"Tippy canoe" revisited

"Tippecanoe and Tyler too", originally published as "Tip and Ty", was a very popular and influential campaign song of the Whig Party's colorful Log Cabin Campaign in the 1840 United States presidential election. Its lyrics sung the praises of Whig candidates William Henry Harrison (the "hero of Tippecanoe" who had engaged the Shawnee with Tenskwatawa and his brother, Tecumseh) and John Tyler, while denigrating incumbent Democrat Martin Van Buren. Most individuals familiar with American history would certainly recognize this campaign slogan, but few historians would likely remember the lesser known revisionist version of "tippy canoe" which came years later, but also involved a "tribe" of brothers.

After years of negotiation with my father, we finally convinced him that we needed a canoe for navigating some of the local rivers. He acquiesced and my brothers picked out an aluminum gem at Fernald's on the Parker River along old Route 1A. It was an immediate hit, as we took it out on the waterways to investigate some of the more remote local backwoods areas. Of course, we had to wear our life jackets and use the buddy system when we were out, because if we had "boat", safety would have to come first.

As part of our early safety training, my brothers and I figured that we needed to master our man overboard rescue techniques, so we started by throwing each other overboard. After considerable practice at this maneuver, we opted to try our hand at balancing while changing positions. Naturally, the best way to do this was done while standing on the rails at each end of the canoe. We rocked the canoe while trying to maintain our balance at either end, and as you'd imagine, we fell overboard several times doing that. What training would be complete without testing our skills righting the canoe once we turned it over? So we had to do that for awhile too. How else were we going to be prepared for these unlikely but potentially dangerous mishaps?

A patient of my father's had provided us with a lovely setting for our basic training session. In fact, she extended us an invitation to "practice" our skills anytime we wanted to come out to the lake because I think she rather enjoyed the waterfront entertainment that we provided. As for the historical reference, that's about where the similarities end. However, if you had heard about the fun we had out on the lake and what a sight it truly was, you would have wanted "Ta-come-see" us "tippy canoe" too!