Round 5: The Story (Living the Healthy Double Life)

“To find the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating; to be refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter...... to be thrilled by the stars at night; to be elated over a bird's nest or a wildflower in spring - these are some of the rewards of the simple life. ”
                                                                               ~John Burroughs~

   I love small towns.  I love everything about them.  I love the fact that in a small town you can still walk to the corner market and buy a cup of coffee, homemade blueberry yogurt, and a newspaper, and know that you will see someone you know and like.  I also love the mountains.  I love everything about them.  I love the fact that whitewater needs the mountains to exist (RVA is an anomaly).  I love the fact that the wilderness occupies the heart of every mountain range in the world.  And I love that mountains create the perfect setting for small towns..................Hot Springs, North Carolina is one of those perfect little towns.  

   Marcelle and I lived one hour south of Hot Springs, and traveling from Brevard to the small town allows you to experience a slow progression of separation from the world that we all know.  By the time you reach the small bridge crossing the French Broad and enter "downtown", it is hard to even remember what worries you had just an hour before.  Hot Springs is hidden deep in the mountains.  So deep in fact, The Appalachian Trail travels right down main street through the center of town.  The whitewater section (Section IX) of The French Broad ends as the rivah enters town, and when you're there it feels like someone hid the time as well.  Everyone slows down a bit, and everyone seems to be just a bit more relaxed.  The town only has one bar, and in that bar years of drunken raft customers have bought their rivah guides a beer to show their appreciation for a job well done, and years of intoxicated raft guides have spent their customers tips in search of a reason to stay "just one more season."  It is the give and take of the rivah life.  Spring Creek flows directly past the bar.  If one were so inclined on a rainy day, they could drive to the top of the mountain, slide their boat into the headwaters of Spring Creek, and kayak down miles of beautiful, deeply hidden Class III-IV crick lines, before arriving at the bar for an evening cocktail to celebrate the days discoveries.  Just paddle up to shore, hop out of your boat, walk ten feet, and enter the bar.  It is a trip I highly recommend.  No worries on how to get back to your car.  It will be figured out......at some point.  Until then, just hang in town with friends, or crash at the local raft shop.  You MUST traverse 30 minutes of mountains from any direction to enter the town, and slowly curving down the mountainside reveals a picturesque small town scene that can only be found when one goes looking for the escape.  I love Hot Springs, and I miss it every day.     

   In the Spring of 2006 Marcelle and I became weekend warriors to the town of Hot Springs.  It became one of our escapes and ways to seek adventure.  Hot Springs is located in the middle of Pisgah National Forest, so there are endless camping opportunities throughout the area.  Exiting town and climbing the mountain heading west brings you to a crest known as Mill Ridge.  The forest service road to Mill Ridge takes you to a nice open camping spot deep in the forest that Celle and I frequented.  We would drive up to the raft shop on Saturday morning, run trips on the French Broad, then hang out in Hot Springs and camp on Mill Ridge, then run more trips Sunday, then drive home to Brevard Sunday evening to re-enter domestication.  The evenings I spent with Marcelle on Mill Ridge are a small piece of time that made this part of my life beautiful.  Marcelle made a campsite a home, and she made every experience a better experience. 


“The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds. And that’s what you’ve given me. That’s what I’d hoped to give you forever.” 
                                                           ~Nicholas Sparks~

Forever never happened.

    If you keep climbing up the mountains beyond Spring Creek you top out at a place called Max Patch.  In the winter this area is fully exposed to the western flat lands of Tennessee, and the snow piles up on the mountain top.  It is a great place to find an epic snow adventure, complete with off-roading through 2 foot drifts, mysteriously quiet hikes through snow encrusted evergreens, and sprawling 360 degree views of the Smokies, Northern Balsams, French Broad Valley, and the Black Mountains.  Marcelle and I headed to Max Patch for some great snow hiking when the weather allowed for it.  Max Patch was always one of our favorite spots to go, and if you are ever near Hot Springs I highly recommended a drive up the mountain.  I spent days with her simply strolling through some of the most beautiful snow landscapes I have ever seen, rolling down the hillside with our dog T, and simply enjoying the fact that we were able to share something together that was unique and magical.  I forget sometimes how lucky we were to be living the life that we lived.


