The call came in the dead of winter.
It was a Seattle winter; therefore, instead of layers of snow blanketing the ground, or biting Arctic air knifing through your thickest down jacket, there was a dismal grey light coming through the window and the streets glistened with rain. Any phone call was a welcome distraction.
His voice sounded young, his questions were many and he spoke in the laconic parlance of surfers. Or, in his case, a snowboarder.
He wanted to know about rafting and, specifically, guide training. He hailed from Baltimore and was working his way westward. That winter, he was a “liftie” at Schweitzer in the panhandle of Idaho. A Democratic governor from Arkansas with a penchant for Krispy Kreme donuts and blue dresses had just been elected president and - frankly - anything seemed likely.
Even so, I was dubious.
A snowboard punk thousands of miles from home, unfamiliar with the Northwest, expecting to land in Seattle and earn a living guiding! What were his odds, I wondered? I fielded his questions, promised to send the information about guide training, and promptly filed it away in that sliver of your brain reserved for useless detritus destined for the trash bin.
Except to relate the story later to a few friends and my partner about this teenager from inner city Baltimore, who said ‘dude’ more often than not, and planned on driving to Oregon in March to freeze his ass off learning to guide a raft.
A week or two later a check arrived covering the cost of his training. The itinerant snowboarder called once again to see if it would be all right if he crashed at the warehouse the night before the seven-day river trip that kicks off guide training.
I didn’t see why not.
The warehouse was an outbuilding behind a farmhouse on acreage in a rural part of King County. His presence would alarm absolutely no one. In any event, I remained skeptical of his attendance. Potential trainees backed out at the last moment numerous times in the past. The likelihood of this character showing up seemed as far-fetched and remote as the dark side of Jupiter.
However, on the morning of our departure, I pulled into the drive at the warehouse and noted a road-weary Ford Bronco tucked against the side of the building. I opened the warehouse and started rummaging about in the gear. The instructors and some students arrived and the quiet morning began to give way to bustling activity. The inhabitant of the truck had not yet stirred and with every passing minute my curiosity grew exponentially.
When he finally emerged from the back end of the dust-caked, previously blue truck with the Maryland license plates, he was just as goofy and young as I had imagined. A ponytail reached to the middle region of his back but, for having spent the night curled in a ball in his vehicle, he was tidy in every way. In fact, his jeans looked freshly pressed. He pulled a weathered Baltimore Orioles cap partway down his forehead and sauntered up to introduce himself.
“Hi. I’m Kook,” he croaked. His smile was charming, off-putting and mischievous all at the same time.
But, with that hello, the legend commenced.
Only a teenager, but unlike most teenagers I’ve encountered, Kook was on a mission. A fellow ski bum spoke to him of guide training and, even though he had never been rafting with no idea how to swim, he was undaunted. His biography could be: Undaunted Courage, The Sequel.
Now, I would be lying if I told you he excelled. I would be lying if I told you he displayed any sort of promise as an outdoorsman.
But what he did was persevere. He entertained us with his notorious, ass-wiggling, ass-slapping, ass-exposing ‘Kook dance’. He gave effort. At the end of the four weeks, he volunteered to do whatever to secure employment.
One of Orion’s veteran guides offered him a mother-in-law apartment in his basement in exchange for yard work. Meanwhile, Kook made himself indispensable by offering to work odd jobs around the warehouse, repair gear and serve river trip lunches. All the while he continued to gain experience on the river awaiting his debut as a guide.
It was during this time when, as the lunch person on the Wenatchee River, he responded to Governor Booth Gardner’s query as to how he had come to be here - meaning the state of Washington, with Orion Expeditions, serving lunch to a governor - with this memorable, guileless, innocent remark, “I drove my truck, dude.”
Kook was one of a kind. It took him a long time to hone his river running skills, but, in the meantime, his sense of humor as well as his rafting foibles kept us entertained.
Like the time he was caught in a hydraulic feature in a raft on the Skykomish and he was beseeching the river gods - out loud for all to hear, “Please let us go, please let us go, please let us go.” The four first year guides who were with him clung desperately to the raft, mortified.
Or the time he was tossed into the turmoil near the bottom of Boulder Drop. As he floated toward rescuers in the eddies below, he raised his paddle straight overhead - the universal signal there’s a swimmer in the water - as if the dozen boaters with rescue lines might have not seen him.
Or the time he cheated Lava Falls in the Grand Canyon so far left he beached his boat on a small boulder near shore. When we went to discuss his predicament, yelling and gesticulating from the left bank, we realized, Kook was seated to row in the opposite direction of what would - under normal circumstances - be customary. Though clearly rattled by the powerful forces arrayed before him, once freed from the obstacle, he rowed safely to the bottom of the rapid.
During his guide training on the Sauk, which is a river bristling with rocks of all sizes, his instructor would calmly ask him, “Do you see the rock ahead?”
Kook would squint hard downstream and then say, “What rock?” at just about the same time the boat would broach on the rock in question. This happened repeatedly - “Rock? What rock?” Bump! - until, finally, he had to be relieved of the guide paddle and seat.
There was also the master chef Kook who whipped out a lunch for thirty people - including another governor, Gary Locke! - under duress and damp conditions all by himself in fifteen minutes.
Or super-cautious guide Kook who was the only raft that did not flip out of five in the infamous Lunch Hole and Aquagasm Rapid debacle on the Skykomish River in high water.
Or sommelier Kook who conducted a well-balanced and informative wine tasting for my family on a Lower Salmon raft trip.
Kook river guided for nineteen seasons. Full time for the first decade or so, intermittently thereafter.
Somewhere during that time, he graduated from a culinary arts program having learned to be both cook and pastry chef. Following that, his love of drinking red wine led him to chase his bliss to California and find work at Ramey Cellars. A vineyard producing wine so fine the Obamas would serve it at White House dinners, and my sister and I would recoil at the cost when we went looking for it for Thanksgiving.
He even earned his commercial bus drivers license and faithfully drove shuttle for Orion for years. He continually redefined what it means to be ‘indispensable’.
Our inveterate dog paddler, who came to be here by driving his truck, even, eventually, signed up for swim lessons and learned to do a passable crawl stroke.
At present, Kook - now known as Stephen - is living his best life in SoCal. Head of wine sales at his local Ralph’s, cruising the local beaches on a cruiser bike and diving into the art of flying kites with all the gusto he brought to every other pastime and activity he’s undertaken.
Here’s a clip from Swingers where Vince Vaughn’s character tells his friend, played by Jon Favreau, that “he’s all growed up”. Kind of a non sequitur. Kind of not.