previously man. I could watch more detached. You would have been proud of them. Steve is the top dog and he is doing you right. On Facebook you are getting a lot of Love bud. Oh I got my Raft and Frame and stole some tie downs. Suck it bud you owed me. Deborah doesn't think she can go on the trip to Greece that you just paid for next month but I told her you would have wanted her to go. I told her to drink Ouzo, with your other ex Ginger and to leave your pic on the beach. I figured you would like that. Who the hell knew you had Heart Disease. Jesus, no smoking, no drinking the past several years. WTF.
There was a public viewing. Bastards did an Autopsy. I skipped it. I had gotten used to your looks. And frankly, I don't think the plastic surgery would do you any favors. And here is the hard part. We got so much History man. When we were a couple of early twenty somethings assigned as room mates that summer in 75. I walked into the room, you were sleeping. I sat on my bunk on the other side of the room and thought "Jesus he smells bad". You woke up and there is something in Nature. Big guys just seem to like each other. We feel each others pain. There are countless stories that some little guy who went up to "the biggest guy in the Bar" and did something stupid to get his ass kicked. But this crap usually ruins the big guy's night too. There is just some kind of automatic trust. But dude, the times, the good beer and the never ending laughter. We started out as all twenty somethings do, by proving over and over "who was the better man" Boxing, Wrestling Rafting, Arm Wrestling, Thumb Wrestling, over and over and over until we got old and it hurt too much. Then we got noisy and started to argue about stuff. God, I was a Novice on that one. I got better You would take an obviously extreme opposite position just to piss me off and get the action going. Good times.
That summer after we met, I thought Hell, we will get a job with the Rail Road. A hundred degrees and we drove the hell out to the middle of nowhere, where we heard an " Extra Gang" was working. A hundred guys shoveling gravel and pounding spikes. Ten hour days. You got hired first, due I guess to your superior gift of gab. But I was hired a couple of hours later. We worked two days before we had two days off and needed it. Talk about work. Anyway, that summer was kind of a blur of drinking beer, driving the thirty miles back and forth to work in a Corvette, a Corvette mind you that had been frankensteined and geared so low fifty miles and hour was too fast. It was a convertible whose Windshield covered us up to about chest high and the rest exposed like a motorcycle. Usually that summer I was so exhausted or hung over I didn't even mind the bugs that were collecting in my teeth as I snoozed to and from work every day where we worked our asses off. After that experience I guess kind of bonded us. We did a lot of stuff together after that. Inseparable friends. hikes where we would go on death marches to high mountain lakes in early june taking only the ingredients necessary to cook the food which we intended to catch. After slogging through waist high snow in the high country. Did I mention it was early June? About Nine or Ten that evening one of us caught a small fish and then, did I mention how hard it was to start the fire in the cold and wet. But that fish did get eaten. You know now folks run the Payette with fancy equipment. Quality stuff. Aire and Miravia Rafts. Folks running the South Fork alot of them wearing helmets. In high water, I have seen them sneak down the side of Staircase rapids. You know they describe this rapid as the "biggest and meanest of them all" Few people know how we became rafting enthusiasts. When we were mid twenty somethings I bought that "Mighty Udisca" supposedly six, but more like three, man raft. That had those cheapo four foot aluminum oars that fit in cheap plastic oar locks. The raft had no seats, or "Thwarts" and no structural support. More like a rubber doughnut. But it was fine running the Boise River through town. Where we learned the craft of running rivers. "Buuuurrrp". Hey, there was one little riffle in there. Anyway one day we decided to try the Main Payette. We had driven by and seen various rafts floating there. I guess we thought it was just a more wilderness version of the lazy Boise float. So we packed up "Mighty Udisca" a cooler of beer, Suntan lotion, you know, for the Sun. And a bunch of snacks. We hopped in at the put in point and it wasn't fifty yards and we knew we were in trouble. We collided with a larger raft in the first rapid and flipped. Those cheap life jackets, you know the kind they put on little kids and cost about five bucks? Well we had just bought a couple of them on the way up, you know, to be responsible rafters. Well they saved our ass that day. Jeff rode out the rapid hanging onto the boat and the guys who had flipped us pulled me into their boat. We lost everything but those cheesy oars. Somehow we managed to get to the take out that day and were forever hooked. I studied Staircase, and I suspect few have done what we did. Before the Summer was over, we stuck a Truck tire inner tube into the center of "Mighty Udisca" and ran that Class IV rapid. We smacked some rocks hard and that little raft filled with water but we were still alive at the end. Jeff injured his leg and suffered for months. Since then we have both run that rapid many times and swam it during mishaps, myself twice. I will never run that section again and count mself lucky to be alive. Remember "Pair o Dice" sitting on the front of the Cataraft's pontoons. Paddling while Gale Oared on the Milner run. I couldn't sleep the night before but I wouldn't change it for the world. We held each other to this high masculine standard though. The Testosterone Zone. We would have faired better with a little less of that and a little more of the Estrogen. Few know that you were a Cheer Leader at BSU. OK, I was never convinced that that was the manly thing to do. It didn't work out and that following spring, you walked on the BSU football team. I know that you redeemed yourself. It didn't work out but you weren't cut from the team. They just changed your position. I could have kicked your ass when you did that. You would have been a starter. Not a doubt in my mind. Everything we did was geared for quantity. Young guys gulping up the world. We competed for women, We rode motorcycles, we climbed mountains, we lifted weights, we fought. We did everything together for many years. During college and after college. We followed the same career track. Initially working as bartender's and then into the field of Corrections after graduating from college. We even freaking retired on the same day seven years ago. You had my back and I had yours. You were