"You will leave this world with exactly what you came with.  Nothing.  Enjoy memories.  Not materials."
                                                                                       ~Austin Carlile~

    In a previous post a mentioned that the schedule that Marcelle's job demanded was the first ripple to a spiral of events.  Here is why, and this is important, so pay attention.  Men are not meant to be domesticated past a certain level, a level that we as men passed sometime in the late 1950's.  Our instincts tell us to seek out adventure, danger, and amongst all else, travel. (Any man that tells you different is lying.........or a little bitch)  We are nomads by design, so settling down for extended periods of time is tough.  Marcelle was a great partner in crime to have by my side throughout the days of WNC, but she somehow mixed that sense of adventure with an amazingly balanced side of domestication.  We would play house like a normal 20's something couple during the time she was off trail and home. (I mean, we gardened for God sakes)  I would go to work, come home and have dinner, spend time with friends, take walks,  etc., etc., etc.  Being a case manager allowed me to create my own schedule.  I had a client that needed attention early in the morning, so my day would start at 6am or so. (in WNC a 6am day in February requires exposure to single digits first thing in the morning.........which sucks.  I mention this because it is what I remember most about those early mornings)  By doing this I worked 10 or 12 hour days a lot and still made it home at a reasonable hour, giving me a good life of domestication throughout Marcelles "off trail" time, while still putting in a full work week in four days..............then Marcelle would go back on trail, not only drastically changing the other half of her life, but changing mine as well.  I would head to Hot Springs, not as a bachelor (because believe it or not at a time in my life I was faithful), but as the nomad that I described above.  Three days with nothing but a tent or friends, a kayak and mountain bike, some scheduled raft trips for tips in my pockets, and endless WNC adventures...............oh, there is one more extremely important thing.  Safety Meetings.  Marcelle was not down with the safety meetings and I respected that, so my safety time was also managed within my "double life"................I truly lived two separate lives, both of which when viewed individually were great lives to have, but mixed together became toxic over time.  This was a lesson that would not surface until we returned to RVA..............remember what I just said.

    In the Spring of 2006 I was at USA Raft shop on the French Broad and the owner was there checking in on things.  USA Rafting on the French Broad was a smaller outpost for the USA Raftng post on the Nolichucky, located one hour north in Tennessee.  The Nolichucky was a step up from the French Broad (which is a pretty easy rivah to guide or kayak.......but still a ton of fun), and when it had water it cranked out big rides for seven straight miles.  (There is a good story about the Nolichucky in the August section of The Island Chronicles)  The owner told me I should come up to Erwin and take on the Noli, so I agreed.  The following weekend I completed a blind check out and then ran a trip the next day.


"Avoid the precepts of those thinkers whose reasoning is not confirmed by experience."
                                                                                 ~Leonardo Da Vinci~

   The Nolichucky Outpost had a great private camp spot on the far side of the rivah just for guides to stay in and live.  There was a classic Noli guide named Tennessee Jed who lived in a van down by the rivah on the property.............he had been there so long the van had acquired satellite television.  Jed had a long beard, played harmonica on the rivah, and loved the Tennessee Volunteers.  He was a classic whitewater rivah legend, and he and Marcelle loved each other.  We called the outpost Ewok Village because it was hidden in a forest of giant trees, with tent platforms located throughout the mountain side.  It would be a great alternative to our Mill Ridge camp spot on the French Broad, and waking up under the trees with the rivah running in the distance was the perfect way to start a summer day of guiding.          

    Marcelle joined me on the Noli a few weeks after I had begun guiding there.  Guides can always bring people along on their trips when there is room (and we always make room), so Marcelle joined me for a commercial trip one weekend.  Early on in the trip a guide hurt himself traversing through "On The Rocks", the first larger rapid, and couldn't continue guiding.  Marcelle was already working for USA Raft at the time guiding the French Broad, so she utilized her skills and ran a truly "blind" check out trip through the gorge, saving the day for all.  Yet another reason I can overly glorify her a bit more and say she is a bad ass.


