I’ve got a lot to say about Bouchercon – from the wonderful and delightful and enjoyable, from the surprisingly yummy to the great fun ranging to the frustrating and aggravating and dumfounding.

Stick around a day or so more please. I began this Monday evening, but I’m still dealing hugely with “Bouchercon hangover” that combination of exhaustion and pain from so much traveling. Everything hurts, some really nasty, and thinking is still a challenge. So I hope to write that up soon. I have a deadline with Library Journal for next week so well, I guess I HAVE to write that up soon, don’t I? Meanwhile I want to tell you a small tale.

I caught up with the papers today and found that while in some seasons I read the sports section, it goes a lot more quickly right now; post WNBA and pre-skating. I’m basically just reading the little news bits section. Today that section carried the notice of the death of Ernestine “Ernie” Bayer. It said she died at 97 and was sometimes known as the “mother of women’s rowing”. I never knew Ms. Bayer, but I owe her a debt of gratitude.

See, I was a rower. For a short splendid time, I was good at something physical. (The only other time was gym in 3d grade for a short time I was good at acrobatics. And I could dance pretty well.) One reason I was drawn initially to Laura Lippman’s books was that Tess was a serious rower. I wasn’t and I never rowed in a single scull in my life, but from my days as a summer camp kid who took a rowboat out to the lake during “free period” to my (I think) sophomore year in college, when I rowed in the women’s eight, I was a rower. And I loved it. And I was, stunning to think now, pretty damn good.

I was never any sort of jock or athlete. From childhood, I hated exercise and gym and team sports. Yuch. Not this bookworm. But I was lured. Inone of those “they couldn’t write it” situations, while walking across campus early in September, I saw a guy I had met maybe two years ago. At my sister’s college. She went to school in Ohio, and I’d met Bart while hanging out with my sister and her best friend Charlie, who was running for some student government position. Bart was Charlie’s campaign manager. This stuff mattered, possibly more back then, since campus politics was more than just campus stuff. These were all anti-war activists. And there was Bart, Connecticut College’s new crew coach. Did I like rowing, he asked? Um, wull, I guess. I mean I liked rowboats, had never canoed or kayaked. He apparently used this “walking across the lawn” recruiting technique on another Connecticut College student, the far more talented and famous (in rowing circles) Anita DeFrantz, who was snagged the same way at the same time. Anita has a Bronze Medal from the Montreal Olympics. Her being there was thanks in part to Ernie Bayer: the NY Times said “She championed inclusion of women’s rowing in the Olympics, a goal attained in 1976 at the Montreal Games, when she served on the United States Olympic Committee’s women’s rowing unit.” (I had not known until today that 1976 was the first year for women’s rowing at the Summer Games.)

I rowed for a very short time – one semester I think. I wasn’t committed enough to take on the work required during the time of the year when we didn’t actually row; working out, rowing machines (I don’t think we had them originally but we did get them), running up stadium steps to strengthen your calf muscles. I was getting involved in a social “do gooder program” that I basically set up and needed to focus on – visiting the women at the local prison. But while I rowed, wow.

Rowing at Connecticut college was not a tradition, despite its history as a women’s college, despite probably having a slew of prep school girls attending over the years. The story went that someone had donating the rowing equipment so suddenly there was crew. We had gone co-ed a very short time before and had only a handful of male students but they rocked. They especially rocked in taking on the guys from across the street at the US Coast Guard Academy who thought our long-hair weeny men were weak ass peaceniks and they were trained healthy jocks. I admit to being far too pleased when our guys ever one a race against the “coasties”. (Of course these were the same guys who played basketball against some of our guys. Heh. We weren’t exactly a sports-oriented campus. We had no mascot, no cheerleaders (thank god) and when the Coast Guard guys came to play our guys, some of the women got “dressed up’ in cut-offs and tee shirts, rouged their cheeks and tore newspaper into pompoms. I only remember one cheer: “Give me a Jay!” (it was Connecticut College, remember. If this helps, it was like 1971. Oh wow, man.)

For that semester that I was seat five in a woman’s eight, I loved the sport. I loved the feeling, I loved that I was good, I loved being out there. It’s the ultimate, or at least one of the ultimate, “team” sports. It requires everyone to be on a level; no stars, no one carries the team (no Michael Jordans, no star pitchers, no great quarterbacks whom the team relies on) in so many ways because you have to do it Together. A stronger rower may be helpful in a position in the boat, but she can’t be that much stronger than the other seven because everyone must be in unison. As completely and total together unison as possible. So the “stroke” is probably your strongest rower, but she won’t win the race.

This is Andi’s kind of sport; an athletic performance where you all rely on each other and try to match each other’s abilities. No prima donnas, NO showboaters, NO stars. And when I was good at it, well I was NEVER a good athlete, but I was a good rower, so there were skills and abilities that I did have, or that I did develop. You can’t be a physical mess, but the sort of medium strength I had (it’s so hard for me to remember that I had upper body strength!) was good enough to be able to be one of eight women who pulled a boat. The webste for US Rowing” as this list of stuff about the sport and it says in part “Rowing isn’t a great sport for athletes looking for MVP status…The athlete trying to stand out in an eight will only make the boat slower. The crew made up of individuals willing to sacrifice their personal goals for the team will be on the medal stand together. Winning teammates successfully match their desire, talent and bladework with one another.”

That’s like so cool, man. I mean isn’t it the ultimate in 60s “we are family” thinking? At any rate, it appeals to the part of me that likes ideas of community and no showing off stuff. It didn’t then – then it was simply a GREAT sport for a good but not great rower like me who could match all the other probably good but not great rowers who were rowing for the first time.

I could rave on about yes how I once caught a crab, but stayed in the boat, but I can’t really be sure anyone would be interested in rowing chat and stories. It’s probably interesting if you’ve done it, maybe watched it and boring if you haven’t an interest – like most sports. It stands out for me as a true experience of working so together, so in sync with other people and wow was that fun. It’s one of the few times in my life that I felt strong – at least physically. I never had a desire to be any sort of jock or athlete, but it felt good to know how that at least FELT for a while. It felt good to “get it” to understand why people did that stuff. It’s a sport that you can participate at almost any age or ability. The USRowing website talks about that, Ernie Bayer was rowing in her 90s. Her 90s, people.

I was a rower. When I see a young woman in a shirt that reads something like “Vassar Crew” I still stop her and ask if she rows. I still brag about being in the same boat for a short time as an Olympic rower, like that rubs off or something. I still look for my college to rank at races when I read the teeny print in the sports section of the newspaper. I was a rower – one of the most unlikely sentences anyone would expect out of my mouth, I imagine. So here’s to you Ernie Bayer. I never would have felt that way if you hadn’t fought for me.