Link: The Ghost Of Speedy Cannon

TIDE-HSV said:

Know it well. Would you believe I ran Town Creek once at 2500 CFS? Mind-blowing. The Blockage wasn't even there. The creek was just going over it, with a monster hole below it. We had lunch and portaged that one...

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i never got to run town creek, we usually were running the canyon if it was wet and we made the trip to alabama. i ran the south sauty (take out is in bucks pocket) right before i hung up my paddle, nothing too outrageous, but solid class 4 creeking, lots of fun and beautiful. had a buddy that ran jones creek over there once and said it was the scariest thing he'd ever done. this is a guy who had run the bear (near lafayette ga), overflow, little river falls and suicide section, plus numerous other southeast hair runs multiple times.

this is the drop right at the top of the run


and more

TIDE-HSV said:

Know it well. Would you believe I ran Town Creek once at 2500 CFS? Mind-blowing. The Blockage wasn't even there. The creek was just going over it, with a monster hole below it. We had lunch and portaged that one...

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Loved Town Creek. Ran it a couple of times in my open boat. Got to the bottom on one trip and watched a kayaker's ride turned to kindling by one of the last holes on the run.

Back to the thread. Lived in Anniston for 13 years and covered a lot of stories working for The Star. Like most places, Wellborn had plenty of fine people. But at its worst, the community's suspicion of outsiders and its potential for violence took some getting used to. One did not attend a sporting event out there or compete on a softball field or in rec league basketball against Wellborn High alums without some forethought.

An earlier post alluded to a certain shadowy Wellborn figure. If we're talking about the same guy, he was one of the state's most active and violent racists during the Civil Rights Era. After he died, and we put some of his exploits in a news obituary in The Star, his son came down to the paper with the full intention of beating all our brains out. In the end, I had to separate him and wife after they began to argue and she accused him of staying home from work to celebrate the MLK holiday. He couldn't believe she could sink that low.

We played Sand Rock a few times, it can get crazy up in dem der hills but of course it used to get crazy when we went to Howell's Cove to play Talladega County Central too so it goes both ways. I know parts of Sand Mountain was bad, but that is the case for almost every Alabama city.

I still laugh at the email the player wrote the writer of SI in that story saying Wellborn was on Sand Mountain. How could you live that close by and NOT know? I grew up in South Talladega County and the only time we played in Calhoun County was Ohatchee and we knew Wellborn was not on Sand Mountain. The hit looked dirty, but I just don't think there was intent on killing the kid. It sounds like he was another victim of head injury that was not diagnosed correctly.

Best part of the article.

“Yeah, O.K., I’ll talk to you,” he said, with what I thought was a hint of sadness. “But could it be tomorrow?” It turned out he had a bunch of friends over, and they were busy watching Auburn lose.

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TideMan09 said:

I just watched the hit again when Speedy was injured, I noticed all the Wellborn Players were wearing black helmets, and the Wellborn Player that injured Speedy wore a white helmet..I thought that was kinda odd..I guess they didn't have enough black helmets for the entire team or he was a junior varsity player, that was playing on the varsity team..I dunno..

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I don't know how true this is but in the comments section of the story it said since he suffered an earlier concussion they had some kind of "protective" helmet type of deal and that was the reason it was a different color. Not sure how true that is.

TIDE-HSV said:

I think I know which one you're talking about. The one guy without a roll didn't belong on there. Good way to get killed...

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for sure. you cant blow a roll like that.

TIDE-HSV said:

I enjoyed every time except twice. Once was the 2500 cfs run (think Ocoee normal release squeezed into a little creek bed), and the other was when we ran it on New Year's day, with 25' icicles on the walls below the put-in falls. I rolled right after lunch at the Blockage and it felt like I'd received an ice pick in each ear. I went to a diving shop and bought a neoprene hood, but, after thought, decided to give up winter kayaking...

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winter was when the best water was around i have taken off of a few rivers with a frozen skirt.

TIDE-HSV said:

I know, but, after a while, it just wasn't worth it...

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Ran Little River canyon in the canoe one sunny January wearing only a wool sweater and my jacket. When I went into the water I thought I had been electrocuted. When the sun dipped below the canyon rim, my whole body began to shut down. It made me understand how people can calmly and quietly die under the right circumstances.