Thoughts in the (Sleepless) Night, a Haunting

Sometimes I seriously wonder how my mind works. Last night, out of the blue, I started to think about Andy McQueen. He was among my oldest brother's best friends. I believe it was a target pistol he used to end his life in 1965, but frankly I think he would have found some way to kill himself that day. He suffered severe depression (and in my opinion he was probably bipolar).

When Andy was around it was OK for a 12 year old to hang out with the older boys. After he left to go home it was time for me to disappear into my own room. He was the first person I met that had genuine charisma, everyone liked Andy. Like my brothers and me he was a member of Explorer Post 20. We specialized in running rivers. In 1965 we ran the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. But the McQueens had just moved to the valley and needed Andy's help to settle the family in their new home. So he could not join us.

The Middle Fork is in Idaho. It took us 3 days to drive up in our World War Two era bus and 2 &1/2 ton army surplus truck. After we ran the river (an eight day adventure) "Stretch", an adult advisor, called home to say we had run the river safely. After the call the advisers had a conference and announced that we were going to drive home via Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. As we approached Jackson Hole, Wyoming we turned to drive east on a rugged road to a church in the middle of nowhere, a minor tourist destination in itself. The church had a huge picture window with a fabulous view of the Grand Tetons.

As we got out of the bus the advisers told us about the suicide. Among the 25 or so boys there were three general reactions: anger, sorrow, and bewilderment, which was my reaction. (I have to admit suicide still bewilders me, even though I have known about a dozen people personally that have made that "choice".) I am sure there was not a dry eye among the boys. We spent about an hour at the little church with each boy consumed with his own thoughts. The rest of the trip was very quiet.

But this is really about a haunting. Every so often his suicide invades my mind and I can not get rid of it for weeks. And of course, I replay each and every other suicide of people I have known. But the only other one I would blog about, was the father of a good high school friend of mine. What makes that one so interesting is that her mother remarried about 5 years later to the mayor of Albuquerque. I will never blog about Scott's suicide because I do not plan on ever forgiving him. Welcome to my haunting.

Being a dad, a random tour

This is not about my two girls and me, but rather about my dad and his three boys. I will remind you I am from NM and distances are vast. It is 4 and 1/2 hours from home to Roswell. In my day high schools were three years, freshmen were in junior high.

Buzz: three years football (center), three years track (discus and shot put)
Ted: three years football (two years bench warmer, one year all-state center), three years track (mid-distances, all in relays)
David: Three years Cross-Country, Two years track (long distance, I was Will Parker in "Oklahoma" as a senior).

Me dancing, heh. My dad taught me how to tap, during the depression he tapped for nickels in bars. If I tried that I would probably have to give all the patrons dimes.

Dad never missed a meet. I remember going to Roswell to watch Ted's football team get crushed and Ted sit on the bench. We followed the team bus home and got home at 5:30am (school busses back then were really slow). The best trip was up to Raton. To get there we had to go through Eagles Nest Pass. It was October and the trees were changing. The mountains were literally aflame with reds and purples. The trip there was so stunning I don't remember what happened in the game.

Partial list of rivers run

Just to put a time line on all this, I ran rivers from 1963 t0 1974, during the summers I sailed Schooner rigged Ketch's from 1974-1982. I never got my Captain's license and I am sore tempted to get it now. But I got married and other things became more important. Actually we got engaged in May 1982 and she was a tad put out that I disappeared for the summer (sailed the south pacific, very few ports of call).

This is just a list, I have some of these on tape and the others are from memory. I will list the ones on tape first. If you wanna watch me flip a boat in heavy water, arrange a time and bring popcorn. And yes being under the weather is lonely and I am desperate.

On Tape (these trips lasted from 8 days to 22 days, we got REALLY smelly):
Westwater Canyon on the Colorado
Delores River (were I putz around in a boat that is 6 ft long and 3 ft wide)
Cataract Canyon on the Colorado (with flippsie David)
Grand Canyon to Phantom Ranch on the Colorado
Salmon River and the Snake River in Idaho/Washington
Middle Fork of the Salmon River (with added Waldo adventure, see below)
Gates of the Ladore on the Green River (Near Dinosaur National Monument), cool fantasy name, eh, I kept looking for elves? (By the way this loosely means the gates of gold)

Not on Tape, The next are not on tape and we did them several times over the years and they lasted 1-3 days:

Whitewater Canyon, Toas Box (one time to pick up an 18 year old floater, very disturbing, it was his birthday and he did nothing wrong, just very bad luck), San Juan Pueblo to the LA Bridge (greenie run) and Big Bend all on the Rio Grande

Chama River
Gila River
Pecos River
The Box, Silida to Cotapaxi, and Royal Gorge all on the Arkansas River
Gunnison River (starting just below the dam)
Salt River
Rogue River in Oregon (just once)
San Juan River


We also did some spelunking. We did several caves but the only name I remember is Cottonwood Cave (near Carlsbad) and we stayed in the cave for the long weekend.

Eagle Scout

Yeah, I am an Eagle Scout. ALL the boys in my family are Eagle Scouts, no choice. Notice the present tense, once an Eagle always an Eagle, Eagle scouts are allowed to wear their medals on their formal uniforms in the military.

To get the Eagle you have to do a special project. I worked with the National Forest Service to thin trees on a particularly hazadous piece of land. I helped mark the trees to be cut and by myself cut down over 300 trees. That was in 1970.

In 2000 the National Parl Service accidently started a fire that burned down 50,000 acres of forest. The forest service was able to use my plot as a fire stop to divert the fire from downtown Los Alamos. I'm so proud.



This is what happened to the trees not in my area. The picture was taken 6 years after the fire. By the way, when I was a kid everyone could help fight fires, so the fire in western area burned less then 1000 acres. Everytime there was a fire John and I would get on our bikes with a shovel to go help, for one fire we rode 15 miles and about 3000 feet up to get into position. In 1990 the Forest Service decided we couldn't fight fires. So we went from 300 professionals and 5000 civilians to just 300-600 professionals. No forest fire since has burned down less than 5000 acres and several up to 10 times that. Hey guys, how did that "professional" crap work out for you?

A Short Story and an Apology

Early in my Post 20 career we ran the Chama river (as a Co-ed trip) in New Mexico (very close to Los Alamos). As I recall it was on Memorial Day Weekend. The river was not very tough, but during the spring run off it had some nice big waves. Everyone got soaked. That night we hung our clothes out to dry. Being a desert the days were very hot, even this early in the year. What we forgot was that since the air was (and is) very dry the temperatures would plunge at night. This weekend the highs were in the Low 80’s and the nightime lows in the mid 20’s. Needless to say all of our clothes froze solid. Our socks looked like bacon and our shirts and pants were frozen slabs. We spent the next morning gathering wood for a fire and getting breakfast ready in the comfort of our sleeping bags. Think bag races.

As a side note, and this comes 40 years too late, when I think of running rivers and girls I think of Valerie Vandergust. She enjoyed running rivers as much as I did. She also, for about a year or so, fell in love with me. I was a complete idiot and liked the birds in the bush rather than the real gem (and I mean that) in my hand. What can I say, I was an idiot teenager. Val, wherever you are, I wish you Fair Winds and Following Seas.