Nonagenarian Inspiration I
A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I took a quick road trip to Arkansas–seven hours there on Tuesday and seven hours back on Wednesday. Our main reasons for going were to visit her daughter and to visit and catch up with each other on the way there and back. The impetus for making the trip when we did was a banquet being held in honor of Dr. Clifton Ganus Jr., Chancellor Emeritus of Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas. Though I first heard of Dr. Ganus many years ago, I had no personal knowledge of him. I expected the banquet to be fine, but not a huge thrill for me. I was mistaken.
The program for the evening featured stories from Dr. Ganus’ Mississippi River adventures. He has led four adventures down the Mississippi. Each trip has begun in Arkansas and continued to New Orleans. Dr. Ganus has taken sons, a grandson, a nephew, and friends and their sons down the river. During the evening, Dr. Ganus and a member or two from each of the four crews told stories from each trip.
I was mesmerized for the entire evening. I learned that trips down the Mississippi in a four-man ski boat are not usual and certainly not simple. The river is unpredictable and full of hidden sandbars.
I took this photo of the “Father of Waters” in Wisconsin. The southern Mississippi is very different. For one thing, it is filled with huge barges. Dr. Ganus and one group encountered a “floating monster” with six rows of barges and nine barges in each row! They said the tugboat pushing it looked like a small hotel! Near New Orleans, the river is filled with giant ocean-going vessels loaded with sea containers. Those giant boats make giant waves that are difficult for little vessels to maneuver.
Driving a boat down the Mississippi is not like driving a car across country. For one thing, there are no service stations for ski boats. Dr. Ganus and his crews take along six five-gallon gas cans which just about fill up the floor space in their boat. Stops for gas involve walking or hitch-hiking as much as two miles to the nearest gas station. These crews must have felt like pioneers when they cooked their meals in the open and when two camped on the bank of the river while two slept in their swaying boat tied up for the night.
During the evening, I began to do the math about what age Dr. Ganus (who always sits at the steering wheel in his boat trips down the Mississippi) was when he took each of his trips. He led the first one when he was about fifty years old. In that day before cell phones, Dr. Ganus said that after Mrs. Ganus said goodbye to him at the river’s edge, she cried all the way home.
Twenty-nine years after the first trip he did it again at 79 . Nine years after that the 88-year-old Dr. Ganus led a group again. He didn’t wait so long for the next trip, just two years–what a way to celebrate your ninetieth year! When someone pointed out the shrinking number of years between each trip, Dr. Ganus noted that he doesn’t have much more time! This nonagenarian (I looked up what you call someone between 90 and 99 years old) is planning his next trip. Perhaps he can fit in a Mississippi River trip between his twice-yearly mission trips to Uganda.
In the movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, the senior Mr. Bailey tells his son George Bailey, “Maybe you were born older, George.” Dr. Clifton Ganus Jr. was not born old. He doesn’t think he ought to settle down and enjoy a quiet retirement. He keeps moving and doing instead. I loved listening to the humor of this very old gentleman who often remembered the stories of his boat adventures better than his much younger traveling companions.
I wonder what kind of parents Mr. and Mrs. Clifton Ganus Sr. were. How did they teach young Clifton to be adventurous? How did they teach him to live life to the fullest? How did he learn to have a generous and serving heart?
Like all of us, Dr. Ganus is what he believes himself to be deep down in his heart. His life is a reflection of that belief.
Watch over your heart with all diligence,
For from it flow the springs of life.
Proverbs 4:23