A life-long love affair.
#MYCHARLESRIVERSTORY BY BOB SCHLAUCH
Why do I love the Charles River? Funny you should ask. The river and I have had a long love affair, which still continues after many decades. While I visited Boston many times while I was in college, it was just a pleasant-looking body of water to pass over at the time.
It wasn't until 1973 when I came to visit a friend in Boston that the love affair began. I wanted to see more of the area and he took me out canoeing on the Charles and we paddled through the western suburbs. I never forgot how pleasant that experience was and some years later when my wife and I moved to Brookline, we began to make more use of the river. I honed my sailing skills at Community Boating and watched the Bicentennial fireworks from its shore. We canoed regularly in New England, but usually on the Charles. As the tranquility, natural beauty, and wonder of the river grew on us, we soon moved out to Needham where we bought a house on the Charles.
It has been my great privilege to awaken every morning to a view of the river for the past 44 years.
During that time my children grew up loving the river as I have and now bring their children to play and swim there as well. We watch the mists slowly rise from the water on spring and fall mornings. We are in awe watching the sunset over the river in the fall and winter. We are enchanted by the colors of the leaves in the fall reflected in the water. I took part in the inaugural Run of the Charles and returned some of the gifts the river gave me by organizing my neighborhood’s annual Charles River Cleanup. I’ve removed hundreds of pounds of trash that got into the river over the years on my own canoeing trips. My children learned to swim, fish, and skate on the river. It froze over regularly in the past, but less and less as the years passed, and now only rarely and never enough to skate on. The coyotes, foxes, deer, hawks, and a slew of smaller critters go through our backyard day and night as they benefit from the river's largesse. As I work in my garden, I see a snake swim across the river and a muskrat feeding along the edge of the bank, and a hawk looking to make a meal of either.
Perhaps most importantly, I have kayaked and canoed the river frequently all these years. A feeling of tranquility comes over me as soon as I push off from the bank and I become one with nature. Perhaps the river's greatest gift to me was in the years after my wife’s death when I would seek its solace most days. Years have passed since then and I continue to use my rope to swing out into the water in the summer, a skill my children and their friends perfected. And I look forward to watching my grandchildren do the same when they are old enough. I have faith that they will come to love the river as I have.
WHAT’S YOUR CHARLES RIVER STORY CAMPAIGN
At the beginning of the year, we asked readers the simple question: What’s Your Charles River Story? Now, we are sharing the multitude of reasons you love our river and support our work to protect and restore our watershed through a gift to Charles River Watershed Association. Want to contribute? Share your story today!
