Norm and Roger started the tradition; or, Norm did and Roger followed, Norm, the father of Rogers' bride. The premise was to start the new year with a short paddle at high noon in the matching Naugahyde-covered kayaks they had built together. The launch point was at the Foot of Main Street in Essex, Ct., onto the majestically barren Connecticut River. Starting sometime in the late 1960's, on every decent New Years Day (with necessary postponements, never cancellations,) the idea took root and became an annual imperative such as is, tradition.
We joined in the tradition sometime in the 1980's, first my brother and I, then the members of our little Oar and Paddle Club, of which Norm and Roger were original members. This was never an official, sanctioned event, but rather a tradition for people to join or not as they chose; for there were years when the wind came howling, years when only the Club's erstwhile gig Current could be dragged across the ice for a dockside boarding; years when ice hovered on a slack tide, ready to close in and trap us like Arctic explorers, albeit a few dozen feet from shore. Some years were so bitter cold that, with boots on, ones' feet could be warmed by standing in the icy waters. And some, perhaps most, of the years, it has been warm, pleasantly so, and sunny; positively, the first day unveiling..
And then, there was the year it snowed on New Years Eve.
We were launching from the State ramp in Old Saybrook by then, for strictly logistical reasons, the ramp that is a massive, five lane affair under the concrete Baldwin Bridge, that which carries I-95 across the wide Connecticut River. It is a starkly practical place, functional and well conceived, rather like the commissars would have built if pleasure boating had been permitted the proletariat. The day was warm and calm, the pavement mostly clear of the light snow from the previous eve. But the trees were white like Christmas cards, fluffed with snow that would have been perfectly framed by a window pane next to a fireplace over hot cocoa. As we launched our boats the white world felt more like winter than the air itself.
From a pure boating perspective, it was a perfect day to go rowing in reasonable boats. The temperature hovered near forty degrees, the current moderate and favorable, the wind gentle if there was wind at all. Occasional sheets of ice, crystal clear invisible in the smooth waters, bumped along our hulls to no concern or consequence. And yet, more than any of these New Years' passages on the river, more than the bitter cold or wind or ice, this day had the unmistakable, unforgiving feel of winter; it was winter, the water cold, trees covered in white snow crowding the wide river with a palpable, pressing clarity. It is winter, this is a risky venture, this is real, this is the beauty of a life's moment on the slippery edge of endless oblivion. This was not the best of our New Years' rows, but it was the perfect one.
Our course, our usual course for a casual afternoons' row, took us across the river, behind Calves Island (that precious, natural marsh made accessible with dredging spoils), then the long crossing between Ayers and Ferry Points. Here the scenery was more fiction-like than real, more the painted landscape of imagination, the white trees framing houses transformed into cartoon homes by rounded shoulders of wind driven snow. All the ground was covered too, the blacktop roads invisible from our low sitting boats. We were rowing into a new year, which could as well have been a new year of centuries ago. Across the marsh the snow-capped phragmites made a carpet of white, with little creeks opening up to the land beyond. We headed there next.
Inside the creek all the world disappeared, hidden by the invasive reeds that have overrun our indigenous marshlands. This is always a quiet passage. this marsh-creek running, quiet but for small creature noises and distant motorboats, now silenced by the wintry wrap of snow. Someone suggested a visit to a friend who lives back from the creek, a shouting visit as it turned out, with a fellow rower surprised to see us rowing on a winters' day like this.
No one ever really plans their most memorable days, they happen somewhere in the confluence of dates and destinations relevant and not. But one must always put the parts in motion to, from time to time, meet with the moments to be long held in memory's fond embrace. We returned to a toast of sparkling wine, and began the new year with many reports of good things yet to come.
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