Transcript : Walk on the Wild Side - Part 2
TUS01506- Walk on the Wild Side Part 2
Marc Moss: [00:00:00] We are currently looking for storytellers for the next tell us something storytelling event. The theme is a sense of place. If you’d like to pitch your story for consideration, please call 4 0 6 2 0 3 4 6 8 3. You have three minutes to leave your pitch. Our friends from the deaf community are welcome to Pitch by Emailing info@tellussomething.org.
The pitch deadline is May 21st. I look forward to hearing from you. Welcome to the Tell Us Something podcast. Tell us something is a nonprofit that helps people share their true personal stories around the theme. Live in Person Without Notes. I’m Mark Moss, your host and executive director of Tell Us Something.
Sometimes Adventure is chosen. Sometimes it’s thrust upon you. In this episode of the Tell Us Something podcast, we delve into the journeys of four remarkable people. A father on a wilderness backpacking trip must trust his [00:01:00] nine-year-old daughter to decide if they push through a grueling trail or turn back.
Land Tawney: He got these black burn trees. You got the fireweed. It’s about yay high. That pink, bright fireweed, the just juxtaposition with that and the trees. It’s just gorgeous.
Marc Moss: A young woman chasing a childhood dream unexpectedly lands a job at an Alaskan salmon hatchery, finding her true calling far from the world of fashion
Hailey Glassock: when you’re 19, details like where the job is and the fact that you should be within an hour of a hospital a lot of times really don’t matter.
Marc Moss: Meanwhile, a mountain guides attempt at romance. Is derailed by a giant steak and a dramatic breakup he must fight to fix.
Bryan Dalpes: I noticed a little green sheen on the surface of that meat,
but I just flipped it over and thought, I’ll, I’ll cook it real well.
Marc Moss: Finally, a teacher overwhelmed by her [00:02:00] daughter’s cancer fight. Accepts a risky Peace Corps invitation to Africa, fundamentally changing how she views her life’s responsibilities.
Betsy Funk: My favorite trick was the guy who spun plates. He’d have this stick and he’d get the plate going up there and he’d get it spinning, and then he’d put it in this matrix.
And as that matrix held the plate, he’d keep it going and he’d get 10 or 12 plates going at one time.
Marc Moss: Four storytellers shared their true personal story on the theme Walk on the wild side. Our stories today were recorded live in person in front of a packed house on October 7th, 2025 at the George and Jane Denison Theater.
Remember this, tell us something. Stories sometimes have adult themes. Storytellers sometimes use adult language. Please take care of yourselves.
The University of Montana where the George and Jane Denison Theater is located, stands on the Aboriginal territories of the SLU and Kalispell [00:03:00] people. We also recognize the Kni, the Blackfeet, the Shoshone, and the many other indigenous peoples who have called this place home and whose histories, cultures, and languages continue to enrich our community.
When we recorded this episode of the podcast, the Aspens were turning gold and the air was crisp. It was a sacred time of transition for generations. The original stewards of this valley understood autumn as a time for the final harvests for preparing food and medicine for the coming cold, for the last hunts before the snow, and for gathering to share stories that will sustain the community through the winter.
This land is not a relic of the past. It is a living, breathing entity deeply connected to the ongoing lives and traditions of indigenous peoples. In our first story, Tawny seizes the chance for an epic backpacking trip into the Frank Church wilderness made even better by the inclusion of his [00:04:00] nine-year-old daughter and support llamas.
When the intense summer heat and rugged trail push the young girl to the brink of giving up, he must trust her to make the decision to push forward or turn back. Land calls his story, young Grit. Thanks for listening.
Land Tawney: All right. So I get this call from my friend Ryan. It’s the most amazing call ever. And he says, Hey, do you want to go down to the Frank Church Wilderness? No return on a backpack trip? And I was like, heck yeah. And then he says something even better. He says it’s gonna be supported by llamas and so we don’t have to carry anything on our backs.
And I was like, hell yeah.
So then he, then I asked him like, well, what are the dates? So he tells me the dates. I start running through my head. Okay, it’s not my anniversary, it’s, but it’s in the July. Oh man, I’m, I’m sorry. I can’t go. He’s like, why can’t you go? I’m like, [00:05:00] it’s my daughter’s Sidney’s 10th birthday. So I’d gone from just so excited, just, ah, I can’t go.
And without skipping a beat, he says, well, why don’t you bring her? And I was like, yeah. I mean, she’s nine, almost 10. Yeah, I think she could probably do it. So I get off the phone, I wait for my wife to come home and I talk to her about this trip that’s been offered, and she’s like, yeah, I think she can do it.
Since Sydney gets home, I think she was hanging at a friend’s house and she gets home and. Before it’s even all the way outta my mouth. She’s like, dad, I want to do it. So now we have this opportunity, dad and daughter, to go into the Frank Church wilderness of no return. And so we start training up on Mount Sentinel and I buy her a backpack.
Even though we’re gonna have these llamas, I wanna make sure that she’s got water. I wanna make sure she has snacks. Plus I want her to carry something as she goes into the first time into the wilderness. So we’re up on Mount Sentinel, we’re hiking. She’s getting strong. Feels good. [00:06:00] And so the day comes and we drive, if you know, it’s a long drive.
