Lemme explain: Every couple of weeks i row in a quad with two guys in their mid to late 60s and a third guy that until today i thought was a good deal older than me.
Paul is 65 and puts the boat together. He'll call 3 to 4 days in advance -- inevitably while you're in the bathroom or in a special moment with your wife -- leaving messages on cell, home and work numbers in succession. Once you express an interest, he calls back again to confirm that he has two others for the boat. He may call again to confirm the time -- there are only two times, actually, either 5:40 a.m. or 6 a.m.
Ken is a good-humored man of 67 who has coached rowing and calls out the commands in the boat. Rather than barking out commands, it's more like Lloyd Bridges's Izzy Mandlebaum, without calling us Daffodil. He'll call out a Power 20 -- basically, 20 hard strokes -- and the boat barely changes speed.
Tony is a chubby, flustered-looking guy who works -- or, before the recession - worked as an architect for a chain of fitness centers, ironically.
I'm 49 and no gift to rowing, i can assure you; my technique seems to attract plenty of free, unsolicited coaching on the river. So, we're quite a quartet.
This morning, I got to the boathouse early and Paul was there. The topic was the economy. Did I hear that Tony was going to lose his job? Or that Ken had to sell the family business, cutting 75 jobs? Paul himself was getting less consulting work. Even the part-time gig he had had dried up: seems he knows an undertaker who would hire him occasionally to act as a pallbearer for funerals. Who knew you could get paid for that? "It's mostly people who have no family or are so old their family and friends can't carry the casket. But they haven't called in about six months," Paul said. "I think he's getting family members to do it instead."
So, with that cloud hanging over us and Tony and Ken now present, we got in the boat.
Now, Paul's a heavyset guy and has had some heart work in the past year; Ken is spry but likes to party. Tony is practically moribund. And today the humidity was stifling. Paul said: "Take it easy on us, Ken." To which Ken replied: "Easy up and easy down."
Needless to say, we didn't spring off the dock.
I sit in the bow, or the front of the boat, so my job is to look where we're going and call out adjustments when need — directing them to pull harder with the "port" oar or "starboard" oar.
But going under one of the first bridges, i tried to give some more room to another boat and nearly ran us into the massive stone bridge abutment. I barked out a command of "way enough," which is rower-speak for "STOP!!!!!!"
They were kind enough not to say anything and we started up again, this time headed away from the abutment.
As I mentioned, the humidity was brutal, so i worried that any stroke could be someone's last.
At the turnaround point, we stopped for water. Ken made a comment about being an old man, rowing at 67. Paul stated his age, and I said, "Hey, i'm turning 50 this year." To my surprise, Tony said he was also turning 50, and it turned out we were a month apart in age -- one of those instances where you say, "I cannot be that old."
Heading downriver, my primary job was to keep us from running into a tree that had washed downriver in a big rain and was now lodged in the middle of the river. We successfully passed it, but were passed in the process by a women's 8. At that, Ken yelled out, "Let's go after them!" and called for a Power 20. I've been in boats where that command sends the boat lurching, as four able bodies yank on the oars and get the boat moving. But, like Izzy Mandlebaum, the boat barely changed pace. We never caught the women's 8.
Coming into the boathouse, I miscalculated again, and we nearly passed the dock, slowly, barely moving, but nonetheless too far away to grab hold of the wooden dock. Luckily, a coach was on the dock and he grabbed one of our oars and successfully brought us in.
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