The Big Red Canoe

Four of us water polo players at Stanford had our expenses assisted partly by bunking in the campus boathouse. It was more than adequate, including a glassed-in "porch” that overlooked the fake lake. For a prepared pond, it was fair sized.


At the end of November, during "Big Game" week, students built a monster wood pile to put to flame the Thursday night before the game. Of course, it needed considerable guarding to fend off U.C. Berkeley students' attempts to set it off prematurely.

Stunts back and forth were a given. The most astonishing of all during a pre-game week occurred while I was there. One pre-game week night some Berkeley-ites painted bear paw prints all the way up the ten story Hoover War Library.

I digress. This story is about a Lake date.


One superbly lovely spring afternoon, on a whim, I phoned a girl I only somewhat knew and invited her for a canoe ride.


"I’d love to," she said. She’d come to the lake, she offered, because she had a dinner date and needed to dress first. And dress she did: necklace, ear rings, and one of those funny little purses that are beautiful and don’t hold anything.


I helped her into the canoe, picked up a paddle, placed a foot on the stern, and shoved off.


As the bow of the canoe rose up, she reached for the pier, and I was alone.


I pulled her out of the water, and, amid my apologies, led her up to my room. She phoned her house. I heard her roommates squeal while my ex-canoe mate still had the phone to her ear.


Ten minutes later, three roommates arrived with a large bag full of something. I had been waiting on the canoe level, but as the three entered my room, I heard more screams and laughter. Ten minutes after that, the four came down to the canoe dock level with my ex-canoe passenger now clad in flaming red ski underwear, which she had to wear walking the quarter mile to their dorm.


I actually really was forgiven, perhaps because her roommates were so awful.