“I'm not going out of my way looking for devils; but I wouldn't step out of my path to let one go by.”
                                                                               ~Robert E. Howard~

   The first year on the rivah and living in WNC was great...................as an individual I was able to live both worlds.  Responsible Domestication and Reckless Bachelorhood...........and I found a way to do it in a systematic manner.  I was a good boyfriend.  Remember that our home in Brevard was located on the edge of Pisgah, next to a mountain range topping out at 6000 feet.  Marcelle worked nights when she spent time deep in those mountains.  If she had cell phone service she would call me, and sometimes I would go out and visit her.  I remember once visiting her between Graveyard Fields and Black Balsam (this is deep no where WNC at about 5000 feet).  It was the middle of the night and I had come to retrieve our dog T (who will receive a post all to himself later........and who was also the greatest boxer that ever walked the earth and whom worked on trail with Marcelle to protect and comfort her).  We used our cell phones and blinking lights to locate each other, and then spent fifteen minutes enjoying a quick and unique moment together.........I bring this story up because these are the kinds of experiences I remember that represented our life together..........unique times.........times between two people at one certain moment in life...........times that can never be duplicated or re-lived, no matter how hard you try.
   The days in WNC were colorful times lived in an environment of colorful people, endless whitewater, and a life focused on a richness of experience that overshadowed a thirst for monetary success..........so stay tuned if you enjoy the read.........because the stories only get better as the whitewater gets bigger!


“Why, darling, I don't live at all when I'm not with you.”
                              ~Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms~

See ya on the rivah..............waters coming up, so hopefully not on a log.   PEACE


To continue this adventure, click here..........................Complexity of the Double Life   

              

Round 5: The Story (The Good Life)

"You can't change past history.  But, you can change the future's history by cleansing your soul today.  Forget, forgive, and love passionately."

                                                                    ~Majdi Rabah~

   In the Fall of 2005 Western North Carolina became our home.........and yes, it truly was home for me.  From the moment I arrived I knew that the decision was the right decision.  We lived southwest of Asheville, between the towns of Brevard, Hendersonville, and Etowah.  Marcelle and I found a nice little cabin on the side of a mountain tucked away between Dupont State Forest and Pisgah National Forest.  Our landlords lived on the top of the mountain and had a small pottery studio in a rustic barn close to our home.  It truly was heaven.  If you left our home and crossed the road, you could walk into the wilderness and continue straight for nearly 75 miles without coming across anything but National Forest.  We were surrounded by endless rivahs, waterfalls, mountain biking trails, hiking trails, The Art Loeb, The Balsams, Bent Creek, white squirrels (yes, they are white), Looking Glass Rock, The Pink Beds, bears, and every beautiful landscape you could ever imagine seeing in the mountains of WNC.  The Class III section of the Davidson was a five minute drive from the house.  If you took a walk down our country road, you were greeted by a friendly bull grazing in a sprawling mountain valley.  Our surroundings held a lifetime of adventure and beauty..........adventures and beauty that I was excited to share with the only woman I ever loved.


“I can’t think of any greater happiness than to be with you all the time, without interruption, endlessly, even though I feel that here in this world there’s no undisturbed place for our love, neither in the village nor anywhere else; and I dream of a grave, deep and narrow, where we could clasp each other in our arms as with clamps, and I would hide my face in you and you would hide your face in me, and nobody would ever see us any more.”
~Franz Kafka~

I chose this quote after careful consideration.  If you had X'd out the outside world, all the people, the family bull shit, the Fourteenth Street Whore, my job, and every other distraction of life, I truly believe that there were moments when Marcelle and I were as close to perfect as two people could ever be together.  

  We knew no one, did not have jobs or job prospects when we left RVA, and only had a limited amount of money, but Marcelle and I were confident, and we believed that we could be successful in this paradise.  Within a few weeks we both had jobs and were both on our way to settling into our new home.  I took a job as a Case Manager for a small Mental Health Agency and was able to travel throughout the mountains from school to school working with at-risk youth in the classroom, at home, and in the community, as well as communicating with agencies to help develop these children into successful adults. (as well as developing their parents into successful parents)  Marcelle took a government job with an organization that has since been dissolved.  She worked as a Wilderness Field Instructor for Camp Woodson, a program which took adjudicated youth out of the juvenile detention centers and placed them in a thirty day rehabilitation program through outdoor therapy. This meant that Marcelle would be on trail weekly for anywhere between three and ten days, away from home the entire time.  This schedule is one of the original roots to the downfall of our marriage more than seven years later, but I will come back to that.  We were proud of our accomplishments because we were spending our lives helping others, in a place that we were both quickly growing to love.
   Throughout the first Fall, Winter, and Spring our weekends were spent doing exactly what we had come there to do.........explore the mountains.  We went on hiking trips, tromping through the snow and ice almost every weekend.  We explored the small towns of the area, paddled some, but mostly we spent time with each other.  We never even really met our "Asheville friends" until the following Spring, because we really didn't feel the need to seek out others...........we had each other.