So we get up early in the morning and we drive down to Stanley. It’s about, I don’t know, about another hour outside of Stanley. And we get to the trailhead and it’s this just craziness of llamas and gear everywhere. And so we get there and we, and we, we give them our stuff and they pack it into a llama and we all get assigned a llama.
And so what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna hike up this trail and we’re gonna all have our own llama and we’re gonna take them up to the top of this high mountain lake. It’s about a three mile hike. First mile’s gonna be flat next to are kind of steep, to get over the top of that ridge. If you’ve been in the woods, you know you gotta get over that ridge usually to get to that, get to that lake.
So it’s this chaos. But then Sidney gets assigned her llama, his name is Marshall. And Marshall is this old seasoned llama. He’s been around the block. I think he gets assigned to Sidney ’cause she’s the youngest one in the group by [00:07:00] far. And so we get all packed up and now it’s time to go. And so we’re going down the trail and what I haven’t told you yet is this is the middle of July and it is hot as Hades.
Like I’m talking hot. It’s about noon. Sun is beating down on us. We’re in a place that is recently burned, so it’s absolutely gorgeous. You got these black burned trees, you got the fireweed. Its about yay high. That pink, bright fireweed, the just juxtaposition with that and the trees. It’s just gorgeous. So we’re walking along this trail and, you know, it’s, it’s been hot for a while and so there’s this dust on the trail.
So as you’re walking it’s like,
and this dust just comes up in the air. Think about like pigpen and peanuts we’re like this mass of llamas and people, and dust. Sid’s not bothered by it. She’s having the time of her life. She’s smiling, she’s singing. I’m like, this is amazing. So that’s that flat part. [00:08:00] Yeah.
So then we take this hard left and that’s when we start to get a little bit steeper. Now, at the same time, Marshall decides to eat some of that fireweed. Fireweed makes him s lobber like uncontrollably, s slobber. And so he is slobbering down the back of her leg. This is the first sign that things are changing a little bit.
City’s like, that’s gross. And I’m like, ah, it’s okay. It’s just llama. It’s just llama juice.
And so we keep going and, and then, you know, since there’s a recent, recent burn. There’s a ton of downfall, like a ton of downfall, and over one of these logs, Sidney has, she’s got Marshal behind her and she goes over this log with this llama steps on the back of her calf, and I hear it kind of scream. Now, my first thought is if this is a horse, like it’s trip over horses with their hooves, they can’t really feel what they’re touching and that would’ve crushed her calf, like crushed her [00:09:00] calf.
Been a serious, serious injury. But llamas, they have these two toes and they can feel with those toes, it’s like her fingers. So when it touches that calf, it just bounces off. So all it did was scare. So we avoided that mess, but as I said, it’s starting to get steep. And you know, Sidney, she stops talking and we’re both big time motor mouses talking all the time.
And when she stops talking, something’s wrong. So I look at Sid and I’m like, Hey. Are you okay? She’s like, oh, I, I’m kind of getting tired. And so we gave her some water, a little bit of a snack, and I asked our leader, there’s about 13 other people with us, and I asked the leader of this trip, I said, how much longer till lunch?
Because I know we’re stopping for lunch. And he’s like, oh, just 20 more minutes. So I looked at Sid and I said, can you make it 20 more minutes? She’s like, yes. So we continue up the trail. Well, if you’ve ever been in the woods with people, that 20 minutes turns into 30 minutes, turns into 45 minutes [00:10:00] before we stop.
So we stop and she’s absolutely had it. Her face is bright red. She’s on the verge of tears. As a father, I’m looking at that man, I’ve ruined her. This is her experience in the woods and what an idiot. But there’s this creek that’s running along right there, comes out of that high mountain lake. It’s nice and cold.
I’m like, ah, she needs to cool down. So I pick her up and I dunk her in that water and I start shaking her. You can’t shake a baby, you can shake a 9-year-old, I can tell you that. So she cools down a little bit. We get some food in her, but she’s still, you can just see in her eyes, she’s still not quite there.
So I decided to tell her this story about Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt and our family is revered is why we have these public lands that we have today. And so she’s heard so many stories and probably as sick as telling or hearing these stories, but I’m like, I’m gonna tell you another one.[00:11:00]
So when Roosevelt was young, he had asthma, like debilitating asthma. And back in that time they didn’t have inhalers. That ability to, you know, to get rid of kind of that episode that you’re having. So what he decided to do, he decided to make himself strong and limb and strong and long. So we spent a ton of time out in the woods.
Doing just that, just tramping around the woods. And so we got over that affliction by facing it head on. So I tell her this story and I said, you got two options right now. We can turn around, we can go home, which is okay, or we can face that adversity and we can move on. I did the hardest thing I’ve probably ever done as a father.
I walked away and let her think about that by herself. Nine years old. So I come back couple minutes later knowing full, well, if she wants to go home, we are going home. [00:12:00] So I go, Syd, it’s up to you. What do you want to do? She’s like, I want to do it. I’m like, all right, we’re gonna do this. Wow. So we get up from lunch, and again, she’s the youngest by far, and she gets Marshall Marshall’s old, right?
