FEATHER YOUR OARS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23205, 26 November 1938, Page 16 (Supplement)

FEATHER YOUR OARS

6C POET," said Jimmie Fridte, "is a queer business." "Especially," I agreed, "horse-racing and billiards, to mention your favourite pastimes." "I mean," explained Jim, "all Bport. Consider the varieties of it —baseball, lacrosse, football, golf, horse-racing, badminton, billiards, tennis, lawn bowling, alley bowling."

"Fishing," I added, "hunting, target shooting, card playing,, archery." "Sailing," went on Jim, "rowing., canoeing, hockey, shinney, croquet, squash, quoits." "Carpet balls," I contributed, "darts, motoring, motor boating, hiking." "Ping pong," said Jim, "greyhound racing." "And fishing," I cried. "You said fishing," remarked Jim. "I just wanted to make sure," I confessed.

"Now," propounded Jim, "there is the variety. But consider the vast multitudes who are interested. Think of the innnenso throngs who go to hockey, football and baseball games, over the year. Think of the armies that tread the golf links, all over the world. Picture in your mind the mobs of people in Europe, Asia, South Amorica, not to mention Ireland and England, who aro at this moment jammed sweating and eager into the grandstands and lawns of race-tracks."

"It's au awful thought," 1 confessed, "considering the state of the world and everything at this time." "Sport," declared Jim, "shows up human nature in its true character. Men will play far harder than they will work. Ask any man who playa tennis or Rugby or hockey to work as hard as that in a factory, and lie will organise a union right away. Request any old lawyer or big executive to work as hard as lie works in a fishing or hunting camp, and ho will resign." "How about boxing?" I inquired. "Ask any boxer," replied Jim. "to take it in a factory the way ho is prepared to take it in tho ring, and he' 1,1 be outraged." "I feel sorry," I said, "for men with violent tastes, like boxers and so forth. The world is getting into such a shape that all a man with violent tastes can do is join a Fascist organisation jand hopo for the worst. Big men can't get much satisfaction out of patting golf balls around a pasture." "There are some sports still sacred to big men," pointed out Jimmie. "Tug-of-war, Rugby, boxing." "Ves, but little men ride tho horses and play the tennis and fly the aeroplanes," I explained proudly. "All tho swift, light, airy modern sports." "How about rowing?" asked Jim. "That's a, big man's game, and if there was ever anything airy, swift and light, it is rowing."

"Puh," I argued. "Let me tell you," stated Jim, heatedly, "that you get a 200-pound man in a little sliver of a shell weighing 30 pounds, and you've got something. " "What have you got?" I demanded. "You've got the essenco of power," said Jim. "Human power, with tho minimum of resistance or friction. A great strong man equipped with immense light sweeps, sitting in a fragile arrow of flimsy, wood, gliding over water, able to exert his strength and weight to the utmost." "They always look silly to me," L informed him. "Where can they go? No place." ■ , "In the best sports, stated Jim, "you don't go any place." "How fast do these men go in those boats?" I inquired. . "They go like the' wind," said Jim. "In smooth water they go faster than in choppy water, in live water they go faster than in dead water. But that

makes it a rnco. Bowing is a true sporting event. It is a race between two men. Or two crows. Speed doesn't enter into it. Sometimes they will row slow for three and a-lialf miles and then start to spurt. It is who wins that matters. And that takes into account the water, the wind, and the wave."

"Do they go a milo a minute, when they spurt?" I asked. '"Good time," said Jim, "is one milo and 550 yards in seven minutes. That would be' about eight miles an hour."

"I can walk that fast," 1 Iftughed. "Where's your essence of power now?"

"Well, you get a 200-pound man going eight miles an hour, ' said Jim, "and you've got something, haven't you?" "Puh," I said. "The troublo with you," muttered Jimmie, "is you haven't the faintest understanding of sport. Sport is just fun. It is the-play of children, grown up. Artless, with 110 meaning outside itself."

"I like sport to get 1110 something or somewhere," I informed him. "Liko shooting. You'vo got ducks or deer to cat."

"Sport, in its highest form," announced Jim, "has 110 personal gain associated with it. Liko riding to hounds."

"Golf," I said, "has the advantage that, by picking your partners cautiously, you can eke out your weekly salary very nicely. I know guys that give their whole pay envelope to their wives and live off their golf."

"Horrible," said Jim, who is quite a pool shark. "Where a man," I explained, "can come from his sport with a sti'ing of fish, his wife can understand it. It is modern. It has economics in it. But where a man comes homo from a sailing trip, so sunburned he can't go to work for three days; or from riding to hounds with his ribs broken and his nose skinned so that he can't go to church on Sundays a woman has reasonable grounds for complaint. Back in the days when sport was pure sport, like fox hunting, what women thought didn't matter anyway. A guy did what he liked, and the women just stood around, swooning." "Times have changed," sighed Jim. "A man always has to justify his sport nowadays. But ns far as rowing is concerned, most oarsmen aro great big, handsome beggars, and all anybody requires of them, especially the girls, is that they keep their manly beauty. And rowing is supposed to keep them in wonderful shape, physically." "Why don't small men row in those slivers?" I demanded. "Why only great big hoofers?" . "Would you like to try it?" asked Jim.

