Winners Never Quit, Quitters Never Win--or, Story of a Stupid Trip

By Ed Gertler

If you ever participated in competition growing up, no doubt your coach subjected you to something like the above particularly ill-advised slogan about winners and quitters. I was a victim of such brainwashing, and I suffer from its effects to this day. I offer the following example.

On Columbus Day weekend, I was destined to be in Columbus, OH, not to celebrate that controversial figure but rather to accompany my dear partner Carol to an annual family gathering called "apple butter." This is an old Appalachian tradition where the family gathers to slowly make apple butter—sort of a family reunion with a utilitarian purpose. What has this to do with paddling? Well, there was a slack day beforehand when I was free to go roam and amuse myself, preferably by paddling.

The prospects for any river paddling around Columbus this summer and fall were not so good. Ohio, like the DMV, had been suffering through months of scanty rain and all rivers were low, low, low. But about five days before our visit, the rain gods answered my prayers and filled the rivers of central Ohio. There were beautiful blue dots all over the USGS realtime map. This could be my long-sought opportunity to explore Big Darby Creek.

Why Big Darby Creek? Because it is a state protected scenic river, and conveniently located just a few miles west of Columbus. It is nationally known for its diverse mussel population. Now it certainly ain't whitewater, but I just craved for a creek, and this would do just fine.

The trouble with just a single rain event after a drought is that the water does not last very long. And all week, the flow at the indicator gauge relentlessly subsided. It was just heartbreaking. The appropriate response would have been to accept defeat and move on, but as you know, if you want something badly enough, you can rationalize a justification for anything, yes anything. And I was dead set on going creeking on my day of freedom. So here was my rationale. I said, this is central Ohio. Everything out here is dead flat. I mean, the put-in would be at Plain City. They did not name it plain for nothing. Therefore, the stream would be very flat, and no doubt slow, but that would mean it would be just one long but floatable pool. I could accept that. I mansplained this to Carol and she consented to shuttle me.

So we get to the bridge at Plain City and, to no surprise, there was absolutely no sign of current. Over 60 years of river-running experience, and I can vouch that this a bad sign, a very bad sign. But I was not interested in my experience. I wanted to paddle. At least it looked deep. We found a good place to unload in an adjacent park. I saw a burbling brook by the parking lot and said that must be a tributary. We looked at the Google, and it said that was Big Darby. I said that Google doesn't know rivers like I do. Carol's eyes rolled. And she then left me to my delusions and returned to the relative sanity of her family.

Well, it turned out that the trickle was indeed my creek, but after a short drag over moist rocks, I was off across that wonderful pool, for about 150 yards. Then came the first riffle. It was now hiking (wading) time for this voyageur. Now at this moment I could have whipped out the phone and called Carol. But quit? No way. What would my coach have said? He'd have said quitters are losers. 

Then came the next riffle and then another. Briefly there was a bit of hope. Sometime the riffles, which were often clothed in dense stands of emergent water weeds, would break into winding channels just wider than my packraft and I could breeze down the relative flumes. But they proved the exception, not the rule; also, the wonderful pools turned out to be not so wonderful. They were often shallow and often studded with rocks. What became clear was that the land of central Ohio may be flat, but it was tilting, and Darby's gradient was eating up my day and testing the integrity of the bottom of my boat. 

Now there were five bridges between my Plain City put-in and US Rte. 40 takeout, and at each I thought about that phone in my dry bag. But, winners never quit. So, on I plugged. And so it was, six and a half hours and 14.3 miles after leaving Plain City, I dragged my weary carcass up the hill to the Rte. 40 roadside, and beckoned my shuttle driver in sight of a glorious sunset.

Folks, we call episodes of adversity like this "teachable moments." And be assured I learned a valuable lesson from this experience. I learned that, uh, I learned, uh, heck I can't immediately recall, but I'm sure it will come back to me. Just you wait.