There are millions of choices for a reader to select while browsing in a book store. I hope that the title Life Isn't Always Good . . . Sometimes It's CRAP caught your eye and sparked your interest to leaf through the contents of this book. When the book has been read in its entirety, you will realize that I do not believe "Life is Crap". On the contrary, I believe that "Life is Good". In the wilderness, Crap can creep in when least expected. At that very moment it can make you feel that "Life is Crap". Trapped on a mountain during a lightning storm is one of those moments. Tossed out of a kayak into a raging river alone and paddle less, qualifies as a "Life is Crap" moment. Driving along on an ATV can go from great to Crap in the blink of an eye. These are true events that have happened along the way. They are funny, sad, and some of them are blatantly dangerous. If you are planning an outdoor excursion, be aware that there are risks. Prepare yourself as well as possible, and hopefully you have planned out the CRAP.

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

By Ray E. Murray

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Ray E. Murray
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4634-1046-9

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

The Early Years

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 about some Crap. It ruined any chance of me sleeping in a tent for a long time.

There was a time when you could not have paid me a hundred grand to spend the night in a tent. I suppose the reason my oldest son is not interested in hiking, camping, or much of anything to do with the outdoors is because we didn't do any of it when he was young. He says to this day, "You are going to leave this perfectly good house with electricity and a bed to do what?"

Maybe it was that trip to Colorado when he was thirteen that caused him to dislike the outdoors. My dad and his friend were on a fishing trip in Gunnison, Colorado. They had been in Gunnison a couple of weeks before I could get off work and bring my family. Using the word cabins would be highly exaggerating the dwellings we rented. It did not matter because they were better than World War II pup tents. I will always remember a particular meal we had in the backyard of the run down cabins. We had a fish cookout with most of my family present on a cool Colorado evening. It was the best fish I ever tasted. Life was Good.

Then my Dad's friend got the bright idea to hike up a mountain and spend the night at an Alpine Lake. I do not even remember the exact location of the mountain, but I know it is somewhere between Pitkin and Gunnison. I remember the trail as being very rocky and straight up for about three miles. We were not prepared for this type of endeavor. We made a mad dash to Wal-Mart and bought cheap tents and sleeping bags and a few other supplies. I still spent about three hundred dollars on this cheap junk. None of us had a proper backpack; instead we had equipment in plastic bags and straps draped all over us severing our neck and shoulders. I even carried a huge camcorder, one of the early ones (the style you record from your shoulder), and of course I had my Minolta 35 mm and a 50 to 350 zoom lens, which probably weighed six pounds. I was loaded like a pack mule and so was my wife; however a pack mule is usually outfitted better than we were. We were trudging along very well until that time of afternoon in Colorado when it is certain to rain. We did not know about these daily occurrences, and of course our raingear was deficient.

Eventually we would summit and set up camp just before it got dark. Everything was soaked from our tents to our sleeping bags, and us. We set up our tents away from my Dad's friend thinking we had a better spot. My wife, my two sons, and I stayed in one tent, while my two nephews stayed in the second tent. There wasn't much we could do in the continuous drenching rain except eat dinner and go to sleep. Dinner was left over fish wrapped in zipped locked bags. I must admit, it wasn't as good as it was the night before when it came out of the fish fryer sizzling hot. Now it was cold and damp, but at least it was something to eat. My camp selection was far less than adequate as we slept on cold and wet sleeping bags with rocks protruding into our ribs all night. In the middle of the night, there was an enormous noise and none of us had a hint as to what caused it. We found out the next morning that an avalanche made the huge disturbance. It is a good thing we did not set up tents one hundred yards closer to the mountain.

