La versión en español está después de la versión en inglés.
We bought our house in Guilford, Connecticut, in 1986. It was out in the “country” about 15 miles from New Haven where we both worked at the time. It was a great place for canoeing. Estuaries, lakes, rivers, and marshes were everywhere.
Every time San Geraldo saw someone with a canoe atop their car, he would pout and say, “They have a canoe.” So, we bought ourselves an Isuzu Trooper and then bought a brand new Mad River Canoe to match. Yes, we did color-coordinate the canoe with the car. The car was white with a tan pinstripe and a beige leather interior. The canoe was beige and tan with teak trim.
Before buying the canoe, however, we did a trial run with a metal rental canoe on the Connecticut River. Our dear friend Judyshannon was visiting and she was an avid hiker and camper, so the perfect companion for our first try. We all loved it. Click here for that canoe story.
The next year, Judy was back and we took the canoe and went camping in the Green Mountains of Vermont. Click here and here for that two-part story.
The next year, we went up to Maine where we camped and paddled up and down the Saco River with our friends Blair and Marie. Click here for that story. Sorry for all the clicks but I hope you enjoy the stories.
This all came to mind when I was looking at the first photo below of San Geraldo and Judyshannon in their version of American Gothic.
Compramos nuestra casa en Guilford, Connecticut, en 1986. Estaba en el campo, a unos 24 kilómetros de New Haven, donde ambos trabajábamos en ese momento. Era un lugar fantástico para hacer piragüismo. Había estuarios, lagos, ríos y pantanos por todas partes.
Cada vez que San Geraldo veía a alguien con una canoa encima de su coche, hacía pucheros y decía: “¡Ellos tienen una canoa!” Nos compramos un Isuzu Trooper y luego una nueva canoa Mad River. Combinamos los colores de la canoa con el coche. El coche era blanco con rayas tostadas y un interior de cuero beige. La canoa era beige y tostada con detalles de teca.
Sin embargo, antes de comprar la canoa, hicimos una prueba con una canoa de metal de alquiler en el río Connecticut. Nuestra querida amiga Judyshannon estaba de visita y era una entusiasta del senderismo y la acampada, así que fue la compañera perfecta para nuestro primer intento. A todos nos encantó. Haz clic aquí para leer la historia de la canoa.
Al año siguiente, Judy regresó y tomamos la canoa y fuimos a acampar a las Montañas Verdes de Vermont. Haz clic aquí y aquí para leer la historia en dos partes.
Al año siguiente, fuimos a Maine, donde acampamos y remamos río arriba y río abajo por el Sacco con nuestras amigas Blair y Marie. Haz clic aquí para leer la historia. Perdón por todos los clics, pero espero que disfruten las historias. Todo esto me vino a la mente cuando estaba mirando la primera imagen a continuación de San Geraldo y Judyshannon en su versión de American Gothic.
• Río Connecticut. Judyshannon y San Geraldo. Gótico americano con canoa de metal y remos de plástico.
• En el río Connecticut. Me estaba recuperando de una enfermedad neurológica de Lyme y mi cara todavía estaba parcialmente paralizada.
• Maine. En realidad no planeamos que nuestros atuendos combinaran con el Trooper y la canoa (y entre ellos).
• Blair y Jerry a punto de lanzarse.
• El capitán de nuestro barco, en el río Sacco.
• Marie, Blair, y yo (yo tenía un remo, pero en ese momento no lo usaba).
Click the thumbnails to enlarge.
Haz clic en las miniaturas para ampliar.
Now that looked like fun! So you had Lyme disease……..that must have been difficult.
Great photos!
Jim:
It was fun! Here’s the scoop on my Lyme Disease. It was pretty bad. https://movingwithmitchell.com/2020/09/24/ticked-la-garrapata/
SO BUTCH!
Debra:
That’s us. Always.
Well of course you’d color coordinate the canoe to the car! You aren’t animals!
Bob:
Exactly! They looked so good together.
I mostly remember how good Jerry smelled…when he brought us (lukewarm) coffee and donuts at the cold rainy campsite after he spent the night at a hotel 🤣🤣
Jssw:
LOL! He smelled good, he was all shiny and fresh and cleanly shaved. It’s a good thing he had coffee and donuts!
