Who loves you baby?

In the past few days I have been talking to my friend Watson about a rafting trip that we took over twenty years ago. We have discussed the possibility of a reunion trip. I do not know if this will happen, probably not but it has sure stirred up some memories. Our week in the mountains was beyond fun but there were a few moments where I realized that God loves me and looked out for me and my friends.

The line up was Watson Sutton, Brad Pollock, Darryl Tyndall, Mike Stainback, Warren Dubose, and myself. Warren's grandmother was kind enough to let us stay in her families' cabin just outside Franklin NC. All of us had hung out a lot that summer and we were all going off to college. I know Mike was already in college but someone had to buy the beer.

Now I had never been rafting before or sense, for a reason. And I think none of the rest of the group had any rafting experience either. The smartest thing we did was to get our feet wet(insert rim shot here) on the Nantahala River. That was more like an angry creek. I could write forever how beautiful it was but that is not why I am writing.
We stopped at a store to get breakfast and found out through a conversation with the owner that he also rented rafts, first problem solved. So we tied it on the back of Brad's Toyota and off we went. Technically it was a roomy four man raft that we managed to fit six people in and two coolers of beer.
We had a ball and the only "rapid" we encountered was at the end of the trip. There was a footbridge right after the spot where you were supposed to pull off to the side. We missed that spot. Warren, Mike, and Darryl bailed out. Still laughing at the sight of Warren trying to hold a raft that was full of three guys and rain water, oh yeah, it had started raining.
Hanging from the bridge and from ropes across the river were these sticks. Well not knowing what they were for Watson, Brad and myself kept laughing. I then noticed the look of horror on the faces of the people eating at the restaurant on the river bank. I then noticed a man scaling down the river bank carrying a rope gun. Then I heard people yelling for us to grab the sticks.
I stood and grabbed the last stick, no joke. We spun around and Watson hopped out and was in knee deep water. Crisis averted.
Drying off by the restaurant, rope gun man walked up and began to cuss us out, we were still laughing. "Ride down that road about a hundred yards and see if you think it's still funny." He said. So we got in the car and drove a bit and got out. Many years ago the Army Corps of Engineers had dynamited the river and it dropped like over fifty feet, maybe farther, and there were jagged rocks at the bottom.
We stood there for a few minutes, silent. Then with the swagger that all of us had at eighteen, hell I was still seventeen at the time, someone said, "We could have made it."
Erupting in laughter we turned to go home. That was the beginning of the week.