"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."
                                                                                   ~Oscar Wilde~ 

   Marcelle loved to garden, and for those of you who know her family or have been to their home, you know why.  Marcelle grew up in a home that had a garden bigger than their house.  Gardening was important to her, and because of this, it was important to me.  So throughout the winter, I built her a garden next to our cabin.  I know what you are thinking..........how hard can it be to build a garden?  Well, in Western North Carolina it is pretty damn hard, because nothing is flat.  I spent the entire Winter and Spring cutting trees from deep in the woods and dragging them up the mountain to create a stair step garden dug into the side of the hills.  Everything I used was natural, and the only pieces of equipment used were a shovel and hand saw.  I built brick steps and a patio, and had multiple raised beds that produced flowers and veggies that looked as though they had been grown on steroids.  (I wish I had pictures of our garden, home, etc.  I hate to call Marcelle out here, but I have to.  When we were separated, Marcelle took all the photos of our past...........all of them.  I was left with only the photo archives in my computer, but a month after we separated my computer was stolen out of my car and I lost every picture I ever had from my past.  I spent months begging Marcelle for pictures, but never received any.  Every memory I ever had of Ashville now exists in my mind and my heart, and I was heartbroken when I lost all the pics.  I now understand why people grab their photo albums as their house burns down around them.  Nothing is more precious than the memories we hold...........anywho, back to the story)  When the garden was completed, it was bad ass!  It is one of the things I am most proud of about my marriage to Marcelle, because it was built out of love.  See, I am not much of a romantic, at least according to her.  She wanted love letters, unique and creative gestures that swept her off her feet, homemade Christmas and Birthday presents that took weeks to make, etc., etc., etc.  Instead, I did the only things I knew to do to be romantic.  During the first year of our time in WNC, I would buy her flowers every Friday at the little Farmers Market on my way home from work.  I did this every week.  In doing so, I learned something..........you can't do the same thing every week to show a woman how much you love them.  If you do, then what was once special becomes expectation.  I hate to say it, but chivalry in our society is dead.................and I have no doubt that women are the ones who killed it. (Chappelle)  If any woman reading this has a problem with what I just wrote, by all means, let me know, because I would LOVE to debate it with you.  Most likely, the only ones who have the balls (pun intended) to argue this one with me are the exact same women who killed chivalry in the first place.  Try appreciating things that are done for you, as opposed to bitching about the things that are not.  You may stop being so pissed off all the time..........my point is this.  The garden was my way of demonstrating to Marcelle how much I loved her.  I don't think she ever realized that, and that really hurt, but I still loved what I had built, because above all else, I had built it for her.


“His attentive treatment of her had nothing to do with the presumption that she was weak, and everything to do with the conviction that she was valuable.”
                                                                            ~Angela N. Blount~

That one is just for you Celle, and it is TRUTH.

   As Spring approached, our itch for whitewater grew and it was time to push some rubber.  We applied with USA Raft for guiding positions, and were hired by a really great guy named Nick.......plus, our addition to any rafting company was a no brainer.  We came with a good amount of experience, were a two for one deal, were both good people with great personalities, and fit in well with all the dirt bag boaters of the area.  It was the first time we had sought out a social circle in the community, and we found a good one.
   We trained on the French Broad and Nolichucky Rivahs, and because we had already been through plenty of whitewater training's and situations together already, we both stood out at the top of the class.........this made our jobs MUCH easier.  When you become a guide in WNC, your rookie season is spent paying your dues.  Rafting customers are broken down into three groups.    Camps (which are given to the rookies), groups of friends and companies, and families and business team building.  The rookies get all the camps for a certain reason..........they never tip and are usually full of shitty children who never listen.  The French Broad took it one step further however, because they had daily trips for the ADHD camp..........yes, we spent our days taking boats full of ADHD kids down whitewater rivahs.  (this is the hardest job I have ever had)  I was proud of myself because I only threw four children in the rivah on purpose throughout the entire summer..........but I did mistakenly refer to a child as a boy for an entire trip, only to find out afterwards that he was in fact a girl.  (I still feel bad about that)  The counselors even painted her fingernails so people would know she was a girl, but I just thought he was weird.  (As I said, I still feel bad about this)  I bring up this one particular camper because he/she was in fact the most difficult customer I have ever had in a boat (besides the one time I had to guide a midget, but I will get to that later).  When the little girl (who I thought was a boy) got into the boat she was off the chain and needed a serious dose of Adderall.........I take that back.  She probably needed something much stronger.  She seemed excited about the trip, but when we entered the first rapid she fell out immediately..........the first rapid is easy Class II.  By the fourth rapid she had fallen out three times and was now freakin' out in the boat making it impossible for me to continue the trip.  Our trip leader was an older guide named Marshall who was one of the hardest rivah guides I have ever come across.  He approached the boat and asked me what was wrong.  I explained the situation and then waited for my TL to respond with a solution.  He looked around the boat, paused for a moment, and then gave me the best solution I have ever heard from a TL.............He said very calmly and non-nonchalantly, "stick her in the guide hole under your feet, keep your foot on her so she doesn't come out again, and let's go dude!".......................this is why I love River Guides.  No time for bull shit, no time for excuses.  Marshall was my boss, so I did what any good employee would do.........listened to him.  I stuffed her in the corner of the guide hole and rested my foot on her and continued my trip.  I am proud to say that I have now guided a whitewater rivah with a kicking and screaming ADHD child under my foot while directing five other ADHD kids to safety.........if a man can do this then he can do almost anything.  


