When the lake rose and the memories floated

The Tennessee Valley Authority was established in 1933 as one of President Roosevelt’s Depression-era New Deal programs, providing jobs and electricity to the rural Tennessee River Valley.

The TVA was envisioned as a federally owned electric utility. Initially that power was produced by hydroelectric generation. At its inception about 3% of the residents in the Tennessee River Valley had electricity. By the end of World War II that number had grown to 70%.

There are 49 reservoirs in the TVA system, several of them in East Tennessee where I grew up. So, needless to say recreational boating was about as common as white thread on a Singer sewing machine.

Heck, my Boy Scout troop had its own houseboat on Cherokee Lake. Our floating domicile had once been a garage for Miss Lottie May Wilson’s old Model A Ford. It measured 8 by 16 feet.

In 1961 when Miss Lottie was in her late 60s, she inherited a tidy sum from an elderly cousin who died precipitously having fallen from the rim of the Grand Canyon while on holiday there.

Lottie May took the majority of that windfall and bought herself a stunning new Lincoln Continental convertible, thus she was in need of a larger garage which she hired my father’s construction company to erect.

The old garage was hauled on an equipment trailer to the shore of Cherokee Lake where it was dragged by a backhoe onto a 12-foot by 20-foot wooden platform which my father had had built for that purpose.

The platform sat on 16 empty 55-gallon drums which had formerly contained lacquer thinner. This makeshift floatation system was gifted to Troop 91 by the fine folks at Berkline Furniture Company. This was obviously in the pre-EPA era.

We left the two swinging garage doors intact so as to be able to leave them open on sultry summer East Tennessee nights. There was a window at the opposite end which allowed for a lovely cross breeze.

We built a long table down the center of the cabin with benches on either side. The walls were lined with full length platforms which were to serve as bunks.

Of course, a ladder was built leading topside where a diving platform straddled the peak of the roof at the bow, i.e. the end with the swinging doors. Many a cannon ball was to be launched from that structure.

As a part of their flood control program TVA lake water levels are dropped substantially in the fall to allow for the spring rains which can be heavy.

Thus, the houseboat-to-be was assembled on what in the early spring was dry land, which was to become approximately 16 feet of water come mid-April.

We had attached a 20-foot-long piece of half inch stranded steel cable (which had once been a totally superfluous guywire on a light pole at the Morristown High School football stadium) to one corner of the houseboat.

The other end was u-bolted to a 55-gallon drum full of broken concrete blocks salvaged from the renovation of the Little Dutch Restaurant.

As the spring rains began, we watched as the water crept closer to our soon to be floating B.S.A. Troop 91 Summer Scout Hall. Then one Friday in early April there she was, floating free.

Within two weeks she was about 30 feet from the shore. By the first week of May she was a good 50 yards from the bank. All that spring rain from up in the Blue Ridge Mountains had given rise to the water which was cold as (insert simile of your choice here) so swimming to our new digs was not even an option.

Although Tommy Mathews did give it a try after losing a hand of Rock-Paper-Scissors to Phillip Gilmore. Tommy shucked off his clothes, waded out waist deep, ducked under and made it about 20 feet. He gasped loudly then swiftly made a U-turn and just made it back to dry land. He was the color of a grape popsicle and was shaking like a chihuahua pooping peach seeds.

What was called for was a mass transit floating troop transport. Thus, we became ship builders. And the easiest to construct, maximum cargo hauling and most stable vessel to build is the flat bottomed, square ended johnboat.

A few confiscated barn boards, a coffee can of nails and a pail of roofing tar later we were afloat for the best summer of our Boy Scout careers.

I’ve owned a whole lot of watercraft in my time from inner tubes to kayaks to live aboard sailboats to V-8 powered jetboats.

But, that barnwood, tar-sealed conveyance built by the boys of good old Troop 91 was maybe more fun than anything that followed it. At least that’s the way I recall it all these years later. I reckon some memories just age better than others.

Time And The River

My old johnboat’s long been sleeping

Out there under the shed. But I’m gonna

Clean out the spiders and the junk insider her,

And drag her to my pickup bed.

Put the tailgate down, slide her up to the cab

‘Cause I intend to deliver

That old vessel to the foot of the trestle

That runs across the French Broad River.

Gonna back her in the water where the bottom’s all gravel,

Back her in till the tailpipe bubbles.

Yank that chord on my old outboard,

Say, “Adios” to Old Man Trouble.

Cause there’s catfish needing to be frying in a skillet

On the bank when the moon appears.

I got really good deal on a Zebco reel

And a cooler full of ice cold beer.

So what do you say

We get together?

Swap a lotta stories ‘bout the good old days.

They’re calling for some real nice weather.

Tomorrow don’t come with a promise.

When’s the last time we took a whole day?

Time and the river just keep rolling,

So old buddy what do you say?