Like he’s this old seasoned llama. We gotta get up to this high mountain lake and we take off, and I will tell you what, we crush, crush everybody else to the top. We’re the first to the top. She gets up the top and she raise her hand like this, and she’s, it’s in triumph. I will never forget that image. So excited.
And she strips down. She has her swimming suit on, which is probably one of the reasons why she was hot.
But she jumps into this high mountain lake and ice off. You know, even though it’s July ice off had not happened not too long ago. And so it was freezing. Asshole. She jumps in there, takes her breath away, then she gets out. She’s kind of, she kinda stumbles ’cause it’s so cold. But she’s got this huge smile on her face that she’s getting [00:13:00] out.
She sees this little bug. And we eat bugs at our house. It’s kinda this weird thing that my dad started. He’d say, A fish eat ’em. I eat ’em. And so we’ve carried that tradition on.
So she picks up this bug and it’s a stonefly nph. Have you ever seen these? They’re gigantic and they look like aliens. She picks it up. She puts it in her mouth and starts chewing on it. And these people are like, what is going on? And it falls out of their mouth, out of her mouth and everybody laughs like you all just did.
And she’s like, oh yeah. And she grows and grabs it and she picks it up and she eats it. So this trip is like, it’s, it’s, it’s, there’s so many memories. We go out, there’s, uh, somebody brought a blow up, uh, kayak. We go out on this lake. The cutthroat. So we’re just catching ’em hand over a fish. She’s in the front of this kayak.
I’m watching this 9-year-old catch these fish. It’s absolutely amazing. I’ve got a rod hanging out the back. These fish are trying to grab my fly, but I’d never get a chance to [00:14:00] fish ’cause she’s catching ’em all. Next night is her birthday. We have her birthday cake in a Dutch oven. People sing her happy birthday.
She’s now 10 years old and she did that in the wilderness.
Look up at the stars that night. You know, talking about all sorts of things, just contemplating the universe by looking at all these stars. There’s so many memories from that trip, but what I remember most is that grit. That grit that she showed in that moment of adversity. And sometimes, you know, you gotta face that adversity and.
And maybe take a step back and go home, but she instead, she, she found her inner self or inner grit. Now she’s here tonight and she’s a senior in high school.
She had her senior night tonight at soccer. I tell you, I didn’t [00:15:00] cry at that. I came close, but she’s gonna be going away to college next year. And undoubtedly she’s gonna be facing adversity. And Sidney Claire, what I know is what you face on that mountain, what we’ve already faced in your life. You’re always, always gonna be able to face that adversity.
I love you. Thank you.
Marc Moss: Thanks land. Land. Tawny is a fifth generation Montanan prone to wandering and good times land. Earned his Bachelor of Science focused in wildlife biology from the University of Montana and has been working his entire adult life to conserve public lands and water and access to them at the local, state and federal levels.
From testifying in front of Congress in Washington DC to organizing grassroots volunteers all across North America [00:16:00] Land walks the Walk. He now co-chairs a new nonprofit, American Hunters and Anglers Action Network, and works tirelessly to protect our public lands for present and future generations.
Next up, we have Haley Glass, who was driven by a childhood dream of culture. And must abandon fashion for a seemingly stable career path, only to have a single brochure unexpectedly reroute her life. A misunderstanding at a job interview for a job in Cordova, Alaska, plunges her into the grueling world of salmon hatcheries, where she finds her true calling in the remote wilderness.
Haley calls her story, origin story. Thanks for listening.
Hailey Glassock: Our would melt away as I spend time sketching clothes with colored pencil. I solely built up a pretty large [00:17:00] portfolio that included everything from wedding dresses to couture out there styles. I watched Devil Wear’s Prada more times as I can count and can recite the Saru sweater monologue with a performance that rivals Meryl Streep.
My senior year of high school, I designed and sewed my prom dress. It was a deep purple, one shoulder taff at a gown with a pleated bodice and a crystal accent belt. The goal was, of course, to become a clothes designer walking the streets of New York and showing in the most famous of fashion weeks. I applied to many universities, but only one design school, and all the universities provided some form of financial aid or scholarship.
But the design school did not. I didn’t wanna go into massive amounts of debt in a field that was really cutthroat and had a low rate of success. So I decided to go to the [00:18:00] University of Georgia, go Docs, and shifted my focus to a career path that would arguably be just as glamorous, but much more stable.
You know the universal second career choice for all girls who don’t go to design school. I would of course become a high school biology teacher.
My freshman year I wandered around the majors fair and ran into a table for the forestry school. I picked up a pamphlet that said Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences and big bold word art letters of a photo with a bunch of smiling students holding up fish in a pristine looking stream. The table was manned by a few upperclassmen wearing camo with deep southern accents, and one professional advisor toting a mom haircut and wearing a red UGA logo polo that made 19-year-old me [00:19:00] cringe.
I asked the advisor if I could still be a biology teacher if I majored in fisheries. She said yes, and I declared my major. I quickly went to the bookstore and found a sail rack, UGA logo, camo hoodie. I decided at that moment that camo could be fashionable if it was intentional
that first summer I wanted to apply to jobs in my new field. I had one fish class under my belt. I was ready to be a professional. I applied to over 100 jobs, and to my surprise, one of them emailed me back. They wanted to schedule an interview for a Salmon Hatchery Bio eight position, and the address listed Cordova, ak.
