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By Dean Norman

I got so tired of drinking too much at a party and having a hangover the next day. So when I heard about the club that went canoeing every New Year's Eve, I said Joe we have to join that club.

Puck Acuff was telling us why she and her husband were camping beside the Current River in the Missouri Ozarks on a sub-zero night Dec. 31, 1961. The Ozark Wilderness Waterways Club (OWWC) had launched about 10 canoes on the river two days ago. Many large and small springs kept the river from freezing. Here's her story:

When our toes got cold, we just hung our feet over the canoe gunnels, and let the 55 degree water warm our feet. Waterproof boots, of course. This evening we had climbed the hill behind our campsite to visit Bat Cave. Thousands of bats sleeping there. Carpeting the walls and stalactites with their furry bodies.

"Don’t hold your lanterns too close to them," our trip leader said. "If you warm the bats, they will wake up, and use up fat they need to sleep through the winter." A few bats were flying anyway. People ducked. But the bats always dodged around us. Some of us were spooked by the Halloween critters. But when we saw an albino bat, everyone thought he was cute. A teenager wanted to take him home for show and tell at school.

"You can’t keep him alive outside of this cave," his Dad said. "So the white bat slept peacefully among his buddies.

Back at the campfire we decided to celebrate the New Year about 9 p.m. Everyone was thinking about their down sleeping bag in their tent. Then we heard someone paddling down the river. Who would canoe at night in the winter? Well, it was the Old Year. We helped the old man in the long white robe land his canoe, and come to our campfire.

“Well, my time is about over,” he said. “I will have to hand my paddle over to the Baby New Year.”

Another canoe came down the river. The Baby New Year, wearing only a diaper and hiking boots, came to our campfire. He shivered a lot as the Old Year made a speech.

"It has been a pretty good year. The OWWC made a lot of good canoe trips. We wrote letters to Congressmen urging them to make the Current River a National Park. So that it will never be destroyed by a dam like so many good Ozark rivers have suffered. I hand you my paddle, 1962, and hope you can keep up the effort to preserve the Current River for future generations to enjoy."

Joe Acuff handed his paddle to Mike Naughton. Mike promised to do his best for the river and said, “Can I put on my clothes now? I’m freezing!”

The Current River became a National River protected by the National Park Service in 1964. Not long after that a National Rivers system was established to preserve free flowing rivers all across the U.S. More rivers are added to the system in most sessions of Congress.

— Dean Norman

Dean Norman is a cartoonist and humor writer, whose work has appeared in greeting cards,The New Yorker, MAD Magazine, The Cleveland Plain Dealer Sunday Magazine and The Kansas City Star. He's also written comedy for cartoon shows and written and illustrated children's books. He illustrated a cartoon book for Cleveland Metroparks, Cleveland Metroparks Adventures.