Far too energetic for me… Jx
Jon:
It was so much fun. We lived in the perfect place for it.
Boud here, didn’t plan the matching clothes, car, canoe? A likely story.
Boud, pas d’elle yeux Rhone que nous!
Boud:
On my honour, I swear the clothes were unplanned. Besides I would NEVER intentionally match with SG!
Pas d’elle yeux Rhone que nous!
Boud:
I DID pas d’elle mon Rhone que nous. You’re so clever. I love this.
Would you believe that my first thought on reading your headline was to remember the smell of that cologne?
Shows how well that particular advertising tag line worked (assuming folks are old enough to remember it)?
And your actual canoeing looked pretty good, too. 😁
Am I missing something about cologne here? Jx
Jon:
Canoe is a men’s cologne by Dana and their tagline in the ’70s was “Can you Canoe?”
I had to look it up! It seems Dana was an old Paris perfumier that “upped sticks” and moved to New York when Paris was occupied in WWII. I don’t think “Canoe” cologne was marketed over here in the UK, but I do recognise the name of their women’s parfum “Tabu”. Jx
Jon:
I’m surprised you don’t have Canoe. It’s easily found in Spain. I’ve never used it, but SG has used the antiperspirant.
Mary:
Would you believe I almost included a clip of the ad?
I don’t think you would have wanted to be in a canoe in Connecticut recently.
https://youtu.be/GCtqstF9QX8?si=p96Pgt7qAZR07Mj5
Frank:
I know. Devastating!
Check out this video from recent flooding in Connecticut. Canoe, canoe? : https://youtu.be/juFhAABsQJg?si=_vuJqPSoc2HGoRy2
My Father who was a Scientist and helped invent the Silicon chip with Silicon Valley had a woodwork creative outlet. When I was 12 and my brother was 10 he built us a 2 person canoe from wood which we used on the River Nene in Northampton, England, which was at the bottom of our garden via 2 fields. It was my passion and I loved it and I was great at it. Thanks for bringing up the memory. I still love water now but just swim and paddle board in Lac Leman. A slight upgrade… LOL.
Karen:
I never canoed until the Connecticut River. I did love it. I’m sure our canoe was much lighter weight than the grandness your father built. How cool!
My best friend always says
“ do you want some advice? Never stand up in a canoe “
finlaygray:
Useful advice.
This whole thing brought back memories of my adventures in canoeing and camping, mostly in Girl Scouts but not all. Camping in the rain is not much fun, is it? And yet sometimes, It must be done. I would have paid good money to have had any kind of motel to sleep in on my rainy camping adventures. Tents are not waterproof Well, they weren’t in the sixties and seventies, anyway.
But I love these stories and learning more about the history of you and Jerry and your life together before Spain. Such beautiful men with such lovely smiles you’ve always been.
And I will read your account of having Lyme Disease.
Ms. Moonsigh:
I went camping with friends during college summer breaks. The only times it ever rained on a camping trip for me were the two times SG and I went.
I’ve been in plenty of boats, but never a canoe or a kayak.
Kelly:
I’ve never kayaked. Rowboats, fun. But canoeing was more fun. Sailboats, with someone who knew what they were doing, amazing. (We were once in a 30-ft sailboat with someone who did not and ended up having to be towed off a sandbar.)
I thought all gays wore the same outfits for ever and ever amen!
Ron:
Uf! If I’m ready to go out and SG comes out of the bedroom wearing the same color shirt, I go and change.
I have never gotten to canoe because I had a deprived and depraved childhood. The one and only time we did something fun on our annual two-week vacation to Minnesota occurred when we visited my dad’s uncle and his family (my dad had uncles who were around his age and younger because when Grandma Goltz had children, her mother, my dad’s Grandma Weber, was still giving birth to some of ther 14 children). The uncle’s wife invited us to stay for a couple of days and she arranged for us to take her kids along to go canoeing. We get there and we’re split up into pairs and I have to be in a canoe with Daddy. The canoe rental guy hands out the paddles and there are enough for everyone except one person. Guess who didn’t get a paddle? I sat hunched over in the canoe all day with nothing to do while my dad paddled away. Poor, poor pitiful me. It remains a painful memory.
