials, didn’t fare as well. According to author and self-reliance advocate Christopher Nyerges, months before Gibbons’ death the Federal Trade Commission banned them. Why? Because they might have inspired youngsters to go out and do some foraging on their own. Ironically, the FTC didn’t have a problem with the proliferation of sugary breakfast cereals that posed a real danger to children.

To think Grape-Nuts might have saved us from becoming a generation of smartphone-addicted zombies.

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