That was Sunday.
The weekend started for us halfway through the previous Friday. Intermittent texts between Jason and I were scattered throughout the morning as we made plans on where we were going to meet to start the drive down. We had planned to meet at the WXPN Free At Noon concert, concerts held weekly at a local radio station with a new artist every week. It had become an almost weekly occurrence when we all worked together a few blocks from the radio station. Jason was running late, so Kelly and I went to the show with our backpacks full of gear and food for the weekend. We stayed near the entrance to keep our large bags out of the way, and watched the show from the back. Jason arrived a little late, but spent the remainder of the show driving in circles trying to find parking. The shows only usually last anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. This one was a little bit longer as they performed an encore of a great Run Around Sue that turned into a bit of a jam. I was thinking, "Oh man, Jason is missing this!" Kelly and I exited the venue and waited for Jason to make his loop around the city streets to meet us out front. He was able to pull his truck into the loading zone spot and we loaded our bags into the back. We started the drive to Western Maryland where we were to hike a section of the Appalachian Trail there.
Map of the AT Section
Kelly and I had run the section of the Appalachian Trail, traversing Maryland from the Pennsylvania border to the West Virginia border, the previous year. We were eager to show Jason this section of trail and a little backpackers site we found that we dubbed "The Game of Thrones Site." We were also excited to stay at one of the fanciest lean-to's I had ever seen, complete with an enclosed loft, the Ed Garvey Shelter.
I had been winter camping the previous few years and Kelly and Jason had joined me for winter camping the previous year. This was our second year winter camping, but we couldn't make it happen until near the end of the winter season. The weather was expected to warm in the area over the next few days, but rainy and damp. We had joked about how "winter camping" wasn't going to match the previous year where we camped in a couple feet of snow with temperatures approaching 0-degrees Fahrenheit over night.
The drive down was pretty uneventful, hitting traffic around Baltimore, where we expected to. We used the entire time of the drive to catch up. We had all seen each other the previous weekend, but we spent that entire time going over the map of the trail section and making plans for food and daily activities. That and Kelly and I trying to remember where that damn GOT site was on the map. Until the previous weekend I don't think Kelly and Jason had seen each other since the previous year's winter camping trip.
We made good time getting to the shelter with about a half-hour left of daylight. We surveyed the area and set up our accommodations in the loft. It seemed we were going to have the place all to ourselves for the night. We started a fire and dinner. Tonight's dining was to be Kelly's special, Hormel Vegetarian Chili. Kelly is a vegetarian and well, Jason hated vegetables. I'm not kidding. One time he cooked dinner for me and my wife and the menu was chicken. That's all we ate that night, chicken. Jason, surprisingly, did like this chili when Kelly brought it the year before and had even mentioned it when we were making plans. Being a meat-eater myself, I can attest that it is very tasty.
Jason at the Ed Garvey Shelter
We sat around the fire eating our dinner when another guest had arrived at the cabin. We made our acquaintances and shared some chili. The stranger mentioned his intentions to stay only the night and to hike out in the morning. While we were all sitting at the fire it started to sleet. I was excited to point out the little ice balls bouncing off my jacket, exclaiming "Look, winter camping!" We all headed in for the night to the patter of ice on the roof. The next morning I was up early, sipping coffee on the little porch of the loft when our new friend headed out. I offered some coffee, but he declined and went on his way.
Kelly was the next up and we had coffee and oatmeal together on the porch. Jason didn't drink coffee either, may have been simply because it's technically a fruit, I wonder...
Once we all had our breakfast and cleaned up our dishes we headed out for the day's hike: a spot known as Weaverton Cliffs, overlooking Harper's Ferry, WV on the other side of the river. It was already warming in the morning, creating a pretty thick fog so we wondered if we were going to even be able to see Harper's Ferry from the cliffs. We didn't talk too much on the hike to the cliffs. It was pretty dreary and I think we all used the moment for be more introspective. I think that's why we all appreciated each other. We could talk for hours, or be silent together for hours and be okay with that.
Jason on the way to Weaverton Cliffs
When we reached the cliffs the view was as we expected it to be, grey mist into nothingness. As we walked out farther onto the rocks at the ledge there was a break in the clouds giving us a window that framed the town and a piece of the river. We stopped and rested on the rocky ledge, watching the frame shift and change our view. After some snacks we had another quiet contemplative moment among ourselves there.