Love,
Janie
janiejunebug:
That sucks. Nothing like finally getting to “do” something you’ve wanted to do and to then only be a spectator.
I canoed quite a bit with friends when I was in my 20s. It was along the Mohawk River in Mohawk State Park in Ohio. The river was quite shallow, so if you fell out of the canoe, there was no possibility of drowning, which was fine with me.
Kirk:
Amazingly, we never flipped our canoe. I would not have been happy.
I can row a boat. Canoe?
Sorry. It’s the first thing that came to what’s left of my mind.
Walt the Fourth:
Oh, thank you. My head was full of ’em!
I have rowed boats, but never been in a canoe. My idea of camping, is a motel with doors that open into the parking lot.
David:
I’ve rowed boats, too. Easier (usually) to keep the balance. But canoes glide through the water. SG’s grandfather didn’t like to stay in hotels that had lobbies. He wanted to park his car “right outside his door.”
I really enjoyed reading this post with all of your links and photos. The title of your blog surely is apt, isn’t it? You have lived in a lot of places. My mother had lyme disease a couple of years ago. She was really really sick. All of the photos of you two smiling made me smile!
Mitch. The pairing. Can tell us the story please? Moyra in New Zealand.
Moyra:
Are you referring to the pairing of chips and dips?
Sorry! Caught by auto correct. The painting at the beginning of the post. The artist and story behind it.
Moyra:
Ohhhh! That’s a enormously famous 20th-century American painting by Grant Wood called American Gothic. Check it out here if you’re interested in more. (It IS an interesting story.)
Michael:
Mine was neurological Lyme Disease. Frightening. I was very lucky to not end up in hospital (or worse). Lyme can be awful. We lived about 20 minutes from Ground Zero.
Lyme has spread all over New England and New York State. My sister has had it, who lives in Massachusetts, as well as my brother and sister-in-law. They live in Connecticut. My brother has had it twice.
Michael:
That’s awful. Way back in 1990, it was thought you couldn’t get it a second time. My original doctor refused to test for it believing that “everybody thinks they have Lyme Disease.” I finally had it with him and found another doctor who got me in immediately to see Yale’s leader in Lyme research at the time — after devastating pain in my head and joints, and then total paralysis of my face. Our property had about a half acre of woods. SG and I were always out working in the gardens and going into the woods. No surprise I got Lyme. As is typical of us, SG was in all the same places and never got it.
It is so good that you went to a second doctor.
Michael:
Sadly, my first doctor was the only gay doctor I could find in New Haven. He turned out to be incredibly homophobic himself and he didn’t listen to his patients either. Every time I had a symptom (the flu, a sore knee), he was sure I had HIV (and I had been tested). Of course, every symptom of Lyme Disease was a symptom of HIV (as is just about anything), so for 2 weeks that’s all I heard until I finally said good-bye… and not nicely either.
Do your two have a cousin? https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2vl9pTGtRG4BW40ftyhi4KyINzZvzkHiKB1LDRtikOzt3FZ9L5I5OuL07w2X37xT7rePphwedWMRekIkCNvmCkfn3dP9ovjHB-z5-Am1EczyLgH3IRXYVdjFojC9mBw5yEF87Pykz3xA0oSFy7yPv7XkIIbDvplUzgju9rAN6pdc2g_bRpz0orFt7/s1080/1722036189544_1721943919285_1721943910353_IMG_6326.JPG
sillygirl:
I’ve been told they have A LOT of distant relations.
In June I was in Chicago and saw the original. It seemed a disappointment after all the versions I’ve seen over the years.
Urspo:
It’s such a famous painting and one I don’t think is necessary to see in person to get a full appreciation for it.
I have canoed a couple times and like it, but I have no one in my life who has any interest in doing it again with me. Sigh…
Sassybear:
We did enjoy it at the time. Sad it was so short-lived. I had never gone before going with SG.