Students Challenge the River: College of Marin Program Goes Rafting
Marin Independent Journal
By Carl Kotala, July 16, 1995
COLOMA - Nearly six hours after he admitted feeling apprehensive about going white water rafting down the American River, Robert Fordham sat at the top of the hill overlooking the end of the 15 mile course.
A red bandanna peaked out from the middle of Fordham’s white visor, as the 36 year old Corte Madera man leaned slightly to the left in his wheelchair.
“I don’t want to go home,” he said. “Most fun I’ve ever had...since I was paralyzed.”
Several hundred feet away, Joan Tollefson of Kentfield stood, cane in hand, with a smile that looked like it would never fade. Retinitis Pigmentosa may have taken the 60 year old’s sight, but her sense of adventure is contagious. One trip down the river, and she was hooked.
“I think this is like a kid going to a carnival, except I wouldn’t go to a carnival on a bet,” she said. “I’d sure do this anytime.”
Fordham and Tollefson were two of 16 students from the College of Marin’s Adaptive Physical Education program to challenge the South Fork of the American River Gorge Friday. Afflictions didn’t matter on this day. It was a time to celebrate life and nature.
“A friend of mine who is a (quadriplegic) told me, ‘I don’t worry about death. There’s not much worse. Life is just one thing to live and enjoy, and don’t worry about what you can’t worry about,’” said 51 year old Jon Niggeman of Kentfield during a lunch break.
“The river’s great. I don’t worry about it. Life’s too short to worry. Niggeman has multiple sclerosis and can only move from the neck up.
He was one of four wheelchair-bound people who arrived at the Rivers Bend Resort in a convoy of five vans.
Niggeman, using the only motorized unit, shifted gears with his chin. When it came time to get in the raft, Niggeman was helped by one of the 14 assistants from the College of Marin, and by one of the boatman from Outdoor Adventure River Specialists, the company that guided the students down the river in nine boats.
Time to Get Wet
The guides paddled through the Class III rapids with big oars. The students simply wore their life jackets and experienced the thrills and chills.
“It’s been great so far,” Niggeman said. “They say it will get more rough. That’s what we need.”
“We came up to get wet, let’s get wet.”
As the lunch scene unfolded, Richard Smith-Allen of Kentfield bounced around the group taking as many pictures as possible.
This trip was Smith-Allen’s baby, in essence, part of an assignment from a course he was taking through the Landmark Education Corporation in San Francisco.
“In the course, each person takes on a project, a project that is bigger than you would normally step into, and doing the project in a community that means a lot to you,” Smith-Allen said.
“A community could be your friends, could be your family...I never thought this community meant that much to me.”
“This wasn’t the first thought that came into my mind. A week went by, another week went by, and then this just really came out there.”
Smith-Allen’s wife, Sharon, has had Parkinson’s Disease for the past 15 years, but that hasn’t stopped the couple from going on many rafting trips with their son, Joshua.
“I wanted to give something back to the people there, the friends Sharon has, and the people she spends time with, as well as the course itself. Those two came together.”
School Chips In
Working with Jessica Nathans, a teacher at College of Marin, and Diana Scranton, an assistant, Smith-Allen began putting the wheels in motion. Finding the right company to book the trip with was essential.
“I contacted one row company, and they were OK, but they didn’t seem like they could really do it,” Smith-Allen said. “The minute I contacted O.A.R.S., there was no reservation, no hesitation about being able to handle the group.”
After months of putting the plan together, the day finally came. The start didn’t come off quite as planned. One of the vans suffered a flat tire, and the group arrived at the Rivers Bend Resort an hour late. Releases had to be signed, medication put in a strong box to be taken on the rafts, and there was plenty of sunblock to be spread around.
“It should be fun,” said John Martin, 21, of Novato. Martin has been in the news quite a bit lately, after being hit from behind by a car Feb. 2 as he was crossing the Manuel T. Freitas Parkway. He lay in a coma for 12 days and was actually taken off life support systems before making an amazing recovery. He has been attending the College of Marin program since March, and said doctors have declared that he is no longer legally disabled. He’s even ready to go back to work. Tollefson, who had rafted down the Stanislaus River once before, was a picture of eagerness with a touch of trepidation.
Thanks for the Update
It probably has to do with a friend of mine from Auburn, who kept calling me the last few weeks and updating me on all the incidents and accidents on the river,” she said with a laugh. “That’s all I need. I said yesterday, ‘Do not call me again.’”
Then there was Marty Springman, a friend of Smith-Allen’s who came along for the thrill.
“In your life, everyone has a list of things they want to do,” she said. “This is on my list.”
Total number of rafters: 34.
Level of anticipation: High.
“We’re going to have a great time. I can tell already,” tour guide Frank Wohlfahrt said. Roy Robey, a 12 year veteran guide, said trips like these are his favorite, “because of these people. They appreciate it. They appreciate it more than anything. It doesn’t matter what I do, it makes them happy. It’s really nice. Especially when you can see someone’s thoughts of doubt turn into sheer joy.”
Fordham was paralyzed from the fourth vertebra down following a motorcycle accident 14 years ago. When he was asked if he had any original doubts about making the trip, he said: “I did, because I’m disabled. Unless you’re paralyzed, you don’t know what it’s like. So I was a little leery about that. But I couldn’t refuse the offer. They might not have all left the Lotus Point put-in with smiles on their faces, but you couldn’t miss the bevy of grins when they pulled out at the Salmon Falls Bridge.
“Fabulous,” said Bea Blum, 65, of San Anselmo, “I have half the river on me, but it was fabulous.”
Favorite Parts
Naturally, everyone had their favorite part.
“When I got so soaking wet that I didn’t care if I got wet anymore,” Fordham said.
“In a way, it was just getting to know everybody better, sticking together through the waves,” Martin said. “If somebody was having a little problem, you reached out and held on to them.”
“There was one rapid we went through, three of us went right back – we didn’t go out of the boat – but our legs and feet were sticking in the air. And we were the lead boat,” Tolefson said.
“Everybody was looking at us, and all they saw was legs and feet up in the air.”
“I’m not a religious person,” Springman said, “but I was saying, ‘Thank you God,’ for the feeling, and the nature, and the natural gift that it was.”
Tollefson, who was moved by the sounds, the peace in the vastness of space before the thunder, the rocking and the noises of the rushing water, was even joking about spending the night on the beach, then getting up the next morning and doing it again.
“If I could turn my life around, I might spend five or six of my summers – if I were a student again – being a river rafting guide,” she said. Reality, Tolefson realized, was only a ride home away.
For this moment, however, she and everyone else on the trip were at total peace. Scranton, an assistant at the College of Marin, perhaps summed it up best: “We might have to make this an annual trip,” she said.
Reprinted from Marin Independent Journal, July 16, 1995, San Rafael, California. (USA).