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Look for my Sac Studio Show in Sept. 20 -21. I am pleased to announce “5 Poe’s Crows” an encaustic mixed media, has been included in the MACC print show.

Tim McHargue Recently, I lost a friend, Tim Mchargue of forty years. I want to honor him here with two of hiss wonderful and humorous stories and a link to his artwork.

Bobby, the Kayak and the River Tree Trunk Part 1

My old buddy Bobby was always an unusual character. The thing about Bobby is
that he was unpredictable and prone to spontaneous pivots. Which means you never
knew what is going to happen when you spent time with Old Buddy Bobby.
First, he might want to do this. Then, like a bolt of lighting, he has an entirely
different idea of what he wants to do. None of it is ever thought out thoroughly, or the
consequences evaluated. So, long and short of it, being with Bobby is like a wild ride,
free styling, without a clue as to what or where the destination might be. God help you!
This day on the river was one of those “God help you” type of days. It started out
as a short, sweet float and ended up to be something else completely.
I had recently gotten interested in an inflatable kayak, a two-seater, and since
Bobby and I had been long-time river pals I wanted to introduce him to the serene world
of paddling and floating leisurely on the water.
It was the time of spring snow-melt run-off. The weather in mid-May was heating
up and the snow in the mountains was turning to water and filling the reservoirs,
including Folsom Lake, which supplied the American River with cold, swift river water.
The powers that be were releasing what I recall as 5000 CFS (cubic feet per second).
What I do know is that the flow was fast and furious. And, snowmelt incubating at the
bottom of the lake tended to be refrigerated, chilling the river water to a temperature of
around 40 degrees.
The day in question, I met Bobby at the end of Arden Way at a point we both
knew well, William Pond Park. I inflated the kayak with a foot pump, and we found an
inlet that seemed to be a nice quiet spot for introducing Bobby to the inimitable joys of
inflatable kayak floating.
Bobby was not dressed for the river. He had, for some reason, arrived in slacks,
dress shirt and leather wingtip dress shoes. Not sure why he wasn’t in shorts and T-shirt
but with Bobby, like I said, you never knew what to expect. You just had to roll with it,
and so we did.
He’s a large guy, a few inches over 6 feet and his waistline had expanded over
the last few years—especially after his marriage. Bulky, and a bit clumsy in his
movements. Slow, like a sloth. That was Bobby: a big guy, unpredictable and sloth-like
in his movements.
When the kayak was fully inflated, we piled in. I was used to paddling with my
wife, who took up a much smaller space than Bobby, and weighed significantly less.
Instantly I could tell that navigating with Bobby was going to require much more elbow
grease, if that phrase translated to a river setting. He did not seem inclined to paddle,

and since I was the host of the boat, I figured I’d have the full responsibility to keep us
moving along the water’s edge. No way did I want to get into that fast and furious
current. We’d, no doubt, wind up 5 miles down the river if we were swept up in the
mainstream. Best to stick close to the shoreline and out of the current.
About this time, Bobby opened a paper bag he had thrown in the kayak. It had a
couple of beers in it. He popped one of the beers open and offered me the other one. I
passed on that, not being one inclined to mix alcohol and river play. (It’s worth noting
right here that Bobby’s consumption of the beer, despite my avoidance, may have
actually positively affected the outcome of the adventure soon to be described. That’s
subject to debate, but I’m just sayin’…)
The river at William Pond Park has an impressive bridge extending across the
river to what used to be called Goethe Park in Rancho Cordova, on the other side of the
river. I had a hard time keeping us out of the current where we had embarked, which
meant we had a limited area in which to paddle. But, I knew if we passed downriver and
under the bridge and keeled sharply to the right, we would wind up in an area of the
river where there was an inlet. That would give us much more maneuverability and
gentle water in which to float. I mentioned this to Bobby, and he nodded agreement.
I started paddling around the bend and under the bridge, but I could feel the
current tugging the kayak almost as soon as I started the descent downriver.
“Bobby, grab your paddle!” I yelled at him, as the tug of current became a
tremendous force—more than I could handle by myself. He was sitting on his paddle
and was slow on the draw, and when he finally had the paddle in hand his awkward
position, slouched in the boat, made his contribution useless.
We were caught in the magnum force of the current, at 5000 CFS, and there was
absolutely nothing to be done about it, except, as they say, to go with the flow.

Someone said I can’t call my twits “tweets” as I’m not officially on Twitter. Then we saw
an exhibit in the Australian National Museum on Aboriginal Dreamtime. So I thought…at
least I can still dream. They can’t copyright dreaming, can they? I decided to send this
in lieu of another tweet of the week:

MJ/OZ DREAM

I dreamed that Michael Jackson came with us to Oz (Australia).
He joined us just to avoid all the hoopla related to the funeral and memorials in
his memory. Not quite sure how it came to be that he came to be traveling with us. I
think it was that Lynnette knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Debby, his
former wife and the mother of two of his kids. Debby passed the word on to MJ and he
wanted to get as far away as he could from LA and the Staples Center and the whole
damn celebrity and media circus. When his people approached us, we couldn’t really
say “no.” and so it came to pass that MJ came along “just for the ride.” (He loves
rides…). Besides, he’d never seen a kangaroo in the wild in real life, or a koala bear, for
that matter, and was looking to do something really different. We figured what the
hell…happy to be of service.
We talked Michael into solving the California budget crisis by throwing a
comeback concert at the Staples Center. We told him it would really help the kids if
they got the education he was denied and he liked the idea. We decided to call it the
“Resurrection Tour.” It would last three days, and on the third day…you guessed
it…he’d ascend into the heavenly spheres, assisted upward by a host of angels in a re-
creation of the proverbial “Hand of God” scene from the Sistine Chapel.
It turns out MJ had employed the services of a cute, leggy blonde guitarist from
Adelaide named Orianthi Panagaris, and she looked us up when she heard MJ was
coming to Oz. She and I hit it off around guitar playing; she gave me lessons and we
decided to take an unscheduled and clandestine trip to Tasmania to practice our licks
together. Well, wouldn’t you know, MJ took a liking to Lynnette, in my absence, and
asked her to marry him. She said no, but relented to a common-law arrangement when
he asked her to have his next baby, which they decided to name “Cantaloupe.” It was a
period of unparalleled cosmic bliss for MJ.
Michael liked the fact that Australia was nick-named “Oz” and decided to open a
regional branch of Never-Never Land in the Outback and started dressing like Peter
Pan except with a Crocodile Dundee style hat. The blond guitarist and I worked out a
duo act called “The Beauty & the Beast” and eventually moved back to Never-Never
Land where we did our show that incorporated into the act a trained juggling duckbilled
platypus.
We all lived happily ever after in Oz.

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