Author: pat Stith

The Life-Saving Vision

I came within a nickel of drowning in the Chattooga River.  Maybe I would have if it hadn’t been for my boys.

Bo, L, Mark and Jack Stith
Bo, L, Mark and Jack Stith

The Chattooga, which begins in Western North Carolina, near Cashiers, and runs southwest, between South Carolina and Georgia, is a National Wild and Scenic River. Some say that when the river is up Section Three is the ultimate and ideal challenge for a boater in an undecked canoe.

Back before the book and a movie of the same name, Deliverance, made the Chattooga famous, a bunch of us would to go down there on a Friday evening and camp by the river, at Earl’s Ford. Next morning we’d put our canoes in the water and paddle Section Three.

This trip was in December. The river was high, it had been raining a lot, but I had never overturned on previous trips and I had no intention of going down that day either. Way too cold for that.

The Narrows
The Narrows

But I did go down, in a place called The Narrows. The river, squeezed together, speeded up there. And the haystacks  –standing waves — got bigger. 

Brownsguides.com describes The Narrows this way:  “Canyon walls pinch the water forcing currents to the bottom of the river to reemerge as ‘wave trains’ or a series of fairly uniform standing waves coming one right after another.  The deeper the river the higher the wave trains.”

I don’t know how big they were that day, big enough to pour over the sides of my canoe and drive it under.

I was in trouble the moment I hit the water. It was so cold.  And I hadn’t put my life jacket on properly, hadn’t tightened it around my waist. My life jacket flared out over my head and I went under.

There was no possibility of swimming to the bank — there was no bank — just rock walls on either side. The only way out was down river, through The Narrows.

I was not afraid, that surprised me the most. Not afraid of dying, not afraid of drowning. And I was drowning, all I had to do was relax. And then I had a vision of my three boys.

I grabbed my life jacket, pulled it down between my legs and got my head out of the water. Between haystacks I could breath.

The next we tried to salvage a boat we found pinned against rocks. The Brother Dave, L, me. I don't remember the guy with the paddle.
The next day we tried to salvage this boat which we found pinned against some rocks. That’s Brother Dave, L, and  me. I don’t remember name of the guy with the paddle.

I had to get out of the river while I could still move. It was so, so cold. When the current ran me into a boulder near the end of The Narrows I grabbed my chance. I hauled myself out of the river and crouched there, shivering, waiting for my friends to come for me.

I was saved by a vision of the future I did not want: I did not want another man raising my sons.

Postscript: I stripped off my clothes, trying to get warmer, trying to stop shaking, and paddled the last few miles, to the take out at Highway 76, in my skivvies.

Coming Friday: SOB

 

My Teacher

 

I am indebted to Perry Morgan, my teacher. 

PERRY MORGAN, former publisher The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star
Perry Morgan.  Photo courtesy of The Virginian-Pilot where, later on, Morgan was  publisher.

Perry was editor of The Charlotte News when I went to work there full time in 1966.  He must have loved me like a son because he chastised me at what seemed like every opportunity.   When he thought I had colored outside the lines on a story, he would call me into his office and tell me to close the door.  And then he would teach me something I had not known about our craft, something I had not learned at the UNC School of Journalism and might never have learned had it not been for him. 

Here are the two wisest things he taught me.

One

If you cut someone in a story that is accurate and fair –and you gave them a chance to have their say– they will get over it.  Eventually, Morgan said, they will become a source and will help you cut someone else.

He was right:  I saw that happen again and again.

Why is that?

Clean wounds heal; dirty wounds do not.  And inaccurate, unfair stories leave dirty wounds.

Two

It doesn’t matter what you think is off the record. What counts is, what does your source think is off the record?

Morgan wasn’t talking about letting someone take back a statement they had made on the record or, in any way, giving them control of my work.

He was talking about avoiding misunderstandings.

Here’s the truth of the matter:

If you don’t have a clear understanding with your source about what was on the record and what was not, and you report something the source thinks was off the record, he or she will never forgive you. They will think you have double-crossed them, and from that day on they will harm you at every opportunity.

Morgan had a colorful way of expressing himself. One afternoon after he had spiked* a story I had written that he considered half-baked he called me into his office, sat me down, and told me:

“I’m not going to let you strangle on people in my newspaper. You can cut their heads off, but I’m not going to let you strangle on them.”

* In the old days editors had spikes on their desks and when they held up publication of a story for any reason they would stick it on the spike — they “spiked” the story.

Coming Monday: The Life-Saving Vision