Vets prepare to take canoe trip down Suwanee

A group of aging military veterans, who set out over the years on several long distance river canoe trips in Florida, are launching a new adventure they call “The Last Paddle.”

“At our age — except for Mac, he’s a spring chicken — we won’t be able to do this again.” said 85-year-old World War II veteran Bill Logan, referring to fellow paddler 78-year-old Vernon McCullough.

About 19 years after their first canoe trip, a 214-mile paddle on the Suwanee River over 16 days from Fargo, Georgia to the Gulf of Mexico, the men are taking a scenic three-day trip of about 30 miles.

The trip, planned for mid-March — the exact dates still to be determined — will go on the Suwanee River from Live Oak to near White Spring.

“This trip is the most beautiful part,” said Logan, who lives in Cocoa. “It’s going to be a leisurely paddle.”

Logan said it has been a while since he had the 16-foot cedar strip canoe he built on the river.

Harry R. McDonald, the oldest of the group at 91, said he is ready and capable of doing the long trip and camping on sand banks along the river.

“Am I up to it now? Hell yeah,” he said.

The long paddles started about 20 years ago when Logan wanted to make the trip on the Suwanee, but did not want to do it alone. In a story in FLORIDA TODAY, he asked for people who wanted to go. At a first meeting 20 people showed up. Of those six went of the trip.

The men have forged a lasting friendship and continued taking canoe trips on several Florida rivers. As they have aged the trips have gotten shorter.

McDonald said that while he has not been practicing his paddling to get in shape for the trip, he mows his yard and rides a bicycle for exercise. He acknowledges that he is not in the same shape as when they did the last long trip almost two decades ago.

“We’ve all slowed down a lot,” he said.

The others agreed that they have changed a lot since that trip, but are confident the shorter trip will not be a problem.

“I would say that right now most of us are physical wrecks,” said Ray DiFillips, an 86-year-old Army veteran of the Korean War from Melbourne Beach. “But I believe we can manage.”

Even so, Bill Welser, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who knows some of the men through his volunteer work advocating for veterans, wants to see a few younger men on the trip. Welser, who is 65, plans to go along himself.

“It’s for safety,” he said. We want “guys that would experience the beauty of the paddle.”

The team also includes Air Force veteran Orlando Van Orman, 82, of Rockledge and Army veteran Vernon McCullough, 78, of Mims, who was not part of the original crew back in 1996.

It will likely be six of the older men and three or four others who can easily help carry and pull canoes onto the banks.

The men said the trips are a great time of laughter and camaraderie. Logan said McCullough and Van Orman in particular are the source of a lot of the laughter.

McDonald said that on the last trip, the group had paddled about three hours when they decided to take a break at a camp for a snack. A stranger came up to him and said “I bet you I know exactly how much money you have in your wallet.”

Surprised by the statement, McDonald asked the man how he would know that.

The stranger had a laugh before explaining he found McDonald’s wallet floating in the river.

The group of men listening to McDonald recount the story recently over lunch at an Indian Harbour Beach restaurant, broke out in laughter.

“It seems to me all we do is laugh,” McDonald said. “I don’t care what time it is we’re laughing.”

McDonald’s son, Harry J. McDonald, 71, the youngest of the group to have made a prior trip, said he too enjoyed the camaraderie.

“I go along,” he said. “I like the people. I listen to their stories.”