Living legend

As the end of July 2009 ushers in the 62nd running of the Weyerhaeuser AuSable River Canoe Marathon, one legendary paddler already lays claim to his hard earned title. Al Widing Sr., 84, of Mio, is the oldest and most active participant in what some claim to be the World’s most grueling spectator sport.

As the years have passed many names have dominated the race, some for several years in a row.

Yet, Widing has lost track of the times he has been interview or written about regarding his favorite sport.

So who is this man who returns for year after year of physical punishment and mental anguish? What drives Al Widing to come back again this year at 84 years old to test skill and endurance against contestants less than one quarter his age?

Albert Widing Sr. was born and raised on a farm in the Fenton-Holly area of southern Michigan. While Widing’s father worked as an engineer at General Motors, he and his five brothers worked the family farm.

Widing’s and his wife of 62 years, Dorothy, have known each other since second grade. According to Dorothy Widing, Al was an awful bother as a child – the kid who pulled her hair and stuck her pig-tail in the inkwell. She also said he was a real lady’s man. While she recalls Al as having several girl friends during their school years, she admits filling the role as his girl friend a couple of times herself.

In 1942 Widing joined the Navy and became a gunners mate, serving his first year’s service at Point Montera, California. Assigned to the newly launched destroyer, the USS Aaron Ward (DM34), Widing took part in her shakedown cruise in the Pacific. While the Ward served as part of the picket line around Okinawa, she came under attacked by a squadron of Japanese fighter planes. The Ward’s crew fought back with everything from the ship’s five inch canons to the 20 millimeter gun that Widing was assigned to. Six of the Japanese fighters were suicide planes, deliberately flying into the ship and causing such severe damage that the ship was in great risk of sinking. Forty-eight of the three hundred crewmen were killed.

After four years of service, Widing returned home in 1946. The first thing he did was go looking for Dorothy. She was working as a nurse’s aid at St. Joseph Hospital in Flint when her mother called her at work and told her to “guess who was waiting for her” in the living room.

They were married August 15, 1946. Al and Dorothy have six children – four girls and two boys – along with 18 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

After the Navy Widing worked for a while at General Motors in machine repair and started building houses as a sideline. It wasn’t long before he found he enjoyed construction, got his builders license and went into it full time along with his sons.

Widing has had his share of close calls with injury and death. Once he fell three story’s into a basement, breaking himself up pretty good. Still, he wouldn’t let the boys call an ambulance and instead, instructed them to slide a piece of plywood under him, put him in the back of the truck and drive him to the hospital. They did.

Another time Widing, his wife and his brother-in-law were traveling out-of-state. Having stopped for a break, the three were talking behind the travel trailer when Widing leaned against the spare tire. The tire exploded in the hot sun, knocking Widing out and stopping his heart. Someone gave him CPR and by the time he finally came around, Widing refused to go the hospital. Instead he took some aspirin and continued the trip.

According to Dorothy, Widing has had too many close calls and the only reason she can give for his survival is that “God loves him”.

Al and Dorothy moved to Mio about 25 years ago and built a home on the banks of the AuSable River. He retired at age 55 and has enjoyed traveling from Alaska, through Canada and the western United States, into Mexico and Central America since then. The couple’s children are spread from Maine to Florida.

Al first started canoe racing in the 1953 AuSable River Marathon, after he saw an ad for contestants in the Flint Journal. Talking his brother Roy into going in with him, they purchased a used Old Town Canoe. According to Widing the brothers got in at the starting line, paddled like crazy, knocked a hole in the side of the canoe and had to pull out at McKinley. They never did finish that race. Widing has participated in most of the races since then, especially in the later years, but he has never won an AuSable River Marathon. And Widing has attempted the other two races in canoe racing’s “Triple Crown,” 39 times, he has never placed better than second in either the 70-mile General Clinton Regatta, or the three-day La Classique de Canots de la Mauricie River.

Nonetheless, Widing has paddled and won all over North America. In 1964 and 1965, he entered and won the Texas Water Safari, a 260-mile course that goes from San Marcos to the salt water on the Guadalupe River. Each year, Widing competes in 15 to 20 canoe races and will compete again this year in the Weyerhaeuser AuSable River Marathon.

Asked if this will be his last year, Widing simply smiles and replies “I’m crazy, one more year.” What is most important is “what you have at the end of the race,” Widing says. That’s what truely makes the winner.

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