Jason and Kelly atop the rocks at Weaverton Cliffs
Jason was still recovering from a broken ankle that happened earlier that year. He had also just released his first album in January and was gearing up for more live shows around the Philadelphia area. I knew I was kind of being a pain in the ass, by constantly asking how his ankle was holding up. We had planned on keeping the walks short enough with rest in between to help the legs stay fresh.
After some time on the cliffs, we walked back to the GOT site to eat. The original plan was to sleep there for the night, but it was too wet. We decided before we set out for the day that it would be more comfortable in the shelter for the night. The GOT site typically overlooks a couple of farms just down the hillside. It is quite the Americana scene from the edge of the site, but today we could only see the misty fog. We spread ourselves around the site and determined we wouldn't make a fire here as we had planned, but would make one when we got back to camp. All of the wood around the site was pretty damp. Instead I set up the camping stove on a large rock and started the meals. We had brought enough water between the three of us that we didn't need to get more until later that day. As I started to cook up the meals there was a rustling in the brush beyond the camp. I walked over to investigate and there it was. A G-O-A-T was visiting us at the GOT site. Yup, a billy goat. I imagine that it had climbed the hill from one of the farms below. We started joking that it was the elusive Western Maryland Mountain Goat. We also joked about who's food it was coming for. It was not shy at all and came right up to me to start nibbling at my glove. I wondered if it had come to this site before and maybe people were feeding it. The goat did hang out with us while we ate, but kept its distance so we got to enjoy our food. I feel like maybe Jason and Kelly were more willing to share than me. I may have been the only one yelling at the goat "No!" when it showed interest in getting closer.
Jason with the Western Maryland Mountain Goat
After dinner we arrived back to the shelter to plenty of new campers, even some through hikers, Sobo's (South-bounder's) I believe. Our stuff was already in the loft so we had secured our spots for the night. We built a campfire and Jason and I walked down the hillside to the spring to replenish our water so we would have enough the the night and the next day. The trail was steep with plenty of switchbacks and the wet weather of the previous night and that day had also made it slippery. As we made our way down I became even more wary of the ankle, pointing out all the roots and slippery spots. We both slipped a couple of times, but we made it okay. We took turns using my pump filter to fill our six bottles, we each brought two bottles each. I loaded them all into my backpack and we headed back up the hill. We got back up to the top, a little tired and hungry as it had been the most work we had done so far that weekend. So we snacked on beef jerky and Swedish Fish around the fire. We were all set for the hike back out the next day though.
More hikers arrived at the shelter as the night wore on. When each person arrived, they were obligated to sit at the fire and tell everyone about themselves. We were having a pretty good time with it. A couple of the people were previous through-hikers who had come back out to the trail for the weekend. There was also another engineering graduate from the University of Delaware, where Jason had received his mechanical engineering degree; a med student, a father and son and more college students that lived closer to the area.
The most memorable hiker for me was Angry Bird (trail name) who picked up the name when hiking atop a rock pile on the AT while a hawk swooped on him repeatedly, eventually knocking his hat off. Another hiker had been watching whole ordeal and said "That bird was pretty angry. There is your trail name, Angry Bird." He had moved out of his parents' house by building a tiny cabin on their multi-acre property and was attending forestry school. He also had burned a good section of his parents' property recently. The cabin was far enough away from his parents' house that he would have to drive there in the morning to shower and get ready for work. Before he drove away that morning he had emptied out the wood stove off of his porch. When he came out of his parents' house he noticed a good deal of smoke from "down the hill" and hurried back down. He had no running water in his cabin and so no way of dousing the brush fire. He had built his cabin raised off the ground about two feet. The fire had spread under his cabin, and singed his support posts, but other than that the cabin was safe. He and his father were able to contain the fire from spreading across the rest of the property. Angry Bird had also brought with him a homemade wooden banjo. Anyone of those three things alone would have won him top story of the night. Although our story of the Western Maryland Mountain Goat was pretty good, not many of the others believed us even with the photos.
Maybe it does look like Kelly in a goat costume
That night every spot was taken in the shelter and every spot around the camp. I had hung my hammock from the rafters in the loft. So I even had someone sleeping under me. That poor young girl had the lowest ceiling that night. Her and her friend had been the last into the camp. At some point during during the night she must have woken abruptly and sat straight up because I awoke to find her face on my ass. It was not pleasant for either of us. I don't think anyone slept that well that night because we were all pretty much elbow-to-elbow in there.
