NEBRASKAland Magazine is dedicated to outstanding photography and informative writing with an engaging mix of articles and photos highlighting Nebraska’s outdoor activities, parklands, wildlife, history and people.
Issue link: http://mag.outdoornebraska.gov/i/683373
JUNE 2016 • NEBRASKAland 35 my parents have kept, I know that I've spent many days on the beaches at Nha Trang Bay. I honestly have no memories of that time, but the delight in my infant eyes suggest that I may have really enjoyed it. We left Vietnam when I was 2-years- old in 1992 and transplanted by the same ocean, though the Pacific was to the west now. Out of the 5,023 miles that is the border of Vietnam, 2,140 of it is coastline. It is no coincidence that Southern California is home to the largest population of Vietnamese people in the United States. O What is it about water that makes people return? People often say things like "I miss the river" or "I miss the ocean." "We had so much fun jumping in the swimming hole by our house as kids." For many of us, our fondest memories revolve around water. We speak of it as though we feel a kinship, like a beloved, zany family member who visited every summer to play with us and show us neat things. "I spent a lot of time growing up in a canoe," said my friend Cassidy Gerdes, whose childhood home is in Columbus. Her first float memory was with her parents, little brother and dog all loaded into the canoe, and taking a trip down the Loup River from Duncan to Columbus. "I was really young. It must have been July, because I also remember my dad pushing instead of floating most of the trip." For many years on, that old, banana-yellow fiberglass canoe became a summer-time fixture. "We'd paddle across the lake to go see the neighbor kids and spend the day catching turtles or sneaking over to play on the big sand and gravel piles where the pumps were running. When it got too hot, we'd tip it over and use it as our diving platform out where the water was deep. I think all of us pretty much scratched tiny fiberglass slivers out of our butts all summer long from that thing." On average, the adult human body is made up of as much as 60 percent water. And as newborn infants, we come into the world with as much as 73 percent water in our little bodies. We're told that water molecules are highly attracted to other water molecules in high school. Perhaps our affinity to water is just pure chemistry. I asked Cassidy why she kayaks every summer, why she returns to the river every year. "Because half the blood that runs through my veins is actually river water," she said. O "The Missouri River was my first love," another friend shared. He told me in passing, three years ago while we were driving along the river's southern banks near Yankton, South Dakota, shortly after my move to Nebraska. From the passenger window, I was meeting the Missouri for the first time, an icy ribbon of sapphire, flowing east and shimmering under the cold midday sun like nobody's business in January. It was not the ocean, but it had its own allure and magic. To declare a river, or any body of water, as a "first love" – there is something profound in that. Those who grew up by water learned to love it before we ever loved another boy or girl, and for a time – before the knowledge of heartache – it provided all the excitement a young, passionate soul could ever want or need. One spring morning, I found Scott Wessel chucking stones off the truss bridge that sits at the confluence of the Niobrara and Missouri rivers. It is a handsome bridge, built with a solid wooden pathway and tall, rusting beams. After foolishly attempting to get me to eat some catfish stinkbait, he then suggested that I climb the metal beams to take pictures from the top of the bridge. It was a rhetorical suggestion, of course, and to this precarious proposal, I returned with a flippant grin. But Scott just smiled – a deep, guarded hether it's because we feel so completely at home on the water or it's some crazy river magic, you have conversations on a river that just don't happen in other places. Floating forces you to really be present with people and with your surroundings." – Cassidy Gerdes "W