the first person I called when I learned that I was to become a father, each time. You were also my Best Man. When your troubled younger brother came to live with us, it was as if he were my own. When you lost Kevin and your Mom. I shared your pain. We always had two distinct points of view, but wielded great influence over each other. One thing I could count on. Whenever, I mean whenever something came up in my life, you took my side unquestionably. I could go on. We took a trip in the late seventies. Hopping into a car to see where it would lead us. First time yours, the second mine. Taking a turn in the middle of the night into a grassy pasture on the side of a hill to throw out a sleeping bag. Illegal in California I suspect. When I awoke it was stormy and the Ocean was right there. My first picture, one that is indelibly etched into my brain was a school of whales swimming not two hundred yards from shore. Sitting in the wind in our sleeping bags on that grassy hill looking at the Whales in that stormy Ocean. Something I had never seen. When we were room mates, both of us accumulating so many parking tickets that were in the shape of envelopes that you were supposed to put money in. Well they carpeted our car floors. It was a civil fine so who cared. It wasn't as if it was important or anything. They'll get paid. Until they changed the law and they started issuing warrants for them. I recall waking up and hearing you tell the County Officer's downstairs that I did not live there and you had no idea who I was. Later, I would do the same for you. That took some clearing up. Because you changed vehicles so often, sometimes without bothering to wait for the title. Or the title would be in two previous owner's names, they most often were either fast, sporty, and old pieces of crap. When my Dad offered to sell you a more sedate reliable vehicle for a hundred bucks, you turned it down. Choosing instead to buy an old Camaro that burned four quarts of Oil going from Pocatello to Boise. You sold it to Ernie Weatherly who shortly thereafter was driving it and the front wheel came off almost taking out a Blimpies crowd. You, with your corny "Howdy" greeting to everybody, sought not to harm others and you had a mostly live and let live attitude. But when somebody messed with your family, you became this very scary relentless machine of vengeance. Whew. Nuff said on that point you scary Bastard. Times changed in later years. And in my mind I contrast those old cars that you wheeled and dealed and chewing gummed together with the craftmanship you showed me in that fence you painstakingly built by hand a year or so ago. The influence of the master craftsman that was your older brother, the martial artist, the craft brews, the gun collections and the limitless desire to build something with old style craftsmanship. These new traits in your later life, I always attributed to the influences of your older brother. And then we climbed Mt Borah in 1994. Not once but twice. With your brother Steve, his wife Barb and your nephew Bill. The second time with Rob. Thats how many times it took to reache the top. And always the banter. The battle of wits, for wits that in my little peabrain smug mind I always thought I won. But somewhere, I guess in the mid eighties you learned this whimsical thing that always set you to giggling thinking "you was the man". If I said I was tired, hungry, thirsty or in any manner offered up some descriptive statement of myself, you would always add "and ugly too". And in your pea size smug little brain you always thought that that gave you the upper hand. Really, I mean really? "Ugly too". Somewhere along the way I think you sensed rather than knew something was amiss. Jeremy, who was a son to you had returned to live with you. I could tell that made you happy. You also seemed to all of a sudden reach out to those who were important to you. The only thing I can think of is to maybe say good bye. Just the ones I know but I suspect you contacted everyone. Just recently you travelled out to Portland to spend time with Steve. And then to Deborah's, who you had not slept under the same roof for many years. She was always significant to you and an important part of your life. Even after you broke up with her nearly twenty years ago. Because I was kind of ruthless I joked about your life BD (Before Deborah) and AD (After Deborah) because of the influence she had on your life. And after that, Joe and Tanda's accident. A tragedy almost like this, you were completely unprepared for. And just like you, every day was spent at the Hospital. I could tell Tanda's death completely tore your heart out. Jeff you had such a strong personality and one of the most opinionated SOBs I know. But that big Heart of yours, it wasn't just a disease. And when you reached out to me in that way that you do, Jesus Christ you picked the dumbest thing we have ever argued about. But I always felt good after talking with you. I should have sensed something myself.. And I guess the timing here almost looks, I don't know, maybe a plan. Well, if it is benevolent, I think it is good and you should be there. But if it is not, and their is evil. Well, you know what to do.
And you know I hounded you to give up those crap jobs you were working after you retired and get on with it. You had just started and you were headed to Greece next month. You had plans to get the Sailing certification next year down in Florida, but well it looks like there were other plans for you. And really Jeff, can you look at yourself in the mirror and honestly say this man has not had a full life. Rafting the Colorado, flying through the Grand Canyon, Scuba Diving, Skiing. exotic tropical vacations with Deborah. Hell, even I took you to Tijuana twice. Hawaii once. The Steelhead trips, the hikes. Even those weeklong conventions we used to go to. And thats just all I can remember. You had it all. Adventure, career, family, good friends and love. What else is there? They are going to intern you next to Kevin. I know you will like that.
I told Steve and Barb that I had closed. I lied. Probably never will. I had to get some alone time to bang this out. I needed to honor you man, the best way I could think of. I am going to really miss you Brother. The talks, the laughter, yeah even the Martini's and the Beer. I am heading back to Texas now, out in the Mesquite and I guess they call it Puckerbrush there in Oil country, where I will be working nights again. I'll look up at that night sky, see the stars and I'll probably think about you more than some would guess. And maybe we'll even have a few more conversations. RIP
"Death leaves a Heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal"
From a Headstone in Ireland
Everybody Hurts. REM
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