MasterBlaster
Administrator Emeritus
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- #4,651
I took my kayaking helmet off once just before five local hoodlums in the mountains jumped a buddy and me...left it in the kayak as we walked up to them to ask directions to the next takeout point.
We survived the encounter but it could have been real bad. It was quite the shebang...I pulled a knife on the worst of them, John got a cut/busted cheek where one of them clubbed him with a river rock. We broke up paddles to make weapons to have handy in case we came up against them again at the takeout point. (there was one other guy and two girls that were part of our group...the burden of responsibility for all of a sudden being the one that folks thought was supposed to save the day laid heavy there for awhile) It was a real interesting time.
In retrospect it would have been good to leave the helmets on...lesson learned.
Local hoodlums up there. We pressed assault charges. In part of the fight I hit my guy 3 times in the groin (he was over me...I was on my back in about 8 inches of water...he had charged me, I dropped down between his legs and he ended right over me...I hit him 3 times from underwater...not real accurate because he was still in the fight but it bought me some time).
Anyway, the sheriff asked me later what I did to the guy because he was tip-toeing around when he arrested him...the sheriff also said he wished I had just killed him. I still remember the names...Richard and Kenneth McAllister. Brothers who had a "posse" that liked to beat up city guys like us on the weekends...claimed we were up there using their river and taking their women (I ain't making this up).
The sheriff said the weekend before they jumped us they had put a GA Tech student in the hospital with a fractured nose...nice guys.
I started trying to figure out how to mount a handgun inside my kayak after that but finally got over it...wouldn't have been worth killing somebody. I learned to be real careful what strangers I asked questions of. Looking back, there were signs that trouble was afoot but being young and sassy John and I ignored them. Wrong decision.