row2k Features
Big Two-Hearted River: Hemingway Guest-Coxes the Head of the Charles
October 7, 2004
Rob Colburn

As a service to the rowing community, row2k scours the globe, bringing undiscovered and underused steerspersons into the spotlight for head racing season. This year (between stints of running with the bulls and drinking in Andalusian cafes) we thought: who better than the old man of the sea himself, Papa Hemingway? Huge thanks to the Clean Well-Lighted Boat Club for permission to quote from the tape.

On this side of the river there was no shade. The starting marshall said they would start in five minutes. They crossed to the other side, where the large buoys of the starting chute looked like white elephants.

"They look like white elephants," the coxswain said.
The three seat said they didn’t, and took another drink from a water bottle. "The marvellous thing is that it is painless," he said. "That’s how you know when it starts."
"Is it really?"

"Absolutely."


They started, and were soon going quite fast. The bridge with its railroad tracks passed over them. One of the buoys had drifted, and they passed it like an island in the stream. "Farewell to that buoy." They could hear the oarlocks from the boat ahead of them. In a moment, he would ask them to firm up the catches a little.

"The slide also rushes."
The Stroke said "Tell me about it" under his breath.
"After this turn, we hit a ten. It will take us across the river and into the trees."
"Perhaps not into the trees," the Stroke said. "Do you really want to take a ten?"
"Is it better with a ten?"
"It’s all right." They were conducting the conversation on a high plane. A line of green buoys went smacksmacksmack under the riggers. He liked the sound they made. "I will let you know when we have studied the bridge."

The Weeks Bridge stretched ahead of them. He was steering for the roof of the building beyond it, unbelievably white in the sun like the snows of Kilimanjaro. They passed another boat and felt simply grand about doing it. Cheering people set up tents on shore with movable feasts under them.
Soon the boat would be come to the big turn and the starboards would pull hard. Starboards always did the pulling. It was the way the world was made. The Turn was where you had to keep to the inside, away from the bulls’ horns or you would be gored before you even came to the market square, where the crowd was...

"Ernest," the stroke said, "there are no bulls at the Head of the Charles."
"There could be bulls, if you thought about it." He felt the lack of them and was sorry for a moment for the bulls because they were in Pamplona and not in Cambridge, Massachusetts where everyone was having a swell time. They passed the buoy with stripes on it. The official had called it the cat-in-the-hat buoy in the meeting because of the stripes and because it was not one of the buoys that looked like white elephants. It was not far to the finish line.

"I would like it fine if we sprinted now."

"We sprinted last weekend. After the police came into the diner."

"This is different."

"I suppose it is. You always say ‘it is different’ but it is often the same. Nevertheless, I will raise the rating in two."


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