"Pub," I replied. "On our way homo along tho Lakeshore to-night," stated Jim, "we'll pass tho rowing club. We'll drop in. I know lots of tho lads in there."

And in spite of the fact that I had forgotten the conversation, as I forget most of our conversations, when at five p.m. we were sailing along tho boulevard, Jim slowed and turned into the rowing club, set down beside the bright blue lake. "Let's cat," I protested.

"Wo won't be five minutes," said Jim, getting out. So I followed him. And it was a lot more than five minutes. The first man we met inside was an elderly gentleman who. immediately took us, into the big club room and showed us an enormous collection of shields, mugs, tankards, medals and plaquesall of which he had won, it seems, when ho was a young man. Out on the landing stage were a dozen enormous young chaps in hardly any pants at all and twice too many sweaters, and they were draped hugely about the terribly flimsy little shells that they row in. Some were singles, some doubles and one of them was a great big eight-oared boat consisting of sliding seats and complicated metal outriggers for the oars to bo fastened to, projecting far out over the water from tho fragile and narrow craft. The oars they call sculls, and they are much too clumsy and awkward for any practical use, such as fishing. In fact, the handlo itself is almost as big around

as an ordinary man's leg. We were greeted courteously by these giantsized youths, and we stood and watched them as they stepped gingerly and lithely into the shells, eight of them pushing off in the big boat, all holding their breath, and a couple of doubles and three' singles, just for a little evening practice. "Notice," I muttered to Jim behind my hand, "how awkward the big slobs ure, getting into the boats. A little man could be into his shell and off in a twinkle."

Jim said nothing, but juvt sat with that alert and pleased expression which is always expected of onlookers in tho sport world, no matter what you are really thinking. By tho time there wero only half a dozen left on tho platform, the old gentleman came and sat down with us and started telling about all the great races lie had won and all the famous oarsmen ho had defeated in his time such as Jake Gaudaur and Ned Hanlan, and he was in the middle of tho recital when ho suddenly interrupted himself — "Have you ever sat in one of them?" he shouted. Wo admitted tho negative. "It's tho greatest sensation in the world," cried tho elderly gentleman warmly, rising. "No sensation known to man equals sitting in one of those darlings and skfmming over watev. It is like that dream, where you float through spaco." Ho was busy lifting one of the lightest of them, up in his arms."

"N'ix," 1 hissed to Jim. "Throw off your coats and pants," commanded the gentleman, eagerly. "Step into this." "Come on," said Jim, springing up. "After you." • "No, no," I disagreed. "I've got holes in my socks."

"Your socks won't show," said Jim, starting to disrobe in the shelter of the shed on the landing stage. All tho massive young men lounging about smiled very friendly. And such is the power of self-respect or conscience, such is tho horrible spirit of sport, that a man is a fool ever to

Short Story By GREGORY CLARK

Illustrated, by James Frise

set foot in a field of sport other than his own. I rose and discreetly disrobed down to my shorts and undershirt. "Show us," murmured Jim, low. "how a little man twinkles into ono of these things." Alas, the power of challenge. The elderly gentleman held the shell by its near outrigger and said, "aisy, aisy." 1 stepped in and felt the frail creation hum as if I had touched a guitar string. "Aisy, aisy," wheedled the gentleman, inserting the near oar and shoving mo gently off. I took tho sculls by their much too thick handles.

"Now," called tho gentleman, "feather your oars." If you think of feathers, don't you think of wings? Of birds flying? Of course you do. Anybody does, So I shoved low and hoisted tho blades of tho oars into tho air.

Without effort, as effortlessly as a mud turtle slides off a log, the absurd craft in which I was sitting simply rolled. I lowered tho right oar violently to balance. So she rolled the other way. I lowered tho left oar and dug deep with it, to right the silly thing. From the landing stage camo roars and yells about feathering and pulling and heaven knows what other strange nautical terms. But tho shell just went right on rolling over and gavo a loud gurglo and sank. Tho water was weedy. Jim held an oar out to me and drew mo ashore. All tho young fellows had gone inside tho boathouse, and the elderly gentleman was explaining at tho top of his lungs that you slido tho oar along tho surface, between each stroke, 011 its back; as it were, this being called feathering. And the oar, so slid, keeps you upright'. Or else. . . . Jim decided that it would not be wise, after my ducking, to keep me waiting around while he tried the shell, so ho would come back some other evening. So they did my underwear up in newspaper and wo drovo on home, me without any underwear on.