I thought, alright, some salmon in a tank in the middle of Arkansas. I mean, [00:20:00] I’ve never been to Arkansas. It doesn’t seem that cool, but I’ll, I’ll suck it up for this summer and get the experience under my belt. Now, at this time, I didn’t know the difference between a trout and a bass. Sharks were still a mystery creature.
Definitely not a mammal, but unclear if they were a fish. And so when interviewing as a 19-year-old for a hatchery job in so-called Arkansas, I didn’t know that salmon had an intricate life history. That included maturing in the ocean and migrating hundreds of miles back to their natal streams to spawn die, and provide nutrients to the next generation of fish to perpetuate that miracle indefinitely.
The first question they asked me during the interview was, are you comfortable and prepared with living in remote [00:21:00] locations on islands in the Prince William Sound of Alaska?
Now when you’re 19, your reflexes are pretty quick. So I don’t think they noticed my hesitation as I realized the job was not in Cordova, Arkansas, but Cordova, Alaska, and I replied quickly, oh yeah, yeah, that’s not gonna be an issue. They didn’t need to know that my high school education clearly lacked geography and state abbreviations, and they also didn’t need to know that.
Just a few months earlier, I had been hospitalized and diagnosed with a chronic illness. It was taking 10 pills of day, manage the symptoms. You know, when you’re 19, details like where the job is and the fact that you should be within an hour of a hospital a lot of times really don’t matter. I loaded onto a plane outside of Cordova with a [00:22:00] suitcase full of Thrifted flannel shirts because that’s what you wear in Alaska, 1000 pills and A DVD copy of the Devil Wears Prada.
We took off and I could see the shadow of the plane on the water and the hill slopes of the islands. And before I knew it, we were landing at the hatchery and hooked up to the dock and the manager came out and shook my hand and said, I’ll show you to the dorms. We start at 6:00 AM and that night I’d, I’d like to tell you that I couldn’t sleep because of the midnight sun coming through the, the window in my room, but I know it was because my stomach was in my throat wondering what the fuck I was getting myself into.
The next day I found myself in the pitch black, wearing a headlamp, a device I didn’t know existed, and elbow deep [00:23:00] mixing salmon sperm into buckets of salmon eggs. They would hand me a three gallon bucket and I would insert my arm and slowly mix counterclockwise no more than five times. A very precise and important step I had to do, just so obviously mimic making exactly what the salmon would be doing in nature.
I would let the bucket sit until the eggs went from being squishy to a firm plump ball, the perfect gummy bear consistency to then be poured into the incubation tank sym, mature. Now, I had a few country boyfriends when I was in Georgia, so I did handle a few fish, but that summer I personally fertilized 53 million chum salmon eggs
while singing and laughing next to [00:24:00] a friend that I made at the hatchery James. James was about nine years older than me, and despite his singular nipple piercing, he seemed to have his head on pretty straight, and we talked over the weeks and I shared with him how I wanted to stay in Alaska, quit school and work my way up the ranks to become a hatchery manager.
I couldn’t imagine going back to boring old Georgia and leaving the wilds of Alaska. James always seemed to really care about my thoughts and and what I had to say, and so at one point he looked at me earnestly and said, Hailey, this will all be here next summer waiting for you. I went back to UGA and a professor got me involved in research and I did a study on BAS genetics.
And then next summer, because of all that experience, I was able to intern in Yellowstone National [00:25:00] Park, a place I didn’t know existed and camped for the very first time in my life, six miles back in the Lamar Valley where we collected fish for a graduate student doing their research. I froze my ass off every single night in a 40 degree Cabela sleeping bag that I bought in Georgia.
But my headlamp worked perfectly. And at that point I realized I didn’t wanna just be involved in research. I wanted to lead research projects. I would have to go to grad school. I applied to multiple master’s projects and got into one. But during my master’s, I was hospitalized again, and this my, this time my disease was much worse.
I had to relearn how to walk and I couldn’t complete my field work. I, I really had to grapple with whether I’d made the right decision. Maybe I should have [00:26:00] gone into fashion and massive amounts of debt, but now I, I kind of knew that this was my path. So I had to balance my disease with this new dream of becoming a fisheries researcher.
And luckily, my doctor found a miracle drug and my disease went into remission. And I stand before you as a doctor and a biologist, a fish biologist with the US Geological survey,
a job four years in, that still feels like an absolute dream. I get to do research field work and advise students. My very first master’s student will be graduating in December. I spent this past summer backpacking in the Sierra Nevada and driving across Nevada and Oregon to remote locations to collect stream habitat data off.
Not seeing anyone but the crew that I was with. [00:27:00] I. Always thought the most wild part of my life would be spent on the streets of New York, dodging people on the sidewalk and elbows on the subway and sucking in tailpipe smoke. And I no longer design clothes, but I still design. I design research projects, and I get to sew together stories about how humans affect our ecosystems and what we can do to keep those ecosystems in tact for future generations.
I spend my time dodging spider webs and tree branches while breathing in crisp, clean air in the wilds of deserts and forests. But every time I’m in the field, I always think about how I would design my waiters differently.
