Rob said our general paddling styles were very different as well. While I was methodical, measured, even cautious sometimes, Lonnie’s style was frenzied. He took three paddle strokes for every one of mine, and he hardly ever hesitated, hunched forward like a water strider skittering over the surface. Both techniques seemed to work equally well, but they also seemed to reflect our starkly different personalities.

Despite our differences, Lonnie and I shared one major attribute that connected our lives like glue. “I don’t know about you,” Lonnie said, “but I can’t even describe it sometimes. They’re telling you what to do, but trying to get through, just with that sound and trying to read the river by feel, I get so turned around, I hardly know which way is up or down.”

I knew exactly what he was saying. Kayaking blind was like riding an avalanche of moving water that shifted violently from second to second, tossing you in every direction. Trying to survive in that tumultuous environment guided only by the faint sound of a voice, by the roar of the river, and by what I could feel under my boat, felt like sensory overload. It was the art of embracing chaos—and hands down the scariest thing I’d ever done.

But Lonnie seemed fearless. He grinned through the toughest rapids and even wanted to be guided into the middle of a huge hole.

“Why would you ever want to do that?” I asked him.

“So I could figure out how to get out of it,” he explained like he was talking to a simpleton.

Over our lunch break, Lonnie talked about chainsawing trees and mowing his own pasture on his family’s farm in Dugger, Indiana, all without the benefit of sighted assistance. “I’m out there with my mower most every day,” he said, “mowing around my pond.”

“How can you tell where you are in relation to the pond?” I asked.

“Oh, it’s easy to tell,” he replied, “when you hit the water. Mowing’s nothing. After that, I started trying to figure out how to drive nails with my hammer. Hitting the nail wasn’t a problem, but it was most often the nail at the end of my thumb. Once I figured that out, it led into building houses. I’ve helped build about thirty now: everything from framing to sheeting to wiring. I tell people, ‘I’m your man—if you don’t care if your lights turn on.’ My favorite, though, is roofing.”

“A blind guy kayaking is one thing,” Rob piped in, “but a blind guy on a roof?”

“Yeah, people always question that,” Lonnie replied. “They ask, ‘What are you doing on that roof?’ and I answer, ‘I’m on a roof? How in blazes did I get up here?’”

“I don’t think I know how you lost your sight,” Rob said.