Around the turn of this century, about a decade after Greg had “retired” from commercial river guiding, he received one of the greatest tributes I could bestow on a former employee — I named our most reliable rafting shuttle bus after him.
But I’m getting ahead of myself…
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I first met Greg under the Icicle River Bridge.
Well, that’s not quite correct.
I didn’t meet Greg that day. I saw him. From a careful distance.
I’ll admit, he did not seem like my “cup of tea” - he exuded biker, like a Hell’s Angel biker, not the Schwinn type biker. Cut off tee shirt, grizzled beard covering a sun-worn face. Though he was only in his thirties, he seemed much older than the rest of us.
He looked as if he’d seen things.
He was smoking. I tended to keep a polite distance from smokers.
He drove a boxy cargo van with a homemade wood bumper which didn’t fit into any bad-boy category that I could think of but it seemed oddly strange.
He struck up a conversation with my river rafting partners and I overheard him saying something about a Bible-study group and, even though I grew up in the home of a Presbyterian minister, I treated religious adherents the same as I did smokers.
Unenthusiastic with a slice of politeness.
As it turns out, he had come to the Icicle bridge that morning in search of our competition. Our arch nemesis. Which wasn’t a surprise because my rafting company was virtually unknown at the time. He was acting as the emissary for a German-themed bed and breakfast on the outskirts of Leavenworth. He was also one of the B & B’s several partners.
He hadn’t been rafting himself but he instinctively understood that rafting services and lodging services formed a natural symbiosis.
You won’t be surprised to learn, he gobsmacked us that day with his kindness.
You will also not be surprised to learn that — when the time came — Greg picked up guiding as readily as a duck takes to water. In fact, he received the exact same amount of training as a freshly hatched duckling.
You got your feathers? Here’s the water. Let’s do this!
He didn’t need to learn competence, confidence, carefulness or caution.
He didn’t need to learn to carry on a conversation.
He didn’t need to be told customer service was a part of serving the public.
He didn’t need coaching to know how to be a professional guide.
This was a guy who, in his youth, swam the length of the Green River Gorge near Auburn with nothing but an extra thick wetsuit and a mischievous grin. In his thirties, he knew that had been foolishness but it also gave him an appreciation and knowledge of moving water that wasn’t being taught in the old days of rafting.
~~~
Lucky for us he didn’t seek out the much bigger competitor. As I got more familiar with Greg, I leaned on his every word. His words were not many, but they were always weighted with wisdom, a dry sense of humor and a wry smile.
But I should be completely honest. I didn’t know Greg.
He never shared with me his hopes and dreams, loves and losses, fears and deeply held beliefs. Ours was your traditional male relationship. When words aren’t shared, deeds become your currency.
For instance, I knew I could depend on Greg in an emergency. Of any sort.
Greg and I once drove halfway across the country and back in order to row one paying customer down the Rio Grande from Terlingua, Texas to Langtry, Texas. A river trip of 260 miles.
Neither of us had ever floated the river.
We knew it was absurd, but we both loved adventure. We each thrived on the not-knowing. I knew, with Greg along, anything could go wrong, and the odds were, everything would be made right.
He taught all of us river runners what preparedness looked like. You could rest assured when Greg was around if something broke he could fix it. There wasn’t anything that could throw him for a loop.
He was the human equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.
Over the decade that he and Sharon worked and guided for me, I knew Greg to be indefatigable. The knottiest of problems did not slow him down. Nothing ever got past him.
I never imagined on that nondescript morning under the bridge, beside the Wenatchee River, that the smiling, helpful, gregarious, scruffy-appearing interloper who went looking for another outfitter yet had stumbled upon us would become my right-hand man for a generation.
I also couldn’t have imagined that less than a year later he and
Sharon would meet and kindled a love that would endure for the remainder of his days.