Marc Moss: Thanks, Haley. [00:28:00] Haley Glass migrated from her birthplace in Pennsylvania to Georgia, the state, not the country, and eventually to Montana where she has lived for eight years. Landing in Missoula has been a blessing for friendship, love, heartbreak, growth and community. After seeing te US something in 2022, she has been waiting for a prompt that would fit for her to share a story.
I. Haley was given lots of cheeky feedback from high school friends of how poor a storyteller she is. By sharing this story, she has broken that streak. A mountain guide’s attempt to turn an Alaskan fling into a real relationship was ruined by a giant stake in its disastrous aftermath. After his partner abruptly ends things, he has to navigate gossip and miscommunication to try to save their relationship.
Bryan Dalpes: I noticed a little green sheen. On the surface of that meat,[00:29:00]
but I just flipped it over and thought, I’ll, I’ll cook it real well.
Marc Moss: And a woman overwhelmed by her many responsibilities unexpectedly joins the Peace Corps in Africa.
Betsy Funk: My favorite trick was the guy who spun plates. He’d have this stick and he’d get the plate going up there and he’d get it spinning, and then he’d put it in this matrix.
And as that matrix held the plate, he’d keep it going and he’d get 10 or 12 plates going at one time.
Marc Moss: Stay with us. Thank you to the Good Food Store and Exit Realty, who as story sponsors helped us pay our storytellers. Learn more about them@goodfoodstore.com and missoula realty.com. Thanks to our stewardship sponsor, marsh McLennan, who helped us to give away free tickets to underserved populations.
Learn more about Marsh mclennan@marshmclennan.com. We are currently looking for storytellers for the next tell us something storytelling event. The [00:30:00] theme is. A sense of place. If you’d like to pitch your story for consideration, please call 4 0 6 2 0 3 4 6 8 3. You have three minutes to leave your pitch.
Our friends from the deaf community are welcome to Pitch by emailing info@tellussomething.org. The pitch deadline is May 21st. I look forward to hearing from you. You are listening to the Tell Us Something podcast where people share their true personal stories around a theme. Live in person without notes.
I’m Mark Moss. Storytellers in this episode shared their stories in front of a full house on October 7th, 2025 at the George and Jane Denison Theater in Missoula, Montana. Brian Dalby hopes to turn his Alaskan summer fling into a real relationship and ignores food safety for a giant stake, which leads to a disastrous morning ritual right outside.
His would-be loves a-frame door when his partner abruptly ends things after returning from [00:31:00] a grueling trip. He must navigate gossip and miscommunication to save the relationship. Brian calls his story the rile. Thanks for listening.
Bryan Dalpes: It’s late August, 2012. I’m working as a mountain guide in the quirky little town of McCarthy, Alaska, and I’m living in the dry a-frame of my summer fling, Rachel. Now Rachel’s got this long, perpetually tangled brown hair, these bright brown eyes that when she smiles, she gets this really cute squint and that smile.
It’s got its own gravity. It pulls me closer every time she flashes it. And even though Rachel is, Rachel is physically a lot smaller than me, she can carry the same size pack on the most rugged Alaska terrain. [00:32:00] She’s smart, she’s funny, she’s beautiful. But what really hooks me is she’s so kind. Whether you’re a close friend, a total stranger, or one of the random dogs that wanders around, McCarthy, Rachel will meet you with kindness and a genuine curiosity about your life.
And so in those days we didn’t have running water, electricity where we were in McCarthy. And the biggest challenge we ran into with that was we couldn’t refrigerate our food. You know, eating canned and dried goods every day gets old really fast. And we had a friend visit who on their way out, they offered all the food left in their cooler.
And there were some veggies and some fruit, but what I saw was this massive sirloin steak, and she warned me, she said, you know, our ice melted a day, probably two days ago, [00:33:00] so be careful with that. I didn’t care it, it was too tempting. I fired up the grill. Got it nice and hot. Threw some extra salts on the steak ’cause.
That should kill some bugs, right? And I slapped that thing on the grate. The aroma was incredible. My mouth was immediately watering. And I will say I noticed a little green sheen on the surface of that meat,
but I just flipped it over and thought, I’ll, I’ll cook it real well. So I munched that thing down. Every bite was a dream. I went to bed that night feeling fat and happy only to wake up early the next morning with a GI emergency. And so I scrambled out of the loft, down the ladder in the A-frame, burst out the front door, and [00:34:00] started the sprint to the nearest outhouse, which is about a hundred feet away.
I made it. 75 of those a hundred feet before catastrophically shitting my pants mid-stride.
Now, with no electricity or running water, we didn’t have, you know, clothes washer or shower, so we’ll just say McCarthy Creek and I were well acquainted that day and I spent the rest of the day very close to the outhouse, needing to use it quite often. And I went to bed that night. Totally exhausted. The next morning I woke up and my first thought was, man, I feel pretty good.
I think I’ve turned the corner on this. Started down the ladder. All it took was being vertical, and I realized, Nope, I’m not through this now from the day before, I knew it wasn’t worth trying to outrun, so I just [00:35:00] stepped outside the front door. Down the couple steps, dropped trow and left a massive pile right next to the steps.
