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This blog post is dedicated to the life and memory of David and Anne Burnham who both passed away earlier this week. Both were close family friends. So close in fact, that David performed the service at my wedding. My beautiful wife told me that Dave would say "I married only two women in my life. Anne and you!" That is pretty impressive when you consider that David and Anne were married for 62 years!
The Willimantic River
Spring is the time to run the Willimantic river in Connecticut. Some of my favorite memories were gathering with my wife's family and friends and spending the day on this river. During one of these trips Dave Burnham joined us and unfortunately for him, he ended up as my canoeing partner with me in the bow of the canoe.
The Crash
It was fitting for Dave to be at the back of the boat. He was a natural leader and would guide our boat to the end of this wonderful river. But I did not know that I had to look out for rocks. So after a few minutes of canoeing, Dave and I went to the right of the main river and decided to explore a little channel that swung back and connected downstream.
The rock we hit was so well camouflaged that it would have made a Gecko jealous. It was lying just under the water's surface and we hit it in a way that slowly turned our canoe sideways. Once the side rim of the canoe tipped down into the river we were goners. Both of us bailed ship and water engulfed our canoe and pinned the canoe against this large rock. With the oncoming rush of water we had no chance to right the canoe or push it to the side. We couldn't even use our bailers to bail water out of the canoe because water kept rushing back inside of it. The aluminum canoe had a slight bend to it but it was not going to break.
Dave was genial and humorous. He did not make me feel bad even though he pointed out that I should have seen the rock and told him about it. To release this canoe from the rock we found a large strong branch and used it as a class one lever to inch the canoe away from the rock. It was difficult but it was also fun. The canoe was intact but had a heck of a dent from the water pushing it against that large rock.
One of the best parts about this story is that the canoe was a wedding present to my best friend and this was its maiden voyage. At least he did not name the canoe Titanic.
Thanksgiving Changes Ahead
One tradition that I noticed every Thanksgiving was Dave cutting the turkey. The pictures below show Dave's last time cutting our Thanksgiving turkey. I love how in both pictures Anne is in the background, not too far away from Dave.
May they both rest in peace together until we see them again.
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| David Burnham cutting our Thanksgiving turkey. |
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| Rest in peace Dave and Anne. |
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Here is a link to a description of the river from Paddling.net
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Above is a link to a RiverFest that is held in May to celebrate the Willimantic River.
