Gordon Page stepped onto the Dragon scene in 2002 and has been off and running ever since.

The Pages moved to Virginia from Maryland when Gordon retired. He hankered after a place that was really out in the sticks, but wife Bonnie put her foot down, said 30 miles to the nearest store for a quart of milk was a bit over the top, so they compromised and found the perfect house site outside of Tappahannock where they built a beautiful home overlooking Piscataway Creek.

A jack-of-all-trades, it’s hard to name all the things Gordon has done in his life. Building inspector, pipe-fitter, navy maintenance man, are only a few of the jobs he has held over the years. He loves to solve problems and work with his hands. If we have a situation with our kayak equipment, or if any maintenance job needs to be done for FODR, such as trimming, towing, building, etc., Gordon is right there to get it done. He served on the FODR board, but after a couple of terms he said, “Meetings are not for me. I’d rather be outdoors working on the FODR properties,” and that’s generally where you’ll find him. He also serves as a volunteer at the Tappahannock Community Hospital and they love his “I can fix that” attitude when jobs come up that need innovative and willing hands.

Where Gordon is truly indispensable is in his role as co-chairman of FODR kayak trips down the Dragon. Rain or shine, high water or low, hot weather or cold, he is always there and tending to every detail. It’s no fuss, no muss with Gordon. I call or e-mail him and say, “Paddle trip. Thursday. 9 a.m. Food Lion.” He replies, “OK, I’ll be there.” Last spring, when I was unable to run any of the trips, it was hard to tell there was even a blip in the schedule. Gordon took over the bookings, transporting kayaks, rounding up helpers, and leading trip after trip down the river without a hitch. He did such a perfect job I was afraid I’d lose my position as head paddle master!

But dark clouds loomed on the horizon! In late May I had recovered from a series of surgeries enough that I could paddle again, so Gordon and I set off down the river on a bright Friday morning. Along the way, he casually mentioned he had been experiencing “a little tightness” in his chest lately and he had made an appointment the next Monday to have it checked. It’s lucky he did. During the routine stress test, the doc said, “I think we had better stop this right now because you are going to have a heart attack if we don’t.” The next morning he was in the operating room undergoing quadruple bypass heart surgery!

Scary as that whole thing was, Gordon has bounced back very quickly. He’s been plying the waters of Piscataway Creek and other rivers all this fall and feels that he is back to 100%. He’s had to give up a lot of bad eating habits (you’d never know it to look at him. He’s skinny as a rail) but Bonnie has seen to it that he stays on his diet and does all the right things to stay healthy.

That April day in 2002 when Gordon joined our organization was a mighty lucky day for us. It’s hard to imagine how we could do all those kayak trips (we ran 39 in 2006) without him and we look forward to enjoying many more years of his active involvement and his great personality. -