Rachel had left early that morning to fly out to guide a five day backcountry trip, so she wasn’t around. I had the day off and I thought, well, no, no rush to clean this up. I’ll go have a cup of coffee. So I’m having my cup of coffee. I’m looking out the guides window at the beautiful Alaska Vista, and lo and behold, here comes Rachel trotting past the window towards the A-Frame Uhoh.
So I start chasing after figuring I have to explain myself, and by the time I catch up, she’s already in the A-frame. I come in, she’s frantically ripping her clothes off, and she’s like, God damnit fucking Todd douche bag. I said, what happened? And she said, well, Todd just like [00:36:00] winged my bag into the van and exploded my bear spray all over me and all my stuff.
So she’s in this panic to get changed and repacked so she can guide this trip. So I help her as best I can and in a flash, she’s out the door, she’s gone, and I’m left with my thoughts. I hope. I hope she’s okay. I hope these clients are easy. I hope she has a good trip. Did she see the pile?
We’ll have to deal with that another day. So two days later, I leave for my own five day backcountry trip with a, a friend. And unbeknownst to us, we were attempting a route that hadn’t been done in more than 50 years. And over those five days we got what we call, uh, Alaska. And what that means is whatever harrowing and terrifying experience you imagine that Alaska backcountry could offer, we [00:37:00] experienced it.
And during that time, all I could think about was Rachel, that squinty smile, that tangly hair. And I realized this summer fling, I really wanted it to be a thing. I wanted to have a life with Rachel and I was genuinely concerned that I might not make it back to tell her that, but of course I did. And the plane landed.
I hopped in the van and I rushed down to find her so I could tell her how I feel and wasn’t hard to do ’cause McCarthy’s essentially one dirt road and she was walking up with two girlfriends. So I pulled over and started peppering her with questions only to get. One word, cold answers. How are you? Fine.
What have you been up to? Nothing. Where are you going out? Could we talk later? Maybe. I look up at her friends, they’ve got their arms crossed and they have these faint [00:38:00] kind of snarls on their faces, and one of them turns to Rachel and says, we should go r. And Rachel looks at me and just says Bye and walks away.
So I de dejectedly drive down to the guides quarters and I haul my gear to the wall tent that I use to store between trips. And as I get in, I see there’s a pile of my stuff from the A-frame, my clothes, my books, everything. And on top there’s a note and it just says this isn’t gonna work out. We should end it before we’re more entangled.
I was gutted. I couldn’t understand what was happening. I, I couldn’t compute what I was reading. So I had a very fitful night of sleep that night. And the next morning I went out early to try to find her and see if she would talk to me. And I tracked her down and she agreed to have a conversation. We found a quiet spot on McCarthy Creek and I just started [00:39:00] rambling.
I’m, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to boop in your yard. I was sick. I, you know, I, and. She’s what? What are you talking? This is about you sleeping with the blonde girl. I thought Blonde girl. There’s no, oh, the blonde girl. So the blonde girl was a fan tour leader that I was schmoozing at the bar trying to network clients with the common thing in the guide world.
And after a few drinks, I walked her back to her tent and that was that. What I didn’t know is Rachel’s friends were in the bar and after I left, they finished the rest of the night from their imagination. Oh, Rachel says, oh, so you didn’t sleep with the blonde girl? I said, no, absolutely not. I want to be with you.
I want a life with you. And she said, oh my God. Yeah, me too. That’s, that’s why I was so upset. I, I was, I’m falling for you. And I thought we really had [00:40:00] something. I said, yeah, we, we do. And so we had this really excited moment of talking like what the next few months could look like. We could get a place together, we could travel.
It was just full of possibility. And after a moment, the the energy kind of settled and we had this very peaceful moment just looking out over the creek and the leaves were just starting to change colors. McCarthy Creek was just peacefully, you know, Burling right at our feet and. We, there was this moment of still clarity after so much confusion.
After a few moments, Rachel kind of cocked her head at me and with that squinty little smile, she said, wait. You shit in my yard.[00:41:00]
Marc Moss: Thanks, Brian. Growing up on the mean streets of suburban Colorado, Brian found refuge in the punk rock and skateboarding communities while voyaging on the courageous journey from child to manchild. His life course changed when he discovered the moving meditation that his rock climbing. After honing his climbing and alpine skills, he spent summers in Alaska guiding ice climbing, glacier exploration and backcountry trips.
Since those years, he has continued on to be a guide instructor, coach firefighter, EMT COVID Task Force Specialist, seedling nursery, crew Lead Mobile beer, canner, freelance video editor, graphic artist, handyman landscaper, ski patroller, house sitter, marketplace hustler. The list goes on. He is the proud dad of a floppy eared special needs dog named Ron, who is regularly recognized on the trail and pined [00:42:00] over by complete strangers.
Closing out this episode of the Tell Us Something. Podcast is Betsy Funk. Betsy is feeling overwhelmed by her spinning plates of responsibility. Betsy receives an unexpected invitation to join the Peace Corps in Africa. She risks leaving her daughter and draining her finances to chase a desperate call for help embarking on a journey that will test her limits and change her perspective on what it means to keep life together.
Betsy calls her story Mother. Thanks for listening.
