Life Isn't Always Good ... Sometimes it's CRAP!

AuthorHouse

Contents

The Early Years......................................1Geared Up............................................9Life is Grand in the Canyon..........................19Hiking Partners Are Hard to Find.....................37Good Friends.........................................51Another Canyon - Death Canyon........................55Them Boys From Oklahoma..............................83Fly Like an Eagle....................................99A Whole Lot of CRAP..................................105Yes Sir, I Did.......................................113The End of an Era....................................123Timing is Everything.................................131The Madman Fisherman.................................139Three Bears and an Elk...............................149Is that Banjos I Hear?...............................171The Romanians........................................183Epilogue.............................................203

Chapter One

I discovered life was good when I was a young boy growing up in Germany. As a military brat, I spent three different tours in Germany. Back in those days, there was no satellite television, therefore no vegetating for hours in front of the tube and there certainly wasn't anything like an X Box. I lived on a military base with other army brats.

We had no problem inventing exciting and adventurous things to keep us occupied; like pretending to be a great warrior from Sparta, armed with homemade swords and protected by shields taken from garbage cans. I seriously doubt there was one garbage can intact on the entire base. To change up the pace and to let our wounds heal, we played baseball from sun up to sundown.

I spent very few nights in my own bed. Instead, we pitched pup tents in the field below our quarters, all within close proximity and security of my parents. The field also doubled as our baseball diamond. Our parents always knew where we were, except sometimes late at night. They had no idea about our pillaging the apple trees of German farmers. However, that all stopped one night when a German with a shotgun loaded with salt got wise to our midnight raids. One blast of spraying salt aimed at our behinds threw us into submission. We occupied those midnight hours doing other things, like watching shooting stars traverse the sky, and contemplate their significance. If we were lucky and had batteries for the transistor radio, we would listen to Gunsmoke on Armed Forces Network Radio. To this day, images of big Matt Dillon strolling down the sidewalk, with cowboy boots echoing off the wood surface are vivid in my mind.

We talked of the past and the future until all hours of the night before drifting off to sleep. Those were the "good old days" while school was out and before work life started. Those were even days before "Miss Kitty" entered the picture. Life was Good!

Life outdoors isn't always a bed of roses. I remember the first time it turned to Crap. Again, it was in Germany, in the Black Forest. My dad was a sergeant, and there were six of us kids. He always said, "I have three kings and three queens." Now, a buck sergeant back in those days didn't make much money. Everything was done economy style. One weekend we drove three hundred kilometers to a campground in the Black Forest. The eight of us piled out of an old Oldsmobile, and began stringing together four army pup tents, all in succession. You should have seen the looks on the Germans' faces as we constructed the monstrosity. I am positive they were saying "Dum Kopf Americanish" (Stupid head Americans). Erected all around us were new expensive tents made by North Face and the like. We didn't care; pup tents were all we knew and all we needed. As soon as the frugal sleeping arrangements were made, out came the baseball mitts and a round of catch began. Again, they would say "Dum Kopf Americanish" as a fastball whizzed by their heads.

Life was good in the Black Forest until the rain began. It was still okay until those old World War II tents just couldn't tread any more water and began to leak like a sieve. The water gushed underneath us like it was the Rhein River. By four in the morning, my dad couldn't stand the situation any longer. He threw a Bob Murray fit and called an emergency evacuation. To this day, I still find myself wondering what those Germans were thinking as we broke camp and fired up that loud Oldsmobile at O' dark thirty, probably saying, "Dum Kopf Americanish."

My dad was a real piece of work when it came to traveling. Money was tight but we never went without, or at least we didn't know it if we did. We have traveled from New Jersey to California without a single night in a motel and in vehicles that were always subject to breaking down. Not one vehicle that we owned was ever equipped with a factory installed air conditioner. The air conditioner was always an afterthought (one that was added to the car later), and always froze up when you needed it the most, like through the Mohave Desert.

One thing you could depend on without exception was a Styrofoam ice chest squeaking on the floor between five kids' legs, filled with ice and water and if we were lucky, soda pop. There was lunch meat and bread for sandwiches to be consumed during a stop on the side of the highway. Not to mention one of my Dad's favorite money savers; poke a hole in a can of soup and heat it on the in-take manifold of the car. I usually sat in the front between Mom and Dad, not because I was a favorite, but because I had a job to do. Actually, I had two jobs: one was to keep a wash cloth in the ice chest (getting it wet and cold for future use) and another cloth on my Dad's forehead to help keep him alert and awake while he drove.

The other job was to find soul music on the radio; not because my dad enjoyed soul music, but just the opposite, because he detested soul music. It would make him fighting mad and therefore there was no chance of him sleeping while driving. I actually liked the music he hated so much, so finding Wilson Pickett's Mustang Sally, or Otis Redding singing Sitting on the Dock of the Bay was a real pleasure. Life was Good.

My dad would advise my mother to get some sleep while he drove, because eventually she would have to drive when he got tired. Of course, none of us kids were old enough to drive. My mother could not sleep, so, when it was her turn to drive, she was sleepy. Also, she used to tap the brake every time she met a car, which was every thirty seconds on Route 66. In 1969, four lane highways didn't exist; it was two-lane all the way to California. It would drive my dad crazy. He would get mad and take back the wheel. Life was Crap when that happened.

Later in life, I got away from the outdoors. I did try a couple of deer hunting trips with my dad in eastern Oklahoma, but they usually turned out wet, cold, empty handed and situational. But, oh how I wish my dad were alive today, so we could experience more of the good and bad times together. I joined the U.S. Army in 1983 as a twenty-nine year old second lieutenant. I spent three years on active duty learning army and survival skills and another ten years in the reserves practicing those skills. In 1985, I spent one of the coldest winters Europe has ever had, living in a pup tent with the temperature thirty degrees below zero during a Reforger (Return Forces to Germany) exercise. Now you talk...