Kids that grow up in communes or cults tend to have an inflated view of their place in the world. They are largely kept separate from the rest of the world and constantly fed the idea that they are special, or set apart. Not special individually no; but special because they are the kids of folks who believe they are living the right way while everyone else is hopelessly lost. It's a good tactic by the adults to keep the kids satiated and hopefully heading toward membership when they grow up. Sometimes this is manifested in ways that resemble today's suburb raised kid rocking Steph Curry's sneakers that thinks he is entitled to play hoops with the big boys. He was born with a silver spoon and a mom taxi, which have blinded him to the fact that life can be unfair, or God forbid hard. Sometimes the only way to teach that lesson is to knock him on his ass every time he tries to bring the ball into the lane. Or in the case of sect kids it might mean having the Coast Guard yank your Huck Finn raft off the Hudson River faster then you can say Tom Sawyer.
OK now that I have my hooks in you but before I tell this story please stop and take a look at this Google "street view" of the Hudson River.
The Hudson River at the Mid Hudson Bridge.
It's big right? In fact it's over a mile wide at this point. And it's a major shipping route north from NYC to places like Albany and beyond. Which means its full of barges like this...
So would you let your junior high kids build a raft, load it with camping gear and food, and float the whole thing down that river? For more then one day?
I know what you're screaming in your mind right now.
Hell No, Never in your wildest dreams! NO, NO, NO. Who can I punch right now? Someone needs to get fired immediately!!
I got news for you folks, they did.
My memory of the impulses behind that rafting the Hudson brain fart are a little fuzzy. I do have a picture taken in May of 1990 when I was eleven, of us after the voyage wearing faux leather Daniel Boone type shirts, probably because we were studying the history of river explores like Lewis and Clark in our "exclusive" private school. How things usually went when crazy ideas came to fruition there was that as long as our ideas were deemed beneficial to the rest of the commune, or to a sister group, or were some undeniable educational opportunity then we got the green light. Once we managed to close down the factory where all the members work for half a day to put on our own faux version of the Olympics. I'll never forget the time we talked them into letting us go protest some injustice on the steps of the capitol building in Albany. (you thought NYC was the capitol didn't you?) Or that time we spent a whole summer building a village of primitive cabins in the woods and cooking our own meals on a open fire. Not bad huh?
One thing about growing up on a large commune is that you can usually find plenty of stuff laying around to build things like tree houses, bird feeders for your Mom's birthday, or an occasional raft. And if for some reason the kids shop class area doesn't have what you need you can always raid the real wood shop, or the factory for that matter. Need something welded? Are you looking for barrels? What about a motor? No problem we've got that. Oh and here is a pond to you kids can use to build your raft and make sure it floats prior to launching it into a big ass river.
The raft itself was roughly a twenty foot square of wood that sat on the above mentioned steel barrels, which were sealed shut and provided the buoyancy necessary to keep the whole thing afloat. We had built some boxes as well to hold supplies and act as benches. And of course we had to add those long oar type things that the pioneers used to "steer" the their rafts.
If my memory serves me correctly the day of the launch came on an overcast day in early summer. The plan was to float roughly twenty miles down the river to an island were we would camp for the night. The crew consisted of the dozen or so kids that made up my age group, and our two teachers who were Sect members assigned to educate us...(or drown us). A truck brought the raft north from the commune while we followed in a van to a spot called Bristol Beach near Malden NY, for those of you following along on Google maps. We half dragged, half carried the raft down to the edge of the Hudson. Waived goodbye to the transport crew, and pushed of into the river. I am pretty sure we were wearing life jackets.
I honestly don't remember if we were on the water for ten minutes or forty. I do know it wasn't long before we were approached from the south by a white boat full of armed men. Which upon further inspection turned out to be a Coast Guard cutter out on patrol. I really don't know if someone called us in or if they just stumbled upon our craft. I do remember that they were pissed at us being out on the river on an unlicensed and non-seaworthy vessel. Needless to say we were boarded as if we were drug smugglers and towed off the river to the Coast Guard Station at Saugerties.
We were stunned, angry and emotional. How could they do this to us at the very beginning of our great adventure? Didn't they know we were Sect kids who lived above and firmly outside of the laws that didn't convenience us? What do you mean there were fat tickets that needed to be reconciled? Now I wonder why no one got arrested that day. I can just imagine what those guys told their wives when they got home that night.
If you're reaching this part of my tale and feeling a little sad I understand. But don't feel sorry for us kids back then. Instead of having to go back home with our tails between our legs as failed explorers we loaded up in the vans and headed for beautiful mountain lake to camp and lick our wounds. Such is life when you own a very nice private lake in the Catskills. Oh and we got a new teacher right after that. Even communes have to draw the line somewhere.
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