Betsy Funk: So when I was a child, we would watch television and some of the shows we watched were variety shows and the people on variety shows would get on and they’d sing and they’d dance. And the ones that I liked the most were the ones who did tricks. And my favorite trick was the guy who spun plates. He’d have this stick.
He’d get the plate going up there and he’d get it spinning, and then he’d put it in this matrix. And as that matrix held the [00:43:00] plate, he’d keep it going and he’d get 10 or 12 plates going at one time, the music would swell. He’d pop that plate off with a stick and he’d catch it and he’d go 1, 2, 3, until he had all 12 plates.
He’d take a bow. It was magical. So I’m sitting in my classroom during my planning period, and I’ve got plates spinning. I got plates in this corner and plates down the hall and plates above my head and plates in the store room. I got ’em all going and I’m hitting a point. Of too muy.
I’m stuck in too muy and I’m not sure how to handle it because I know all of those plates are important for all of the people I care about. And the biggest plate right in the middle is my daughter who’s finishing off her first year of chemotherapy fighting cancer. And I know all the other plates can kind of wobble and I can keep ’em going, [00:44:00] but that plate.
That one has to say spinning as long as it possibly can. And then I hear ding and I look over at my computer, pause and see who it is. And it’s Sally. Sally’s a good friend of mine who played with me in the symphony and she decided she wanted to take a different, different, uh, tack, and she joined the Peace Corps.
And so I hadn’t heard from her in about nine months, and there’s this message that says, Hey, Betsy. I’m like, great time to take a break from all my plate spinning and see if I can talk to Sally. So we have this conversation. How are you? I’m okay. How are you? We converse for a while and then she pops a question.
Hey Betsy, I got something to ask you. And I go, yeah, sure. What is it? She goes, um, would you come to Africa? And I [00:45:00] went, oh, what? She says, well, I, I, I kind of have to teach and I don’t know how, and I’m scared. And would you come and spend eight weeks in Africa teaching us how to teach? I went, ah, and I thought about my plates.
Well, they can wobble, but there was that big plate, and I said, hang on. I picked up the phone and I called Kelsey. I said, hi, Kelsey. I just got asked a wild question. What is it, mom? I said, Sally just asked me to go to Africa for eight weeks. She goes, I said, what? What do you think? She says. Mom, that’s awesome.
You should go. I’ll never go. You can come back and tell me the stories. So, began my first trip overseas. I. I was a single mom and had very little money. Um, recently married [00:46:00] to my husband, and I knew that this was gonna cost a lot, but I didn’t know how much it was gonna cost until I met with the very patient travel agent and I met with a very kind banker, and I had my very tolerant new husband who said, okay.
And about two weeks after I found out the price and got all the shots and the paperwork and all of the things that I didn’t know you had to do to go to Africa again, never been overseas, just had a passport. I went to the bank and I got $4,500, walked across the street and there was a glass front. On the travel agency and I went to go to our appointed appointment to buy my ticket to Africa, and I walked right by the window and I took my $4,500 and I walked around the block, came back by the window, and she’s looking at me.
I kinda look at her and I walk right by the window and I head back around the block. What I’m [00:47:00] thinking is. All the other plates can wobble, but can I leave Kelsey? Can I go? And what happens if it breaks? And then I think as I’m on my fourth lap around the block, Kelsey told me to go, I need to bring her back the stories.
So I go in, I hand her the money and she says, we’re gonna get you to Africa, Betsy. And I said, just be sure you get me home. And so I went to Africa. I went to Ethiopia for eight weeks, and I worked with the Peace Corps. And during that eight weeks I saw the Great Rift Valley. I saw poverty. I experienced extreme generosity, Ethiopian eyes, women winnowing, wheat in baskets.
In the morning light
I tasted. I smelled, I walked, I cried. I felt things that [00:48:00] I’ve never felt before and I ran away from all the things that I was doing at home to try to find a way to hold it together. And I taught, and I mentored and I taught. And about five weeks in. I get this, this enlightened young man, his name was Jake, he came up to me and he, he was, he was like the poster child for Peace Corps, right?
Beautiful teeth, hazel eyes, hair pulled back in a ponytail, chiseled jaw, bare feet. And, and he comes, he goes, I’ve got an idea. This is five weeks in. So I guess he liked me. We’re gonna take you in the hunt for the mother coffee tree. Now this is the part of Ethiopia, which I didn’t know before I got there that they had a rainforest.
And we’re in the rainforest and we’re in the ka region of Ethiopia. And those of you, uh, uh, please excuse me if you know this, I was, I was not, um, prepared [00:49:00] for that. So we’re in a jungle in the coff region and they believe in Ethiopia, that that’s where the mother coffee tree is, where all of our coffee addiction came from is the coff region of Ethiopia.
And so he says, we’re going to go and hunt of the mother coffee tree. I said, oh, okay. So we get on a bus and they bring us to the top of a ridge, sort of looking down on the canopy of the rainforest and drop us off because it’s too dangerous to go farther. The Peace Corps volunteers, three of them have machetes.
