By the time 1972 comes around, I am nearly 27 years old, and I am coaching at Penn in the afternoons, so I have to train in the mornings in my single, in my brand new Stämpfli single, my pride and joy, the best boat made anywhere in the world, the Ferrari of racing shells, just off the plane from Switzerland.

It's darn lonely rowing on the Schuylkill River in the late mornings, but I get in some very encouraging workouts with Jodi Trinsey, Jim Castellan and especially Peter Cortez. I'd made the mistake of ordering 300cm oars from Stämpfli instead of 296s - must have thought I was stronger than I was - and I am struggling with the heavy load. Ted Nash is helping me now and again.

One of my best friends, Robby Meek, is also training this year. Robby is really tall and lanky, a sweet man - to this day 50 years later, I can report with the benefit of hindsight, I have never heard him raise his voice, ever. We are fellow Indianapolitans and fellow Hoosiers. Our parents have been friends for years. Is this a small world or what? But Robby and I only met as undergraduates at Penn.

As an oarsman, Robby is good! He's won the 1967 Pan American Coxed-Pairs title with two fellow Quakers, one with the remarkable name of Gardner Cadwalader, and the other their coxswain Jay Fuhrman. (Again from the perspective of 2022, I can report that Gardner still has his remarkable name, and it was he who designed the addition to the Penn boathouse that now accommodates women. Jay is now James and is an artist of considerable talent and repute. Robby still lives in the Indianapolis environs. I see all three when I can.)

Back to the Olympic year of 1972. Robby has teamed up with a new partner named Guy Iverson, a Wisconsin guy, tall as Robby, strong as an ox, formidable reputation, National Team experience in the coxed-pairs event in 1969, winner of the petite final, seventh in the world while rowing with a fellow from Northeastern University named Bill Miller, who will reappear in these musings and is destined to become my good friend and fellow rowing historian.

And the man I so antagonized back in 1965, the great John Hartigan, is Guy's and Robby's coxswain! This indeed seems a perfect combination. America's very best, together in a "dream team" coxed-pair. They are the talk of Boathouse Row!

Robby and I chat one day. On many mornings we are just about the only two boats on the river. They have no other pair to row with, and a good lightweight single - like me! - ought to be about as fast as a good heavyweight coxed-pair - like them! We conclude it would be a great idea to practice together.

"Let's practice together, Pete!"

"That's a great idea, Robby!"

The next day we arrive together at the Penn boathouse. John objects to our plans for shared workouts, basically saying, "NO, NO, NO, NO, NO! Absolutely NOT!! And that's final!!!" . . . but only to Robby, me being invisible and all. Robby's embarrassed, says it's a free country, tells me to come along and see how it goes. "Come on along, Pete! It's a free country. Let's see how it goes," says my good friend and fellow Quaker and fellow Indianapolitan and fellow Hoosier. John looks pissed . . . but he looks straight through me.

Our two boats practice together for a number of weeks, and though I am winning a narrow majority of the pieces, we are a good match. This one day I figure they must be doing intervals of some sort. They would suddenly accelerate with no warning to me, row like Hell for some period of time unknown to me, and then ease off to a paddle, again with no warning that I could hear. As usual, John is calling the workout as quietly as possible so I can't hear his commands, but I'm fine with that. Robby and I exchange pleasantries during the paddles. John never looks my way, but I am rowing my a** off to prove myself to Robby . . . and to John.

I know the Schuylkill like the back of my hand, so I never have to look around. I row alongside the pair, steering off its wake, following the disturbances left as Robby's starboard oar exits the water at the end of each pullthrough. Each disturbance or "puddle" is a tiny whirlpool in the muddy surface of the Schuylkill River. It's uncomfortable for me to actually place my own blade within the little whirlpools, so I lurk just outside, hoping never to get sucked in.

We are heading home now, two more straightaways before we get back to the boathouse. I am at my redline, definitely not looking around now, putting everything I've got into every stroke, relying on memory to tell me where I am on the river. We are in the middle of a hard piece. We have been rowing maybe two minutes, and, as usual, I have no idea how long it's going to last before John will have his boat ease off and prepare for the next big effort. I am keying off the pair. They are just inches off the tip of my port scull and maybe six feet ahead of me and . . .

BANG!

I've hit the bridge! Just a glancing blow with my starboard blade, thank Heaven. My brand new Stämpfli single, my pride and joy, the best boat made anywhere in the world, the Ferrari of racing shells, just off the plane from Switzerland! I've hit the bridge. The railroad bridge, a looming sinister stone monolith, Scylla to John Hartigan's Charybdis. I am stunned. I don't make mistakes like that. My life stops . . . The pair keeps going. Robby calls back from far ahead to see if I am okay. "Are you okay, Pete?" I'm not sure . . . but I wave and nod anyway.

I start to look around. Where the Hell am I? Hmm! John Hartigan, the most skillful coxswain I have ever met, a man who can thread a needle in a shell, has steered me straight into that bridge! Beelzebub! He knew I was following him, steering off him, and he ran a pick on that bridge abutment, just like we were playing basketball. Shadrack and Abednego! He must have assumed I would stop, must have counted on me eventually looking around, never figured that I would actually trust him not to endanger me or my boat. Thank Heavens my beautiful wooden boat has survived and will reappear in my life stories.

Needless to say, we never practice together again, my lightweight single and their heavyweight coxed-pair, so competitive, one to the other.

But listen to this! That coxed-pair turns out to be a prime example of one of the greatest mysteries for me in the sport of rowing . . . a mystery that would haunt me for decades. We didn't know it at the time, but they were double-butt slow! The All-Star Iverson/Meek/Hartigan turned out to be hopelessly off the pace. All that potential on paper . . . and, as my father would have said, trente-six fois merde on the water!

How could that possibly be? Good question. Another question. Did any of this actually happen? I have checked my journal and cannot find any reference to Scylla or Charybdis. Has my little pea brain made all this up? Either way, I remain invisible to John Hartigan well into our dotage.

Fast forward to 2007, almost half a lifetime later, John Hartigan comes to a rowing party at my house in La Jolla, California. We shake hands and exchange brief pleasantries. In 2018 we see each other again at a Penn Crew reunion dinner on Boathouse Row and carry on a short but genuinely warm conversation.

That represented a major item off my bucket list. Perhaps his, too. And none too soon. John has now passed away, another reminder not to put off reaching out to family and friends and telling them how much you care for and respect them. R.I.P., my fellow traveler in this sometimes mystifying world of rowing.

To be continued...