Word: downstreams
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...result of this obsession with local prerogative has been a series of haphazard, uncoordinated attempts to solve the river's problems, having little relation to the needs of either the Charles or of the other communities downstream. Because local rule is an old Massachusetts tradition (many of these towns have been incorporated and operating for over 300 years) the General Court is reluctant to remove any local authority even when a troubled natural resource is involved...
Armed with sturdy inner tubes, floppy hats, buoyant coolers full of iced beer cans, and an extra car to leave downstream for the trip back, enthusiasts simply stake out a docile stretch of river, plop themselves into the tube's cool well, and float downstream. When the afternoon is over, the tuber is sun-kissed but cool, refreshed but relaxed, with nary an aching muscle. "Tubing," says one insider, "is not tiring." Without once passing beyond the perimeter of his patched piece of commercial refuse, he has communed with nature far more intimately than the man who has played...
Even more amazing adventures can occur-like losing your way. Tubers often float too far downstream or take the wrong fork. Early this summer two women chatted away so feverishly they did not notice that the river had slowed to a swamp. Startled by the sound of cows grazing on the riverbank a few feet away, they scrambled ashore, only to find their path blocked by a gun-toting farmer...
...streams into treacherous torrents, students in particular have taken to inner-tubing with a fervor that has alarmed the local authorities. A month ago, a 16-year-old boy was tumbled out of his tube by a particularly boisterous cataract, and sometime later was found dead about ten miles downstream. Said a sheriff's deputy: "The body was horribly mutilated-as if it had been run through a meat grinder...
...Elis came within 16 seconds of breaking the downstream record for the four-mile course on Connecticut's Thames River last Saturday. The record of 19 minutes 21.4 seconds was set by Harvard in 1948. The Crimson's times have not been released, but supposedly were somewhat higher. As always however, bare statistics do not tell the whole story. The Blue crew rowed in near-perfect weather, while Harvard's race was timed under somewhat poorer conditions...