Wisdom sometimes can be defined as choosing one's battles.

Point Pleasant canal combines, in one package, heavy powerboat traffic, narrow width, rapid currents, and unforgiving bulkheaded banks. It represents the perfect place to test the idea of allowing innertubes, standup paddleboards, canoes, swimmers, inflatables, cement trays, rubber ducks, and sea kayaks to intimately mingle with an endless stream of powerboats. Slippery slope arguments just don't endure well in the real world of authorities making decisions about public policy--there are rules forbidding wheelchairs, horse-drawn carts and bicycles in the tunnels linking metropolitan areas with their hinterlands, rules with which most will agree. To, in my view, foolishly (and futilely) oppose such common-sense strictures on unfettered behavior, is to work to kill our freedom to paddle.