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In this series you’ll hear stories about the health of the river, its place in our local culture and history and the wildlife and the humans who’ve made the river their home. The interviews were gathered by volunteers from the Little Miami River Watershed Network – and they were made into our radio series by WYSO producer Jason Reynolds.

The River Speaks: The Flash Flood Yacht Club

Scott Beyer canoes through the Clifton Gorge.
Courtesy of Bill McCuddy
Scott Beyer canoes through the Clifton Gorge.

Bill McCuddy talks about his life on the Little Miami River. McCuddy was raised on the river and lived in a log cabin alongside it. He’s served as a guide and worked as a conservationist, like his father before him. He’s also canoed the river with his friends countless times. He told his stories to Hope Taft of the Little Miami River Watershed Network...

Bill McCuddy: I used to have this friend named Prentice Thomas, and Prentice was a “River Rat” like me. We had this group we called the “Flash Flood Yacht Club,” and we would canoe the Little Miami every month of the year. Prentice and I had many adventures on the river, but one of my favorite ones: If you're headed down the river and you're almost to the 68 bridge, there's a great big sycamore tree that forms a Y. And there is a hole in that sycamore tree where a Great Horned Owl has lived forever and ever.

So, one day we're paddling down the river. Prentice decides that we haven't seen the Great Horned Owl, and maybe I should stand up in the canoe and look in the hole and see if they were in there.

Well, I saw these two great big yellow dinner plate looking eyes, and I just had enough time to duck before I got a face full of talons, and it came flying out. I almost fell out of the canoe.

It was exciting for sure. It was a wonderful thing. And as far as I know, that Giant Horned Owl is still there. It's been there forever and ever.

Hope Taft: Well, you're going to have to put that spot on the map. We have to have that story because it’s a wonderful story. Do you have any other memories of life on the river—from your childhood?

McCuddy: From my earliest memories, dad would take us down to the river there and turn over rocks and show us where all the crawdads and stuff lived. And that was when I was, golly, four years old, something like that. My father was really instrumental in getting the Little Miami its State and National Scenic River Status. So, Dad was a serious conservationist my whole life, and I guess I sort of got some of that by osmosis.

Taft: Thank goodness.

McCuddy: Other than that, I used to live on the Little Miami in a log cabin in Glen Helen, and it was a wonderful place, especially in the winter when it was just really quiet. You can hear the water going over the dam. I had a Lakota Indian medicine man stay with me for several weeks. And you know, we explored all around the river. He showed me a bunch of stuff. We did a sweat lodge with willow sticks that we'd taken out of the village well.

I was a Green Ranger when I lived in the cabin as well. And one of my jobs was to keep people from swimming behind the dam because we didn't want to have anybody get hurt. And a group of folks came down and they were going to swim in the dam, you know. I went down and ran them out. They came back. I ran them out again.

They came back, so up upstream on the left side of the river there, and there's an old Spring House that they built and that was full of American water snakes. And I got a pillowcase and got about five of them and took them out on the dam with these people swimming and said, “Listen, folks, I'm serious! You really got to leave because we're releasing snakes today,” and I dumped the pillowcase full of snakes in there. And I've never seen people walk on water before, but they motored right on out of there, and that was the end of them for the day.

Taft: So, let’s explore that a little bit more. How has the Little Miami changed since your first experiences?

The Flash Flood Yacht Club in the Little Miami River.
Courtesy of Bill McCuddy
Bill McCuddy between two other members of The Flash Flood Yacht Club in the Little Miami River.

McCuddy: It's gotten a lot more popular. When us guys in the Flash Flood Yacht Club were doi/ng our thing, we were pretty much the only ones on the river most of the time. Then, they put in the Jacoby Road Canoe Launch, and that brought a lot of traffic to the upper section of the river, which I think is good. I don’t see any damage from it. But yeah, I think the greatest change has been pressure from more people. So we’ve got to be careful not to love it to death like we've done so many other things.

I think my biggest lesson was when my Indian friend Selo Black Crow, came and stayed with me and taught me about what he calls Mitákuye Oyás'iŋ, which means we are all related. And I think that's the big lesson. We are. We're all related. Everything from the lowest insect to the biggest tree to us in the middle. We're all together and we all affect each other one way or another. And I think that's been my biggest takeaway.