Tuesday morning’s Omaha World-Herald contained a story about Duane Hansen, a Nebraska man who paddled a pumpkin 37.5 miles down the Missouri River and qualified for a spot in the Guiness Book of World Records. The previous record was 25.5 miles.
The Omaha paper reported Hansen rode a hollowed-out 846-pound pumpkin from Bellevue to Nebraska City. The trip took him 11.5 hours.
Now he wants to grow a pumpkin large enough that he and his daughter can ride down the river together.
I’ve ridden some strange things and seen some strange things used as a boat but I’ve never ridden a pumkin and never thought of riding a pumpkin. I knew pumpkin skins were tough but I’m surprised the big pumpkin was tough enough to carry him down the Missouri River.
Having grown up playing in the Republican River, I respect the river but I’m not afraid of it. Being unfamiliar with the Missouri River and its currents, I suspect I would decline an offer to go for a pumpkin ride on the Big Muddy.
Now that Lovewell Lake is in its 65th year, most of the boats we see on the lake are factory made but that wasn’t true in its early years.
When the lake was new, several residents of this area tried building their own boats. Often they used what they had.
Some but not all were successful.
My father once traded for a home-made wood boat that was powered by a 60 horsepower motor taken from a Ford automobile. The boat was big and cruised at a good speed but it was slow to take off and thus not good for pulling skiers. But once underway, it had enough power to have pulled a half-dozen skiers.
I never rode on it but there was at least one pontoon type of boat made from 55-gallon oil drums. I did ride on a couple of boats made from aluminum irrigation pipe.
A friend from Belleville let me ride on what looked like a slab door. It didn’t have any seats. The operator just sat in front of the engine on the flat slab. The motor could have been adapted from a chain saw or lawn mower.
I saw one of the strange boats advertised in the classified section of the Hastings Daily Tribune. I called the seller but lost interest when I learned he had been riding it in the Platte River and had packed the water intake tubes with river sand. After learning it would take some work and peraps a motor replacement to get the craft going, I lost interest.
I didn’t see it on the lake but the proud builder once showed me pictures of an outboard powered boat he had assembled from stock tanks. He said it made a stable fishing platform.
I attracted attention at Lovewell when riding my surfboards. One style used an adapted chainsaw motor and a jet drive. For the other the rider held a sail. The motorized design did not catch on. After a few hundred were sold, manufacture stopped. The sail version proved to be popular and thousands were built by several manufacturers. Board sailing became an Olympic sport.
I once watched a group having what looked like fun with motorized, inflated boats.
In his sporting goods department, Dad stocked a fabric cover that was designed to be placed over an inflated truck inner tube. Straps hooked over the rider’s shoulders and he simply walked into the water, sat down on the canvas seat and began fishing.
I still have a boat made in Springfield, Missouri, by a former aircraft engineer. One year my father displayed it with Christmas lights and a stuffed Santa Claus. He thought it looked like Santa’s sleigh.
During the 1957 Republican River flood, teenagers living in my neighborhood climbed into a stock tank and toured the flood fields using fence posts for paddles. In more recent times, folks at Red Cloud have sponsored tank floats on the Republican River.
Pumpkin boats may not yet be popular but this year pumpkin is a food rage. Pumpkin pie has long been a favorite of mine and this year we may choose pumpkin flavored everything including drinks, ice cream, cookies and cakes. Pumpkin decorating contests are a regular fall activity. I suspect in this area more pumpkins are rasied for decorating than are raised for eating.
If we could count on having sufficient water in the Republican River, perhaps the Chamber of Commerce could build a fall festival around pumpkin races on the Republican.
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