This morning I was talking to the executive director of the Cleveland Rowing Foundation about plans for the annual head race. She moved here from Buffalo, NY a couple of years ago and used to row at West Side Rowing Club. So we were talking about adding a dash event at the end of the day and she mentioned that she won the women's 8+ dash once several summers ago at Canadian Henley when she was at West Side and how competitive some of the girls on the team were. A little light bulb went off on my head and I asked her if she had ever happened to meet Claire or Amelia. She didn't know Claire (the fact that I totally butcher any attempt to spell or write Claire's last name doesn't help) but she DEFINITELY remembered Amelia! Apparently Amelia always kept the rating high and was totally convinced that visors were going to be the next big thing. And then I remembered Amelia's lobster hat that made her look like she was going on a safari with Aaron Benson. So yeah, Amelia liked visors back in the day.

In other news, I was in the 1x yesterday for a lesson and my coach has developed a new way to get people moving that also reminds me of Amelia. The last time I took a lesson from him we found a baseball bat floating in the river and recently he has taken to hitting rocks off the launch in the general direction of the boats so that people row harder. He had me do the drill where you stand up in the 1x and by the end of the summer my goal is to be able to stand and hold balance in the 1x while he hits rocks at me. Something to look forward to.