Montgomery Dragon Boat Race & Festival

They had food, so this is an official LITG review

By now you may have read the local news accounts of the truly excellent Montgomery Dragon Boat Race & Festival held in downtown Gump last Saturday on the banks of the Alabama River. As usual, the local news media gave you nothing but the Nine W’s (those being who, what, when, where, wayward, weak, worn, witless and wrong) so here's the real story.

They completely left out the “why,” which was to hang out by the river on a beautiful day with 7,500 of your closest friends, in peace and harmony, and race gigantic canoes under the influence of alcohol.

The event raised billions and billions of dollars for Bridge Builders Alabama and Rebuilding Together Central Alabama. So, thanks to the Dragon Boat Festival all of our problems around here are solved and we just need to hunker down while the rest of the world rides the bullet train to perpetual ruin and anarchy.

Food? Yes. There was plenty of food there, some of it very good, so this piece officially qualifies as a Lunch in the Gump review. I tried some boiled peanuts from the peanut vendor (excellent!) and also tasted some of the famous jambalaya prepared by local dentist and LSU grad Dr. Boudreaux Thibodeaux Gastineau. It is good stuff. They say he uses it instead of anesthesia sometimes. Put me down for a root canal!

Now excuse me if I break character and get serious for a couple of minutes…

If you haven't been to the riverfront lately, you should go.

I have lived in or around the Gump for a long time and I’ve been to pretty much every sort of “community event” we ever had. Broadway Under the Stars, Blue-Gray games, Community Challenge, Division II College World Series (an oxymoron? I think yes), Walk for This, Walk for That, George “Goober” Lindsey’s Celebrity Golf Tournament, Jubilee CityFest, and too many silent auctions, wine tastings, debutante balls, art shows, volleyball tournaments, book signings, parades and pub crawls to remember.

Flimp Festival. I never went to a Flimp Festival. Also I never participated in a 5K, 10K or any other K run, or even a “fun run.” How many K’s are in a “fun run?” No idea. As far as I’m concerned if a run consists of more than two or three strides it's not very much fun. The next time you see old Bidgood Bob running, if you’re packing heat, as most of us are these days, kindly shoot whomever or whatever is after me (unless it's Johnny Law, in which case hold your fire). But I digress, as always.

The Montgomery Dragon Boat Race & Festival was the most fun, best-organized community event I’ve ever been to in this town, and I can’t wait until next year. I’m telling you, that big-ass river is quite an asset for the Gump… a great place to drink beer and race gigantic canoes.

Hell, I had no idea. There’s a shady, paved walkway that runs, I don’t know, a half-mile down the riverside. And it’s paved with those rubbery sort of pavers that are easy on the feet. There are fountains and stuff for the kids to play in. The new riverboat is a big, fine riverboat, unlike that undersized dinghy of a riverboat we used to have. The permanent bathrooms at the amphitheater were kept very clean and the port-o-lets brought in by the City were… well, they were port-o-lets, and there were plenty of ‘em.

There was good food, plenty of cold beer and too many Kumbaya moments to list on a simple blog. When about 300 Montgumperians of varied sexes, races, religions, occupations and blood alcohol levels all got together in front of the stage and started doing the Zoomba Dance, well, I almost teared up. 

Well, enough about the Festival. What about the races?

Row Tide wins in photo finish.

By now everybody knows about the stirring victory by Row Tide, the team sponsored by the University of Alabama Alumni Association and the Red Elephant Club. Row Tide’s crew was mostly shyster lawyers, but there was also a lobbyist or two, several hot babes, a few recent parolees and me, Bidgood Bob, who, as you know, makes his living singing our National Anthem at cockfights.

None of the local news outlets picked up on the fact that Row Tide began the day as the #55 seed (out of 55 teams). On Saturday morning, Vegas had the odds against Row Tide at a staggering 10,000 to 1, which was not surprising given the fact that Row Tide had capsized the boat in its first practice. 

Ask any Auburn fan and he will tell you that the Red Elephant Club is not an innocent booster club but an elite, mysterious order, a sort of Crimson Templar that controls the world. They would be pretty much right about that. So it should come as no surprise that Row Tide’s diabolical team captain would hire some drunk from the marina to wake-swamp us at practice with his pontoon boat, just to drive up the betting odds (and to make sure everybody could swim).

Bama cookie and what's left of a Yellowhammer.
Nothing but the best for Row Tide.

With MCC’s Reggie McClure expertly monitoring our blood chemistry between races at the posh Row Tide tent, we paddled our way through the brackets, making the A Division Finals by the narrowest of margins. In the final, it was Row Tide against The Dominators (Maxwell Air Force Base), Nauti Krew (Montgomery Police Department), The Bravest (Montgomery Fire Rescue) and Accountants of the Caribbean (Wilson Price Barranco & Billingsley, a gang of bean counters who were, like us, wondering how in the hell they had made it that far).

Damn. Rowing against MPD, MFD, USAF and CPA? Surely we didn’t stand a chance. That was when we met our helmsman, a retired U.S. Marine Gunnery Sergeant who reminded us of that dude from Full Metal Jacket. I am talking about one rock-solid snake-eater who told every stinking member of Row Tide that we were going to win that race or he was going to plant those paddles in our asses and make us like it!!! We had no choice but to paddle like the Ghost of Coach Bryant was right there in the boat with us. Far as I know, he might have been.

So anyway, Row Tide beat the Police Department, the Fire Department and the United States Air Force. Think about that tonight when you lock your doors, put your children to bed and try to fall asleep.

On the way to the Big Trophy, we vanquished some solid teams. In addition to the aforementioned teams who supposedly keep you safe at night, here are some of the crews that rowed great (or at least have cool-sounding names):

Oar Eagle* – Montgomery Auburn Club

Episcopaddlers – St. John’s Episcopal Church

Livin’ Leviathan Loca – Montgomery Rowing Club

Whiskey River – The Alley Bar

Rowing Thunder II – Air War College

Star Oars – BB&T

Blue Dragon Warriors – MPD (pre-race favorites)

Holy Rowers – First Methodist Church
Crouching Cougars Hidden Dragon - Montgomery Adventure Boot Camp
Chix Ahoy - all-female team with a cool name

What about the also-rans? Here are some teams that didn’t fare so well:

Skid Row – Colonial Bank Board of Directors

Crack Oars – West South Boulevard Hotel & Convention Bureau

Boat Ways – Montgomery Bisexual Club
Ruh Row - China King Super Buffet
Ruh Row Raggy - Montgomery Scooby-Doo Fan Club
The Oars of Babylon - Wives of Excommunicated Former Members of the End-Time Deliverance Church of Prophecy & Rattlesnakes
Cirrhosis of the River - Bradford Health Services
The Stupid Puns – Montgomery Literary Society


* Note - Oar Eagle won the 1st Annual "Iron Paddle," beating Row Tide by a scant 3/10 of a second in the first round. Congrats to the Montgomery Auburn Club! Of course, the Row Tide strategy was to conserve energy for the long haul. Also, we stopped along the way to see if the fish were biting. That's our story and we're sticking to it. Row Tide paddle-spanked that orange bottom by a boat-length in the semifinals.