"I'd have a longer attention span if so many things weren't so shiny."
                                                        ~Me, and it's the truth.  Damn you shiny stuff~


   Once the rookies had enough of the ADHD camps they either quite (like all Team WAV kids would do), or they were promoted to the classier customers.  Marcelle and I were NOT quitters.  By the second half of our first summer we no longer needed to deal with the camps, kids, and bull shit.  Instead we were selected for smaller more personalized trips full of smiling families, great businesses with cool bosses that scheduled raft trips for their employees, and retired vacationers with too much money.  The biggest benefit to this was tips...........I once received a $500.00 tip from a boat full of Texas oil tycoons..............but then I pissed off Marcelle by spending half of it on beer and pot for all my fellow guides.............which made me very, very popular.  :)  The other added benefit to being promoted was that our boats were full of interesting people from all over the country who appreciated history, good ole' fashioned rivah stories, quality conversations, and peaceful quiet moments to soak up the glorious scenery that surrounded us every moment of every day.  
   Marcelle and I were very good guides...........I am proud to say that this was because of our experiences guiding low water trips on the James for the previous three seasons.  Buzz once forced me to guide a six person boat at 3.6 feet on the James.  All six participants were at least 250 pounds.  This is next to impossible.  The experience included them demonstrating their laziness to the point that I purposely drove the boat far left at Hollywood, trying to launch over the pin rocks with a 1500 pound boat.  This resulted in our raft going airborne and a forty five minute rescue mission of fat people floating down the James.  One of them even refused to get back in my boat........fine with me.  Less weight for me to deal with.  (Lou witnessed this entire incident, so you can ask him for an in depth description)  The point is, three seasons of low water guiding on The James will make you a very good rubber pusher.
   Both Marcelle and I became very respected by our fellow guides and began to thoroughly enjoy our time together on the rivah.  Additionally, it gave us more options on WNC paddling trips with friends, as well as advancing our knowledge and comfort level on our own expeditions.  I have taken a lot of rivah trips with a lot of people, but my two favorite paddling partners were and always will be Marcelle and Marlow.  I loved being deep in a gorge with that feisty and beautiful girl, and I will always cherish and miss those experiences.
   I, along with the rest of the world, am ADHD, so we shall continue this journey later on.  (I just got tired of writing.  I bet the little boy (I mean girl) that I stepped on would understand)  I have a million stories to be told from the rivah, and I want to tell them all, so be patient if you enjoy reading.  The ending will arrive at some point, but there will be many more tales of whitewater woes and excitement before we get there.  Fact is, I just love to write, even if I am not the best at it..........and to all the haters who only read in search of the gossip, I can't express this enough..........GO AWAY!  Happy Holidays everyone.  Be careful this weekend with the weather, although I am calling it right now.........no snow or ice for RVA, just shitty cold rain. That is why my ass will be in West By God, hopefully with a boat, some cross country skis, and nothing but time! 


"There's no such thing as bad weather, just soft people."

                                              ~Bill Bowerman~


That last quote is TRUTH.  Toughen up RVA!  See ya on the rivah..............hopefully without your foot on an ADHD little boy.......I mean girl.   PEACE



To keep reading the adventure, click here...........................The Healthy Double Life