I headed down to Norway Pond in Hancock to watch a group of people race around a course, two to a canoe – one in the bow, blindfolded, with a paddle, and one in the stern, giving directions.

Humorously, or not, the setup is a metaphor for life, and also a brilliant fundraising event for The Grapevine Family & Community Resource Center in Antrim, an organization in business since 1996 to overcome the metaphors with action.

The weather was not great, but I expected a crowd. Last year, one bystander told me he would pay to watch the race, which develops into a cross between Pin the Tail on the Donkey and bumper cars. Contestants negotiate their way around the course the same way a person would walk a straight line after stepping off a merry-go-round, except the paddlers never really get their bearings. Chaos prevails. Everyone has a good time. The Grapevine benefits from its biggest fundraiser of the year, supporting its Avenue A program for teens.

I am more used to auctions, bake sales and golf tournaments as fundraisers, most of which grow featureless after years of the same-old-same-old. It is hard to imagine the frivolity of blindfolded canoe racing wearing out in the same way. There is something about doing anything we love while blindfolded that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom; you do not see chickens daring each other to cross the road blindfolded.

I dove into the internet for only as long as I could hold my breath, and caught video of blindfolded pumpkin-carving, knife-throwing, card tricks, motorcycle riding – the gamut. Continuing to hold my breath, I watched a blindfolded guy attempting to set the Guinness Book of World Records for using a chainsaw to slice through apples he held in his mouth. Internet surfing time was running out – I needed to come up for air – so I only saw him cut through five or six, but I had the same question you may have: “Did someone already hold the blindfolded apple-chainsawing record?” If not, slicing three apples would have sufficed, yes? He had a basket of them on the table ready to go. I do not understand some people.

(I digress, overwhelmed by the same feeling I always have after a few minutes of allowing the internet to pass me along like a crowd-surfer over a mosh pit, sort of trapped and reliant on the pulsing throng below me, imagining the chickens on the side of the road shaking their heads.)

The point is, tying a blindfold around our head yields amusing, sometimes sensational results, and the dedicated people at The Grapevine, who think creatively every day about how to engage communities, have picked a winner.

There were 28 canoe teams, spread over five heats, that raced to the delight of probably 100 spectators. Teams from churches, local businesses, the Antrim Police Department and from Avenue A itself, with names such as Good and Evil, Wise Quackers and The Bennington VFW Brown Knights (winners of the paddle-off between heat winners in a time of 4:17) -- in canoes tricked-out with balloons and streamers and pie plates, or as galleons. Always, there are a few accomplished performances from disciplined teams that paddle more-or-less directly around the course. The majority, however, criss-cross, cross back, cross over, over and over, until determinedly arriving at the finish, happy to have their blindfolds removed, trying to assess where they have been.

Metaphor for life? Why not? A good time for a good cause? Definitely.

Jarvis Coffin writes fiction and essays on rural life. He is a retired media and advertising sales executive, and former chef/owner, with his wife, of New Hampshire’s oldest inn, the Hancock Inn. Reach him at huntspond@icloud.com, and keep up with all his musings at jarviscoffin.com.