It came to me last weekend that I bought my canoe in 1992.

I drove to Old Town back then, and bought a bright red composite Penobscot model that is 16 feet, 9 inches long.

What a fine craft it has been.

We have launched it in water from Goose Rocks Beach in Kennebunkport, to the Round Pond public pier on the Pemaquid peninsula.

In terms of fresh water, it has been on the Kennebec River and many of the lakes in the Belgrade region.

And, of course, it has spent many hours on the Sandy River between New Sharon and Farmington, its home waters.

The only downside to the canoe has been putting it on the roof of the car.

Since Your Scribe has generally owned small economy autos no longer than a bath tub, it must have looked like the Queen Elizabeth atop a Chris Craft.

But I drove it around Maine with great pride.

Though I tried to listen to what the transport people at the sales office in Old Town said, I was never a whiz at strapping it tightly to the top of the vehicle.

On numerous occasions during the period when we transported it to water, passing motorists would beep and gesticulate to convey that the canoe was dangerously shifting to one side of the cartop.

But that is history.

The canoe is now permanantly perched on the river's edge, where it stays year-round.

If the hard winters of Franklin County are damaging it, there is no evidence to support that suspicion.

It still makes fine progress on the Sandy.

In the past year, erosion has claimed our launching area beside the river.

I am currently fashioning a new platform from which to put in, along a natural aperture where a small creek meets the river.

It has been a temptation to bring in a carpenter to install a wooden ramp and dock on the water.

But in our area the Sandy, believe it or not, has no docks or boat launches.

It is a "wild" river where boaters see nothing but trees and river bank.

I am proud that our big red canoe, now 14 years old, is still launched from a natural (if inconvenient) extension of the sandy bank.

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