Yo, Leroy!

   Dear Leroy:

   Wuddyathink? Are too many too few? I dunno anymore. Back when, I thought YES; I thought a couple for the road were okay. Livin’ was easy then, right? A few trips, a few beers. Whatever...

   But lately I have got to thinking maybe it was the other way around. Best I recall, too many wasn’t near enough. Hell, took me a sixer to get from 44 Mile all the way down to 47 Mile. And I had a motor, which was, most of the time, bust. Maybe I just couldn’t start the thing. Who cared? Hike...? Where?! I’d have rather sat on the boat and drank beer. Listen: by 47 Mile I was ready to party like the big dogs, like all the big dogs. Yeah!!

   ...Until I fell off the boat. Dead sloppy drunk I was that time. Best part was that nobody saw it because they were off hiking, doing just what they wanted to do. Me too. When they got back everybody saw me passed out in the pilot’s box, my face cut to ribbons, blood all over. Somebody asked my swamper how come I was sleeping and my man just said, “He’s gotta...look at his face.”

   A couple weeks later I sorta came to my senses. I decided to quit. But I couldn’t figure if I should quit rafting—or—drinking. Then, a few days after that, I woke-up at One hundred and Twenty Mile. It felt—and by God it acted like—the first day of Fall, and I knew it straightaway. I knew it because my whole deal was different, my whole world was different, way different. I was out of beer!

   I also realized, somehow spontaneously right then and there, during that beautiful morning moment, that I didn’t need the stuff anymore. No way! I didn’t need it to make good runs or to keep me happy or, even, to loosen me up. I was loose enough already, you’ll recall. What I needed was to tighten-up and be loose about it, not the opposite.

   I’ve been clean ever since. Yeah, sure, every once in a while I’ll mosey down to Joe’s Place and let em’ know that I’m gonna quit rafting but everybody knows I’m just blowin’ smoke anyway....

   So to answer your question: Too much ain’t near enough. Never has been, never will be. Of course not. But it will suffice, I suppose, until you run out.

   Keep ‘er straight, Pard.

—Bubba

   PS: Leroy, you asked me an honest question. I gave you an honest answer. Sorry if I got hard on you; I was trying my best to lend you my understanding of boozing out there on the flood.

   Deep down, I’ve got two sides to me on it. I’m not entirely convinced its “wrong” to have a beer on the river, like when you’re stretching the boundaries, when you and your buds are alive below crystal or something. Suckin’ down a cold one is part of the challenge, the job, the persona projected. It comes with the territory.

   But its hard to make a solid decision with a bottle in your hand. I know that. You know that. And, because we both know that, I need to ask: Is it right? Is it proper professional behavior to drink while you’re driving, whatever it is you’re driving, on the Colorado River? How many people on the boat? Four? Six? Sixteen? Twenty? Does it matter? Should you, Leroy, be consuming alcohol when people are sitting on the boat you are driving? That is the guts of it. It is a sincere, vexed and knotty question. It deserves an honest, introspective, reply.

   That ignores the legal ramifications for you and the company you represent out there. We know that, too. And I’m gonna pass on that entirely except to say—and here is the crux move—does federal law actually stop anybody from doing the unmentionable dirty deed? No, it does not. Enforcement is not the solution. It is a method at issue, yes, but it ain’t gonna stop anybody who really needs a buzz. That is the deal. God bless...

Shane Murphy