I would never dream of telling my father that he didn’t know how to manage his sales force, or give my financier brother advice on the stock market. Sure, I took a math class once, but that doesn’t make me an accountant. Yet people seem to think they have a right to dictate educational policy just for the fact that they’ve been to school, or because their little darling offspring are in elementary. I think about this and wonder, if we can find a way to reduce education to formulas, then we can just give standardized tests for everything. We can call it “Reductive Education”. I laugh out loud as I come up with a formula for Existentialism:
(Existence + Cognition) ÷ Meaning = 0.
“What’s so funny?” says Bob.
“Oh, nothing,” I return, “absolutely nothing...”
The night sky is clear. We are at six thousand feet in altitude here, so the stars fill the heavens. I search for the Big Dipper, then find the Little Dipper, and wonder if there is any animosity, any conflict between them. After all, the Big Dipper has the North Star at its edge. This gets it a lot of attention. The Little Dipper is just the inadequate younger sibling. If the stars were animate, I suppose this would be an issue, but they just burn the same every night.
Down here, it’s a different matter. There is conflict, down here.
III
I wake before dawn, brew a pot of coffee, and then head out to the porch to watch the sunrise. The morning is cold, but the sky is clear. My visible breath reminds me of the smoke I pushed towards the stars just eight hours ago, and I try in vain to form my breath into rings. The porch faces east, and I look beyond the lake towards the distant ridgeline as the rising sun begins to appear above it. There is a layer of spring snow on the ice that caps the lake, and I squint into the dawn as the sun reflects brightly. The birds are coming to life, I hear crows and songbirds announcing the day’s arrival, but all else is silent, peaceful, until I catch a figure moving out on the lake. It is a man, running across the ice, I can see the rhythm of his breath before him. He is wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, and across his shoulders rests a log, which his arms are draped over. I stare in wonder at this sight, considering what it must take to inspire him to this extreme morning exercise. I listen to his feet crunch against the snow, watch him reach shore, run up the bank and into the stand of trees across the way.
What has become of me? Ten years ago, I was that runner. Ten years ago, I could run with the best. My hands were calloused and my back was strong from working construction. Ten years ago, the only weight on my shoulders was the weight that I put there myself, to test my endurance. But today, the weight is not voluntary. Today the weight is heavier than I could have ever imagined. What about the boiling rivers that I kayaked down, the peaks I climbed? How many times had I hiked through the outreaches of the Grand Canyon, climbed Half Dome in Yosemite, separated from civilization to explore oceans, mountains, deserts? Where did my own crazed determination go? At the edge of forty, I have settled for five star fly fishing expeditions with the power elite, the obscene gluttony of forty-five dollar bottles of wine, cognac and cigars on the porch of a three hundred dollar a night “cabin”. Had I my brother’s money, would I join the country club, buy a Lexus, own a beach house behind the gates at Malibu, dine at tablecloth restaurants five times a week? It is a small comfort to me this morning to say it, but I look beyond the frozen lake, into the sun, and say it out loud. “At least I haven’t taken up golf...”
* * *
Our guides meet us at the foot of Flaming Gorge Dam. I look up to the twenty-story structure as the guides launch our boats into the Green River. I can see cars move across the road that skirts the top of the dam, and move my eyes to the red rocks of the canyon walls, which are dotted with twisted pine trees. I think of what it must take for a tree to take root in the crevices, punch its roots through the rock into earth below, and draw enough life from the rocky soil to thrive and reach fifty feet, a hundred feet, into the sky.
I join the rest of our group at the water’s edge. We set up the fly rods, tying on perfect imitations of the blue winged olive mayflies that are hatching on the river. There is a seat at the bow and the stern of each of the seventeen-foot long aluminum riverboats. Their flat bottoms make it easy for the guide to navigate through rapids and around boulders, from the shallow riffles where the fish feed, to the calm eddies where the fish rest. Dad and John take the lead boat, with Chad as their guide. Chad is young and bright, an ex-college basketball player, quick to laugh at the slightest attempt of a joke. He has the ease of a California surfer and the determination of body and mind to pull his launch through even the most dangerous rapids.
Bob and I are in Boomer’s boat. Boomer doesn’t look like a typical guide. He’s not screaming with youthful exuberance, and he has the look of a guy who spends his days on the couch watching football, eating hot wings, and drinking Coors. But we know Boomer from our trip here last year, and have requested him from the guide service. He is the most experienced guide on the river, nearly a legend among the younger guides. Out of the boat, he is short and ornery. Inside the boat, he has the skill of a conductor, guiding his boat, directing his charges in symphonic grace. As we launch into the river, John calls over to us,
“Any of you guys see that crazy sonofabitch running across the lake this morning?”
“I saw him,” I say. “Was that a log on top of his shoulders?”
“I think so. What a crazy bastard! Why on earth would he do that?”
I’m in the seat at the bow, and can see Boomer’s eyes as he rows us out into the river. A smile twists onto his unshaven face, and he lets out a chuckle as he looks over at me. “That was Jimbo. He does the maintenance at the lodge, built all those new cabins on the edge of the lake last year. He runs ultra marathons down into the Grand Canyon every summer.”
“Really...”
“Yeah, from the north rim down to the bottom, over the river and up the other side to the south rim. Do you know how hot it gets in the Canyon in mid summer? Average ninety-five degrees at the bottom, but it gets above a hundred regularly.”
I look at Boomer and nod my head. “I know. I used to go to the Canyon every summer myself.”
It is easy to see where this river got its name. The water is a bright emerald, and clear enough to count the individual rocks on the bottom at thirty feet. Together the green water and red canyon walls complement each other, making the entire canyon seem to vibrate in the morning breeze. All about us are trout, resting, holding in the current, rising to the surface to take the hatching mayflies. Bob and I spend the morning fooling them with our imitations, enticing them to strike, fighting them, reeling them to Boomer’s net, then releasing them back into the water for another day. A storm front is moving in from the northeast, dark clouds are spilling over the canyon walls. By the time we meet Dad, John, and Chad for lunch, the sun has disappeared and the temperature has dropped enough for us to don our fleece jackets and gloves.
Bob has spit venom all morning in his conversations with Boomer. Each snide comment about Hillary and healthcare, Bill and impeachment, the unfairness of his personal tax burden, overzealous environmentalists, welfare abusers, the Liberal Media, drives me further and further into silence. By the time we beach the boat for a lunch stop, I’ve just about had it. Dad and John are standing with Chad beneath a weathered pine, waiting for us to join them. As I approach, I can hear John comparing the finesse of fly casting to his golf swing. When I reach them, Chad looks to me,
“So Tom, do you golf too?”
I spit back a bitter reply. “I don’t golf. Don’t talk to me about golf!”
I watch Dad’s jaw drop, his face shows surprise. “Why do you say it like that?” He is offended in the worst way. He mimics my delivery as he repeats my words, “I don’t GOLF. Don’t talk to me about GOLF. That’s insulting, the way you said that.”