NKL Negro Kayaking League

Oh man, what an adventure I've had this weekend!

Lately I've been thinking about my own mortality--not as much the dying part as the I'm getting old part. Watching the finale of House a few months ago didn't help. At the end of the episode they played the Louis Prima cover of Enjoy Yourself, so that's been stuck in my head all summer. It's later than you think! Enjoy yourself while you're still in the pink. The years go by as quickly as a wink. Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think. I've been trying to cram in a bunch offuture memories via new experiences. So what did I do this weekend?

I went kayaking!

That's right, you're looking at the world's first Black kayaker. It doesn't matter that I saw four other Black people out there. I didn't see them when I put my kayak in the water, so I choose to believe that they saw me from the harbor and were inspired by my courage. That makes me Jackie Robinson and they're everybody else. And now that I have integrated the sport, I'm retiring.

That shit scared the holy hell out of me. I don't do water. I've written numerous posts about it. Up until I was about ten years old, I took showers with my back to the shower head for fear of drowning if water went in my face and up my nose. Laugh if you want. I don't care. I don't do water. That's why my integration of kayaking is so significant. If I die before the year is up, please make sure they mention that part during Black History Month. Fearful of drowning, and water in general, Ordale Jackie Robinson Allen got in his kayak, The Proud Mary.

I don't know what possessed me to go kayaking. I'll blame it on The Olympics. They make everybody think they can do something that they can't. I watched that little Gabby Douglass flip off that balance beam and almost broke my damned neck trying to show my daughter how to do a cartwheel. And because she's the beneficiary on my life insurance policy, she just stood there egging me on. When you're two and haven't quite mastered the English language, Dad-dy! Dad-dy! sounds a lot like Die,Die! Die, Die!

The motivation is irrelevant. What matters is that I went down to Thompson Boat Center and before my nerves gave out I jumped in that little yellow boat and drifted down the bacteria infested waters of the Potomac. The first thing I noticed is that there's a lot of water in the Potomac River. You don't really notice it from the street, but it's almost like an ocean's worth of water. Lot of room to drown there.

Kayaks also give off an optical illusion to passersby on the street. From the vantage point near the Kennedy Center (which is where I was when I made the decision to get in one of those damned things) it looks like you sit up kinda high. I mean, I didn't expect to feel like I was in a single person clipper ship or anything, but I felt more like I was riding some lawn furniture from Cuba to Florida more than I felt like I was in a professionally crafted boat.

With that in mind, you can imagine how terrified I was when a real boat went by me with it's engine roaring (insensitive bastard) and created this huge wake that made my little refugee raft bop up and down violently. It might have been nothing to an experienced kayaker, but it was a tidal wave to me. In the raging sea, I lost someone dear to me: My chapstick. I have a waterproof case on my phone, so I decided it was a good idea to pull out the phone and turn on my Runkeeper app which has a GPS map on it. That way, in the event my kayak went Titanic on me, they'd know where to find me floating on my large piece of wood.

Eventually, my fear subsided and I started enjoying myself. At no point did I acknowledge that I was enjoying it for fear of Poseidon or whatever swamp mutant lives in (and has dominion over) the Potomac River smiting me for my hubris. I stayed out there for two hours and by the time that I ran into those other Black people that I mentioned earlier, I looked like a pro. One of them almost crashed into me and I dipped my paddle in the water and made my boat turn out of the way. The lady yelled out to me, I'm sorry. This is my first time and I don't know how to turn. Like the Olympic Kayaker that I am, I yelled back, It's okay. Eventually you'll get the hang of it. Everyone struggles their first time.