One Good Story.by Ron Severs NODIN Press—a division of Micawber’s Inc., 525 North Third Street, Minneapolis, 148 pp, $14. Book Review by Mel Baughman

I suspect most Minnesota canoeists have hopped across the rocks where the Mississippi River flows out of Lake Itasca and pondered what it would be like to launch a canoe and paddle to the Gulf of Mexico. Surely it would be worth at least One Good Story. Ron Severs authored an entertaining book by that title which describes his fascinating experiences while pursuing our dreams.

Reviewing his table of contents, you’ll see that Ron has a sense of humor: A Biffy Bedroom, Tooners, Larry the Idiot, Aquaholics, The Satisfied Frog, and Mad Dog and Skeet to name a few chapters. Main sections of the book deal with the upper Mississippi, dams and locks, people on the river, river dangers, and the lower river. It’s not a day-by-day chronicle of events, but a series of short stories about activities, incidents, and people that collectively describe his sources of challenge, laughter, boredom, life style, and danger. Ron is the forest land manager at the University of Minnesota’s Cloquet Forestry Center. As such, he has the keen eye of a woodsman who will paint a picture in your mind of the circumstances he faced.

My favorite chapters described his interactions with colorful characters along the river. Ron’s a friendly guy who sought nothing more than a level campsite on a secluded beach and the occasional cold beverage from passing motorboats. But he took away a lifetime of stories. Whether you seriously entertain a hankering to canoe down the Mississippi or not, you’ll enjoy Ron’s yarns. It’s written as though Ron were relating tales around a campfire. It’s not edited as tightly as an English major would like, but most readers won’t notice the occasional typo or sudden change of tense.

Ron paddled a sea kayak. The Mississippi was his first long river trip, but he since has kayaked the entire Missouri, and next year plans to run the Ohio.