Backroads Story – Nathan Clevenger “The Snake Charmer”

I was fortunate to work with Tad on several LHE and he was one of the funniest and kindest people I’ve ever met. I’m reminded of my favorite written example of Tad’s wit, wherein he explains the true story behind one of the evaluations Stacy excerpted below:

---Original Message---
From: Nathan Clevenger
Sent: Thu 6/26/2008 8:55 AM

I can only imagine how much I'm going to have to hear about this, ahem, "life saving" incident:

Sally Gries MYTQ080618F1B
"When the raft incident occurred, my husband said Tad was terrific and probably saved our granddaughter`s (Lauren) life-my husband can tell you more. We are most grateful. I got all of my info third-hand, but I also heard that the river guide steering the boat was dazed by the incident and was unable to be helpful in the rescue, whereas Tad was crucial to saving the day!"

The whole thing is mighty fishy to me, Tad...I know you want to impress guests, but there HAS to be a safer way than shoving little kids into the rapids and staging a farcical "rescue"! I can picture you waiting until the parents were looking, and then striking a heroic pose (fit for marketing material) and saying, "I'll save her!" before diving into the water.

---Original Message---
From: Tad Melichar
Sent: Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:54 PM

Dearest Nathan,

Thank you for your heart-felt praise for my "super-hero-esque" feat on the slithering Snake River. Coming from a non-hero like yourself it is appreciated.

Since Integrity, Honesty, and Good Looks are characteristics of a hero (the last one of which I possess), I feel an obligation to elaborate on the story at hand so here it goes...

The True Story of the Heroic Snake Charmer:

It had been a glorious day meandering through the Snake River and everyone was all smiles, with just a hint of sadness in the air as we all knew this was the last day of the trip and would be parting ways much like a fork in the river. Like school children, we lined up to receive whatever was being "served" at the "Lunch Counter" (the name of the Class III rapid we were rafting through).

I was in the lead boat along with Dave Epperson, our trip photographer who seemed more interested in taking pictures of guests than me despite my repeated $1 bribes I routinely slipped into his camera case. As we began our run through "Lunch Counter" I recall the guide yelling something like, "Sit down you fool and paddle" as Dave was just about to take a catalog worthy picture of me standing in a glorious tight wet-suited "Man-Pose." From that point on, I think I blacked out so the rest of the story is from my subconscious - enjoy!!!

As the waves swelled around us, and Poseidon thrust his golden trident at our boat, we paddled with all our might. But alas, we were no Ulysses, and a giant hand-like swell lifted our boat up to the heavens and sent us crashing back down vertically on our side. I vividly remember my last thought just before I fell onto 10-year old Zoe and her grandpa, "Great, we are going to be late for the picnic and I am already hungry."

As day became night, and warmth became cold, I flailed for the surface like a fish out of water; ironic isn't it. As I resurfaced, and had drank down a glorious cup of Oxygen, the sunlight pierced my eyes with the same intensity of my ear-piercing blood curdling screams of "We're all going to die, save yourselves!!!"

After regaining my composure, my cave-man/animal instincts for survival kicked in. The child-sized life jacket that I had squeezed my hulking 200 lb frame into was struggling to keep us both afloat (remember, Nathan, muscle is heavier than fat). I looked all around for another buoyant object and much to my relief I spotted little 10-year-old Lauren bobbing around like a bobber on the end of a fishing line. I swam to her like a Black Lab swims for a stick thrown in a pond. Once I reached her, I calmly instructed her that if either one of us was going to live to see another Christmas, that she should grab onto my lifejacket and swim us both to shore as I floated on my back. Once ashore, I realized that in the melee, I had lost my sunglasses and recalled that I had loaned my sunglass retention straps to Lauren's grandpa to put on his sunglasses - isn't that great. When Lauren's grandpa finally floated close to shore hanging onto a 10 ft tree limb I noticed he too had lost his sunglasses along with MY retention straps - super. Despite this, I helped him to shore.

Once we were all safely on shore, I noticed that we were in quite a pickle as the terrain around us was pretty straight up and rocky. There seemed to be only one choice for survival, climb back in the frigid water and float along the edge in search of help. We rocked/paper/scissored for who would be the one to go. I lost. Begrudgingly I climbed back in the water, not knowing if I would ever see them again, and yelled back as I floated off, "Hope you bought the trip insurance!"

About 50-75 meters down river I came upon our boat, guide, and other guests who appeared to be having a good time hanging out on the shore. I told them of the Lauren and her grandpa's predicament and that I thought they were probably goners as I thought I saw some buzzards flying over head when I left them. However, one of the guides said she had had to hike this section before so we should just hike back and get them. They made me go along since I knew where Lauren and her grandpa were. Have you ever tried hiking in Aqua-socks??? That in itself is heroic.

Once back on solid mother-earth, we told our stories and that is when I came up with the whole thing about swimming over to Lauren and carrying her out of the water and then helping her Grandpa out of the water and then heroically jumping back in the water to go look for help and then fearlessly bushwhacking/hiking back to get them both and that appears to be the story that has stuck - Go figure.

Tad (aka - The Snake Charmer)