Drifting, Drinking, & Drowning: The Great Alabama River Raft Race

“It’s exciting!  We’re going to be modern day Huck Finns!”

That’s what our friends Nancy and Bill said when they invited us to participate in The Great Alabama River Raft Race.  Carol and I were immediately interested. The premise was quite simple: hundreds of people would build rafts and float down the Alabama River for several miles, until someone was declared a winner, or everyone had alcohol poisoning.  It sounded like great fun. We readily agreed, and soon plans were in place to come to Montgomery. 

We arrived the night before the race, and almost immediately Bill and I began building our raft.  Using metal drums and pallets held together by bands, we constructed a 12 x 8 floating fortress.  Strength was important because it was going to hold  7 people, a barbecue grill, towels, suntan lotion, a small cooler of snacks, a large cooler of Milwaukee’s finest, and a partridge in a pear tree.  We even added a sail since no one was going to be rowing.  Forget racing - this was a party barge.  

The next day, excitement ran high with our group as we prepared to put in the water.  However, my wife was not going to be on board.  Carol, 7 months pregnant with our first child, had wisely decided not to spend all day in the blistering summer heat.  Instead, she was the designated baby sitter.  What a blessing that was.  Pregnant or not, the June sun would’ve been far worse if she was there, constantly reminding me how miserable it was.  

It took us quite a while to get in the river because the water was cluttered with hundreds of…. things.  I won’t call them rafts or boats because most of them weren’t that.  I don’t know how the majority of them were floating.  In my opinion, some of these “things” were going to be at the bottom of the river soon.  

Finally, it was our turn.  Everyone heaved, and the raft slid into the river.  It floated!   But we immediately realized that our engineering design might have some flaws, because the raft begin going upstream!  For those of you not well versed in nautical navigation, the intent is for the raft to float down stream.  But there was too much size, too much weight, and too little current. It was going to be a long day.  Of course, at the time, we didn’t give that a second thought.  Adrenaline ruled.  We had food. We had beer. We had time!  We began our river adventure.   

Forty five minutes later, our raft had barely gone 200 yards. We were  languishing in lukewarm river water with hundreds of other rafters. We didn’t care. The  beer was flowing, the grill was grilling, and we were still  caught up in the excitement of it all.  

The sun slowly baked that foolishness out of us. Another hour, another 200 yards, and this was rapidly becoming The Battan Death Float.  It didn’t dawn on me at the time, but I would’ve been better off swimming to the shore, and then walking 400 yards back to the starting line.  But the beer was still cold, so I pressed on with the group, occasionally jumping in the water to cool off.  That’s when I made a discovery: you could go underneath the raft, hang on the slats, and get some precious shade.  In fact, if you took a couple of beers down there with you, it was quite pleasant.  Being a fair-skinned red head, I chose this spot to hang out. 

Then I got bored.  It never fails.  Whenever I have a few beers, I always become restless.  To help pass the time, I decided to meet some of my fellow rafters.  Without telling anyone, I came out from under the raft, swam to the group behind us, and introduced myself.  They were so happy to see me that they offered me a beer. This pattern of behavior continued for an hour - more rafts, laughs, and drafts.  Soon, I found myself over 100 yards behind our group.  

While I was raft jumping, I didn’t realize that my friends were in full panic mode.  When repeated attempts to lure me out of the water failed, they checked underneath, and to their collective horror, found no one there.  They shouted and frantically checked everywhere.  I was gone.  There was only one logical explanation: I had drowned.  It was unthinkable.  Poor Joe, gone too soon!  They anguished over how they were going to tell my very pregnant wife that she was going to have to raise this unborn child alone.  I’d like to think some tears were shed.  Maybe they even broke into a few choruses of “Will The Circle Be Unbroken”. 

As for me, I was still socializing on the water.  By now, I was on a ski boat, cruising  the river, and listening to tunes on the radio. I was singing,  laughing, and drinking beer with all my new buddies.  Woo Hoo!  What fun!

Finally,  I thought that it might be a good idea to check back in on my old raft-mates.  The captain of the ski boat made a few long sweeps across the river and easily found them.  I began yelling and waving, and then jumped in the water.  I was sure I was going to get the same kind of greeting I’d  been getting from all the other rafters.  

I couldn’t have been more mistaken. As I swam towards them,  I saw a look of surprise and anger on their faces.  Mostly anger.  Bill and his friend Denny, began cursing loudly while throwing unopened beers at me. This wasn’t an attempt to toss me a cold one.  They were trying to hit me.  

“What did I do?,” I wondered. 

The Miller Lites continued to plop around me like depth charges.  However, soon the guys realized they were wasting perfectly good beer, and the volley stopped.  I got closer and pulled myself aboard  - The Prodigal Son had come home! Nancy and her friends were not amused, but they were relieved.  I think it was because now they wouldn’t have to explain to Carol that she was a widow.  Even so, I got plenty more head shaking from the girls and cursing from the guys.  

Everyone soon forgot about my misadventures because of the heat.  Our barge baked under a cloudless June sky.  This is what a French fry under a heat lamp must feel like.  By now, we had been on the water for several hours, and the finish line was no where in sight.  Everyone was miserable; even beer didn’t help.  We honestly began to believe that we were going to be on the river after dark.  That wasn’t an unreasonable assumption because it was late in the afternoon and we were still barely moving.   Nobody told me Huckleberry Finn went thru this  kind of crap. 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a boat pulled beside us.  A boat with a motor!  An angel with water wings!   I thought it might be a mirage until the guy behind the wheel shouted these words that I still fondly remember 43 years later. 

“Y’all need a tow?”

I was so happy that I didn’t even respond with a sarcastic comment.   

Soon we were tethered to his boat and  began moving thru the water.  In 10 minutes we traveled further than we had in a half day.  Isn’t technology wonderful?  Fifteen minutes later, we crossed the finish line, ending our part of The Great Alabama River Raft Race. 

And I lived to tell about it, although for a while, not everyone thought I had. 

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