Jake is leading us with his bare feet telling us, mother Earth is calling me. I know where the coffee tree is, and I’m going, okay. And as I look out on these, on the canopy of the rainforest, I see the mist rising in the morning light, illuminating it. Not unlike the fall mist in the Flathead Valley that rises off the agricultural land.[00:50:00]
As things wake up and we drop down into the rainforest, and while I’m in the rainforest down there looking up at the canopy, the light comes and streams and in sparkling spots coming down, it illuminates. The Columbus monkey who’s watching us in the tree with this big white face and his big bushy long tail on his black body holding court in the jungle, it lights up the baskets that give the promise of sweet honey in the future.
It lights up the monkeys that are chasing us and throwing figs at us. It also brings the mid canopy to life. And in this mid canopy, it was like there were stars sparkling everywhere you looked, white starred flowers illuminated by this morning light. They were the flowers of the coffee trees everywhere you looked.
It was a sea of white [00:51:00] coffee flowers, everyone holding the promise. Of a ripe cherry that would then be dried and brought to market in giant bags with giant Ethiopian eyes looking at you. And partway down this jungle journey where they’re hacking away, we come to a ravine. And at this ravine it’s about 150 feet deep.
There’s a long log that goes across and it’s slimy. And they say, oh, Jake says. We have to cross the log. The mother coffee tree is calling me through my feet and I look at the ravine and I look at the log. I’m like, Ooh, I’m twice your age. I don’t think so. And the other thing that I don’t tell them is when I go down on down to that log, I realize I can’t cross that ravine because I might not make it home.
And there’s a plate that matters. And so I tell them, I don’t think I can cross the log. I think I need to go home. And they say, [00:52:00] okay, taking me back to the village not knowing. What I really mean is that I have three more weeks in Ethiopia and I want to go home and be with my kid. They take me back to the village and we’ve been invited to dinner at, uh, an NGO’s house, and it’s the Italian NGO and it’s a house.
It’s not a hut and it’s not in Jira and Watt and it’s not. A mat on the floor. It’s a big table with a kitchen and a generator and a refrigerator and beer. And so we all sit down and we, they’re drinking beer and they’re drinking wine, and she brings out papaya and mango and. Bananas and all of these things are sweet and tangy and wonderful, and they’re eating it and they’re excited.
And then she brings out bread who has bread in Ethiopia. So she brings out loaves of bread and they’re pulling the pieces off and they’re layering the mango and the banana and the pineapple all on the bread. Then she disappears into the kitchen again, and she comes out, she says, the PSA resistance, a giant chunk of Parmesan cheese.
[00:53:00] Now there’s, we didn’t have. Um, refrigeration. So some of these kids hadn’t had cheese in over two years. I hadn’t had it for five weeks, and I count cheese as a major food group in my life. So I was pretty excited. And so were the kids and they grated this mound of cheese and they started layering papaya, mango, banana, bread, cheese, bread, cheese, cheese, cheese, cheese, papaya, mango bread.
You get the picture. Then they start putting when they run outta food. They put it on their hands. They’re drinking beer. They put it on their arms, start licking it off each other’s faces until they, they just fall down in a heap of sticky cheese and, and sugar. And in this place they had these couches.
And I’m watching these kids and I’m experiencing these, these young people knowing that home is calling me. It’s saying, you need to go back. You need to stop running away. And I, I watch these kids and at the end of it, they go into this couch area and like only [00:54:00] mid twenties people can do, they’re a tangle of arms and legs and bodies sort of laying on each other.
And I’m heading back to my hut with Sally and I think to myself, you know, all of this is amazing and it isn’t home, but is beautiful.
Marc Moss: Thanks, Betsy. Betsy Funk is a mom, wife, sister, and friend, with a passion for giving back. As a member of our collective community at large, her greatest pleasure is when she is making the world a better place with a smile, a story, a bouquet, a hug, or a listening ear. She strives to inspire hope in the moments we share.
You have been listening to the Tele Something podcast. Tune in next week to hear the stories from the [00:55:00] self-evident live storytelling event
Francis Davis: where I saw my fellow waiters like me. Artists, writers, photographers, actors, dreamers, all waiting for their big break.
Adria L. Jawort: I went to the Easter dresses they had, and I was like flipping through dresses and I turned around.
My mom was standing right there and I was like so scared.
Mark Matthews: And I knocked on the door and this big burly guy with dark hair and a tattoo of a grizzly bear and one bicep and a woodpecker on the other, opens the door and he looks at me and he said, I was wondering when you people would find me.
Christian Bazzano: I read into the wild and I just ate that up Alaska.
It wasn’t a place, it was an objective. It was traveling west. It was doing more. It was wrapped up in this idea I had of some clarity.
Marc Moss: Listen for those stories@tellussomething.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks to our media [00:56:00] sponsors, Missoula events.net. Mike’s print and copy Missoula Broadcasting Company, including the family of ESPN Radio, the Trail 1 0 3 3, Jack FM and Missoula source for modern hits, U one A 4.5.
And thanks to our in-kind sponsors, float Missoula and Joyce of Tile. Thanks to Cash for Junkers who provided the music for the podcast. The song is called Buzzing and could be found on their album, which you can stream at cash for junkers band.com. Remember that we are looking for storytellers for the next tell us Something event.
The theme is a sense of place you can learn about how to pitch your story and get tickets@tellussomething.org.
