Early spring. Jacks needs rain. Floated the upper Jacks last weekend.

A few intrepid souls put in at the Prongs, the rest began from Buck Hollow, whose beach offered an easy launch thanks to low water. The journey was as much a hike as a float. Three days of dragging, pushing, dodging brush and paddling the long pools. Wind did not factor until the last day from Bay Creek. By then springs and tributaries helped raise the water level, not much help as we pushed and dragged across broad shallow riffles.

No matter. This 44th annual float by a crew who grew up in the Ozarks was a delightful reunion with the river, spiritual as ever, with eagles and buzzards, beaver and snakes and red-eared sliders,

remembering good friends no longer with us, sharing their river stories with sons and grandsons. It’s natural to recall the extremes: high brown water, sleet and hail, lightning, wind and cold. None of that this time. Just need rain.

But even a bad day on the river is a good day. You never portage the same river twice. And we left the river cleaner than we found it.