Taking I-75 South to Athens, Tennessee, then TN Route 30 to Highway 411 South at Etowah won’t yield much in the form of entertainment or luxury. With the exception of a few national chains, most restaurants are mom-and-pop with reliably wonted names; Woods Family Diner, Tom Thumb Diner and Scottie’s Diner dot the route as you make your way through to the town of Delano. There are churches, small homes and mountainous farmland as far as the eye can see. If you didn’t know any better, you would think you’d reached the end of civilization as you get closer to the Ocoee community.
Something magical happens, however, if you continue on to TN Route 30 and begin driving east into Nantahala National Forest. The road hugs the picturesque Hiwassee River and once you cross under the canopy of trees near the Oswald Dome Trailhead, cell phone service disappears. It doesn’t merely weaken or fade out, either – it drops, suddenly and completely. I drove this road again last weekend with Katie, her dad and her brother. We navigated the curves as we passed hiking trails, old mountain homes and camping sites. The mighty Hiwassee, named after the Cherokee word for meadow, flowed to our left while her many tributaries sprawled out in various directions to our right. Before long, we landed at our destination: Webb Brothers Rafting and General Store.
The General Store was opened in 1936 by Oliver and Harold Webb after they couldn’t find work during the Great Depression. While these days it mostly serves as a gas station and a camping supply shop right on the edge of the Hiwassee, the store used to sell everything from ammunition to potatoes and was at one time the local post office for the town of Reliance. It’s here you’ll find an assortment of rentable inflatable kayaks (funyaks) and tubes, as well as a rugged transport that will take you five miles further up the mountain to a humble put-in spot where you can then float the majestic river until you return to the banks behind the store.
The four of us paddled our funyaks out 100 yards or so, allowing ample time and space for everyone else who rode up with us to spread out with their groups. The temperature was in the upper 80s, it was partly cloudy and the water was pleasantly cool; it was the perfect day to float. While there are adventurous moments of navigating rapids and figuring out how to get unstuck from obnoxious rocks that come out of nowhere during your 2.5-hour float, there are many long stretches that are so calm and peaceful that one may lay down in their funyak, close their eyes and just exist.
And that is precisely what we did.
In Norse mythology, Sól is the goddess/embodiment of the sun. Every day she rides her chariot across the sky guided by her horses Arvakr and Alsvinn. While Sól isn’t a major goddess in the Norse pantheon, it’s not uncommon for her to be praised for her gift of light and warmth, and that’s exactly what I was doing at one point as I floated that day. I was reclined with my feet up over the side walls of my funyak, my lifejacket unfastened, my head resting on our cooler, my arms stretched far out to my sides and my fingertips tickling the surface of the water. I was grateful not only that the sun’s warmth and light provide life, but for the life in which those elements have built for me, especially that day.
A few weeks after I ran away from my dad’s home on Dickerson Street in the sixth grade, I found myself at my best friend’s house. His backyard shared a fence with my dad’s so I had my friend call my dad’s number and ask my step-brother Eric to bring me some things I’d neglected to take on my way out. These included a few WWF wrestling magazines, my NASH skateboard and my favorite cassette tape at the time: Nirvana’s “From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah.”
I met Eric at the fence and he only brought me the tape. Apparently my magazines had all been thrown in the trash and my skateboard was under an avalanche of other stuff that he couldn’t dig out until his mom took a nap. I thanked him for it, knowing that when we both turned around to walk away from the fence that not only had I lost my father, I had officially lost the only brother I ever had. As a little boy, I was incredibly excited to have an older brother in the family and enjoyed “guy time” with him and my dad. The pain and unfairness of losing both of them simultaneously was only made worse by having to spend the next five years seeing them both regularly. Eric was only a year older than me and we attended the same schools. My dad was frequently at events as well, yet I never talked to either of them again.
I’ve grown into a straight adult male who kinda hates most male-driven pastimes. I don’t like chugging beer, don’t care for sports, am an outspoken feminist, am an LGBTQIA+ ally, don’t love guns or cars, am not terribly handy and would gladly choose mimosas at a drag brunch over beer and wings at Hooters every day of the week. This is who I am and I’m secure in that. I often wonder, however, how much of it is driven by the fact that it was my mom who raised me. I also wonder if I’ve unfairly eschewed the banal habits of bro culture and male relationships because I lost two very important ones in a very traumatic way at such a young age. Have I historically pushed them away because subconsciously I believe it’s better to not have them than to have them and lose them again?
Perhaps. Who knows.
What I do know is shortly after I sat back up in my funyak and paddled my way out of a new set of rapids, I looked back and noticed that Pops had gotten stuck in some low-hanging branches and was struggling to get out. Fresh out of those same rapids and still reeling from his first experience in a kayak, brother Nate came crashing into him, then proceeded to thrash his oars in the water with a ferocity equalled only by a cruise ship’s diesel-electric-powered propellers. The cold waters of the mountain river soaked Pops as he continued his troubled attempt at freeing himself from his arboreal obstacle. They then playfully bickered like the old married couple they so often mimic.
It was slapstick at its finest and I laughed until tears ran from my eyes and my abs cramped. After I caught my breath and took a sip from my water jug, I corrected the orientation of my craft and thanked the heavens that while I thought I’d lost the only dad and brother I’d ever know, I’ve been given an otherworldly gift in the form of a much better pair.
-jtf
Love. And they're feeling lucky to have you, too. I'm sure of it.