He was an affable little brute, impractical but comic and good to have with me, philosophical under scolding and the occasional sleepy kicks he got when he wriggled too much in the bottom of the sleeping bag at night. In a few days he had developed more than in weeks in town, giving up his abject station at my heels to run about the woods on our shore excursions, learning to evade the cold by staying in the tent or by hugging the fire, sitting like a figurehead on the food box in the bow as we slid down the river in the long bright afternoons.
Goodbye to a River, p. 82.
We have brought plenty of affable brutes along, and they have all been good to have. Everyone knows a canoe looks better with a dog in it.
There's nothing impractical about Floyd though. He is RRCC through and through. He has swum more river miles than most of you have paddled and had a better attitude doing it. He stops eating a week before each trip when the gear starts coming out. Around the campfire, when Rob threatens to slit his throat for not looking him in the eye, or when we discuss the plans for his river burial right there in front of him where he can hear, he never says a word. He also never complains about how many miles to the next bridge or about dinner being served after midnight. And he would never, ever, question the choice of a campsite next to a beautiful waterfall just because it was "too snakey." That's why Floyd is in the Top 10 and gets a 3/5 vote in all elections.
(Floyd's first trip, Fall 2005)
We would be remiss if we did not mention Floyd's predecessor as the alpha brute. Charlie's last canoe trip was the first one we took with the Big Daddy Skillet and members of what became this club. He blazed a trail down the river for Floyd.
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