Editorials
Introducing Waterboy aka...
Posted by: Robert Town on May 31, 2010 03:43:12 PM -05:00Tulsa Finds is proud to welcome our newest member to Team Tulsa Finds. He is a wonderful story teller and a great supporter and lover of our beloved river. Read the story to learn who our newest addition to the family is...
“Just who are you?” The man seemed truly perplexed when he asked me that simple question as I unloaded a half dozen laughing passengers from my boat at 19th & Riverside back in 2002. I wasn’t too sure about this guy’s motives. The question seemed both demeaning and skeptical. I know he was surprised to see a boat unloading passengers on the Arkansas River, especially the muscle bound 18ft airboat with the giant Chevy engine I was piloting. It was a spectacle I enjoyed. I was greeted as either a genius or a destroyer of nature; a champion of the river or its defiler. Of course, all new ideas that come from unexpected sources are met with a wide array of emotions by the public, from skepticism to admiration to laughter. Mahatmas Gandhi phrased it this way, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”.
“Who do I have to be?” was my response. That question, the manner it was asked and why it was asked of me, says a lot about Tulsa and about what entrepreneurs must face.
My name is Steve Smith. Not the one who is a radio personality, or the one who practices law, nor the Dentist, Dermatologist or the landscape gardener.
I am the one that conducts canoe and kayak trips on the Arkansas River from the Keystone Dam downstream to Sand Springs and Tulsa. The one that pioneered airboat rides and patio boats on the same river. This is the Steve Smith that worked for a major oil company after college and changed career paths so many times that his resumes became novelettes. I am a native Tulsan that traversed local public schools and came out better for it. A typical Tulsan who loves the history, topography and climate of our little burg and thinks we can be better than we are.
Ideas are like gamma rays from space that bombard us continually (that’s not an original concept of mine but still a powerful analogy). Most of the rays travel right through people, but occasionally the conditions are right and one of them lands on a fertile medium. The person acts on the idea and it begins to germinate. This particular gamma ray that landed on me and that I acted on, the concept of the Arkansas River in Tulsa as a boating attraction using a type of watercraft more popularly associated with the Gulf region, was the culmination of research, life experiences and hard work. The important truth I want to impart is that I am in fact no one special.
Nor does a person need to be special to be successful. I am the son of a struggling house painter who, with the support of his wife, decided to start their own painting company back in the 1950’s. He was a man who took his family to one of our many area lakes and rivers each weekend for fishing and boating. People liked him. They trusted him. He had integrity. I used that very common perspective to see something that others couldn’t, or wouldn’t, and then acted upon it.
For three summers I transported 1000’s of people up and down this ever changing, often shallow, historically dangerous, river. I was rewarded with a plethora of inside stories from passengers whose families had a history with the river. That encouraged me to research the river even more and learn about how it got to where it is today, how it has changed and how it’s going to change. I want to share those stories and that adventure with others.
It was the most fun I have ever had. Many of my riders said the same thing. When you pilot a boat that can travel over a few inches of water, cruise over sand bars at 50mph and turn 360 degrees within its own length while creating a misty cloud that you then travel through and everyone in your boat is laughing because it defies their understanding of boats and physics; you’re doing something special and having more fun than most folks ever do. Then they gave me money too!
The motivation to commit to such a river adventure came to me in a dramatic moment while running along the old Katy railroad path one January evening in 2002 as I passed behind the Blair Mansion. The trees were bare, the air was chilled and clear. The view of the river was stunning as it reflected the orange hues of the evening sunset. I’m pretty sure Oklahoma has to be included in the best sunsets of the country due to our position along the battlefront of warm and cool air masses.
I stopped to take it all in and realized, I was totally alone in the experience. There were no other runners, no dogs, no bikes; just me and nature. I realized that the beauty of the river which I had viewed in so many different ways for so many years was being experienced by few people. Tulsa’s rush to the suburbs had spawned a new generation that grew up miles away from the original centerpiece of the city. They have been nurtured on the myths that surround it. They think it is dirty, stinky and mostly a drainage ditch of sorts full of quick sand, snakes and toxic materials. None of that is really accurate. I felt both honored and selfish to be one of the lucky ones that grew up experiencing the nature of rivers and lakes up close. I thought that I should introduce to others what I had grown up with and now took for granted.
Now, my passion for the river and its many issues and possibilities has irritated some, energized others and generally been ignored by local governmental entities. One governmental entity did at first encourage me, but after a “leadership” change, became intent on sinking my venture and did their best to do so. The idea was a success, but the boat business ceased operations in 2005. I will not give that one featherbedding bureaucratic “tumor” credit for that. Nor will I blame the benign neglect the rest of the city leadership tendered me. Do I sound bitter? I am not. They merely aggravated my errors; exposed my frailties. They did what they are comfortable doing, exerting mindless control and thereby aided my education in government operations. My real problem, like most small businessmen, was I suffered from a lack of capital and made a myriad of naïve business mistakes. But, like Billy Joel says, “mistakes are the only thing you can truly call your own.” Now, 5 years later, eyes open and armed with the conviction that I was on the right track, I am intent on rekindling that vision.
Travel with me as I try to share with you some of the legends, history, issues and personal experiences of the river that created Tulsa. I promise not to be as dry as my introduction to you may have been.