Seven Reasons Why You’re Glad You Didn’t Paddle in the ’80s

1. The last song playing in the tape deck in your Hyundai Pony on the shuttle may have been Wham’s “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.”
2. Chuck Taylors by Converse were, like, so ‘80s. “Like, oh my God, those river shoes, like, totally bitchin’.” Maybe, but they were also really bad (meaning horrible, not cooler than the word cool could describe) on slippery rocks.
3. Army surplus wool long underwear and neoprene dive suits were the best insulating layers most of us could afford.
4. It was damn near impossible to get out of a big hole in a Dancer. And if you did, the bungee cord spray skirts would blow at the absolute worst of times.
5. This Kober Extrem Allzweck, and those like it from Schlegel, were top of the line paddles. They had 90-degree offsets, aluminum shafts and weighed three-and-a-half pounds.
6. The best instructional paddling book was a cartoon. No wait, that was actually pretty cool. Thank you, William Nealy. May you rest in peace.
7. If you swam, you’d be buying a round of 
 of Pabst Blue Ribbon…At least today the paddles are lighter.

This article first appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of Rapid Magazine.

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