I’m Hannes Zacharias from Lenexa for High Plains Public Radio, Radio Reader’s Book Club. The book is “Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River” by Max McCoy.
As Dan Flores says “it is a Blue Highway kind of book about a swipe of America…a riverline biography”.
The book encourages me to reflect on my similar two solo kayak trips on the “Ark,” -- one in 1976, the other in 2018.
My first solo trip was from Dodge City to New Orleans fulfilling a transplanted dream from my father Dr. Carl Zacharias…fueled (I believe) by our mutual passion for adventure emanating from my Grandfather who started his ‘sea faring’ life as a stowaway on a German sailing ship, hauling cargo around the globe.
My father was taken by a July 1957 Life Magazine article about Hannes Lindemann…a German doctor who had recently completed two solo transatlantic crossings, one in a sailing dugout canoe and the second in a German 17-foot Klepper Aerius II double folding kayak. His book Alone at Sea documents the trips.
This article inspired my dad to purchase the same Klepper folding kayak, with the intent to travel by water from Dodge City to New York…down the Arkansas and Mississippi rivers, around the tip of Florida, and up the intercoastal waterway to the place of his immigration. A noteworthy solo adventure.
Dr. Lindeman, Max, and I sometimes use the term ‘solo’ to describe our journeys. This gives the wrong impression that others were not involved in our successful endeavors. Dr. Linderman’s journey (even though labeled ‘unassisted’) did encounter other sea-going vessels ready to rescue him if needed. Max, in his book, describes the assistance of Brandon Slate, Karl Gregory, and his wife Kim for a ‘raft’ of support whenever needed.
For me as well, my parents, spouse, siblings, and friends were critical in my safe river travels down to the Gulf of Mexico.
What is often not given much attention…is the outpouring of support from the kindness of strangers. In 1976, when dehydrated and hungry, I was given free food a drink from families traveling the river near Ark City… in 2018 I relied on the kindness of Rotarians to ferry me to ‘take-out’ points below La Junta…and when my kayak was stolen in Tulsa in July 1976, people volunteered their craft to have me complete my journey…what an outpouring of generosity from people who held a love of the river and adventure. The kindness of strangers has helped me sustain and complete my visions of river travel and adventure.
This is one of the things that did not change over the 42 years between my two trips down the Arkansas River. The kindness of strangers…regardless of skin color, income, personal circumstances, or political affiliation…everyone, EVERYONE, was willing to give me, literally, ‘the shirts off their backs’. They were demonstrating care and love for a complete stranger, but yet a member of the human family.
Undoubtedly, my faith in humanity has been reinforced and restored by virtue of my various river trips. A faith I hope more people can recognize and reinforce by our treatment of one another today and in the future.
From here to wherever the river takes me…this is Hannes Zacharias in Lenexa, and you are listening to the High Plains Public Radio, Reader’s Book Club.