I awoke the next morning in good spirits despite the dreadful conditions. I enjoyed the cool crisp Colorado morning. I did take notice of the nice sheltered soft spot my Dad's friend had selected for his camp site. Oh well. I took my camcorder and started interviewing the participants. The first campers I stumbled onto were my oldest son and his cousins. They were immersed in a wall of smoke from a futile attempt at starting a fire. Through the billowing blur of smoke, they refused to make a comment. Maybe they "took the fifth" because they were so frantically engaged in getting the rain soaked wood to blaze, or possibly it was the appalling night spent shivering in wet sleeping bags that made them ill-tempered. Each of the young unhappy campers had visions of a roaring fire roasting Spam on a stick, but it was not going to happen this fine morning. It was a classic example of dropping the wiener in the fire, except in this circumstance there was no fire and come to think about it – no wieners either. I have often thought about sending this video into "America's Funniest Videos." Anyway, they all looked terrible from what I could see through the cloud of smoke, so I decided to move on to an interview with my wife. As I walked by the boy's tent, I noticed zip lock bags full of fish bones making a trail leading directly from their tent. Oh, we were lucky the weather had been so unpleasant, because most sensible animals were safe and dry in their shelters. Only the weekend before, a young man's tent was destroyed by a bear scavenging food.

I approached my wife. She was standing by the bank with her back to me, looking out toward the lake. I asked, "Ma'am could I get an interview?" In an instant, she suddenly swung her head around, like the girl in the movie The Exorcist. Her hair was sticking straight up, no makeup and looked like she hadn't slept in a week. She made one comment to me, "I want to go down!"

Once again ... Life is Crap! Life is weird, one minute you're on top of the world, then one minute you are down in a valley. In this case, life got much better as we withdrew to the valley. I would love to try that mountain again. I'm not a gambler, but I would be willing to lay a wager that things would go better the second time, if only I could remember where the darn mountain was.

Geared Up

The days quickly flew by and without my realizing it, the months turned to years. Except for the leaps and bounds in technology, people and the world leisurely changed. Then an event transpired that turned the world upside down. One single incident instantly changed everything.

The day the twin towers fell affected everyone whether we realized it or not. I didn't comprehend the impact it had on me until sometime later. I had a job change in the company where I work. It was an enjoyable change, one with much less stress and frustration. I had just settled into the new job, when one Friday evening I stopped by the post office before heading to the football field. My youngest son was playing his last high school football game at home. I received quite a surprise. There was a letter from the Department of Army which read "you have been relieved from your duties in the United States Army Reserves." I thought, "No big deal." I had been on an inactive status for some time. Then the next line said, "You have been reassigned to active duty status in the United States Army and must report to Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois ten days from the receipt of this letter."

It took a few minutes before I grasped the implications of the letter. I could very easily be headed to Afghanistan. I had always been aware of the possibility of being activated during my tenure in the reserves, but now it was a reality. CRAP. Dropping everything and reporting in ten days was not a simple matter. I had responsibilities at my civilian job which would have to be delegated during my absence. My boss at the time took it very well and immediately began divvying up my workload. There were other ramifications from this alarming change to my military status. I had no uniforms because my wife shrank all the old ones. At least that is my story and I am sticking to it. I did not even have a military identification card. I was going to miss my son's high school playoff games. The uncertainties went on and on ... I had to be prompted by another man to enter onto the football field when they made father and son introductions. I was in complete shock with a multitude of fears running through my mind. There was never a doubt about my loyalty to my country or my sense of duty. I knew I would report as ordered and on time; it never crossed my mind to do otherwise. It was just a matter of getting everything arranged! My father would not have stood for it any other way. He was a "soldier's soldier" and at seventy-four years old with emphysema and a bad heart, he had his bags packed just in case. He asked me more than once, "Do you think they might call me up?"

Somehow all was accomplished and I reported for duty as ordered. I was on duty for eleven months at the Command for U.S. Army Ammunition as part of Operation Desert Shield. I shared this fate with several other stunned United States Army Reserve soldiers. One soldier, a captain that I will refer to as "PhD", was getting his Doctoral Degree at Texas A&M University and was instrumental in getting me involved in backpacking. I do not remember his exact studies but it had something to do with nasty bugs, viruses and biological warfare. To this day, I still do not know why he was deployed to an ammunition command. He seemed better fitted to a research center. PhD and I were totally opposite in every aspect:

He was an intellect – I was a laborer. He did not like football – I love it. He liked the Aggies – I liked the Sooners.

(Continues...)

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