I am usually the first one up-and-at-em in the camp, but this Sunday morning was exceptional. I made my way out to the porch trying to quietly gather coffee and oatmeal and the cooking stove while intermittently stepping on or kicking people still in their sleeping bags. Kelly was up not too long after me and we found a spot out of the way from others coming out of the loft. We sipped coffee with coconut oil and butter (you should try it sometime) and watched the wind sway the trees. I mentioned, "We are going to have to keep an eye on the trees as we head out today." There was one dead tree that had been marked with a pink ribbon directly behind the shelter. It worried me.
Kelly and I had most of our stuff packed before Jason was up. Kelly had asked if we should wake him, but I had suggested we give him a little longer "He sleeps later now that he is a rock-star." Kelly had plans with his family later in the day so we had set a time for leaving. Once Jason awoke he said he would skip oatmeal and just have a Clif Bar for breakfast as long as we could stop in town on the way home for some pancakes. We all agreed. I was looking forward to the bacon. I imagine Jason was too.
It didn't take long for Jason to pack up and be ready to go. Everyone else was up in the camp now too. Jason wanted to check the lean-to one more time, even though Kelly and I had peeked around earlier to make sure we didn't leave any of our things. He probably also wanted to say goodbye to the others, which Kelly and I had done while Jason was packing. We told Jason we would meet him out at the trail connection. Kelly made his way down the trail first with me trying to stay equidistant so Jason could easily catch up. Then I heard something hit the shelter. As I turned around I could see it was that marked tree. A branch had broken against the shelter, but the rest of the tree fell to the side of the shelter. I started running back to the shelter and was the first to see Jason tangled in the tree. Somehow, he was still upright, though unconscious or worse . I screamed for the doctor (med student) even though I had seen him hike out about a half-hour earlier. Others came running and I got out my phone and called 911. The dispatcher wanted to know the nearest street intersection. I got out the trail map and proceeded to give out information while other were getting Jason out from the tree and starting CPR.
Once they had the intersection, I was told to stay on the line until I could hear vehicles. I don't really remember much of the phone conversation from there, but I stayed on the line as the other campers continued CPR efforts. While I was on the phone I thought of his grandmother, Jinnie, who had passed away the previous month. Jason loved his grandmother and wrote a song for her called "Virginia Mae". The song was not on the album, but was posted on his music's ReverbNation website. I then thought of Jason's family. I had just met his parents at his CD release party in January. I remembered how cute I thought they were as they stood at the bar and swayed together to his songs. His sister Amy and her husband Dale had been coming to see Jason perform around Philly for years and I got to hang out with them on several occasions. Though I knew chances were low he could be revived, I hoped for his family's sake that he could.
Shortly we could hear sirens in the distance. Then we could hear the vehicle, an ATV in the distance. the 911 dispatcher told me to go out to the trail and wait for them, but I sent Kelly and positioned myself at the halfway point between him and where Jason was. When the paramedics arrived they asked how long CPR had been performed and one of the campers, who had recently completed a wilderness medical training course, was ready with the time. The efforts were ceased and the time of death announced. At that moment my heart broke. Kelly and I embraced and kept embracing more between questions from the Ranger that arrived at the scene. The Ranger took everyone's statements and surveyed the scene while the other campers consoled us and each other. The wind remained with the sound of cracking and dropping branches filled the woods. Then we prayed. We prayed for Jason, his family, and for everyone of us that were out there that weekend.
Since Jason drove us there we had to call to get a ride back home. I called my wife, Heather, and let her know Jason had been in an accident on the trip and that we needed a ride home. I didn't give out much more information. After the call I stood one the hill and the sun had broke through the clouds. We hadn't seen the sun since we arrived at sunset on Friday.
After we signed our statements, we said hugged and shook hands with each one of the other campers, thanking them for their efforts in trying to save our friend. I apologized, on behalf of Jason, that their departure from camp was delayed. It seems silly now, even then, that I would say such a thing. I told them Jason would be upset to be the cause of this. A few cracked smiles nodding their heads.
The Ranger and one of the paramedics who knew the trails well in the area, showed us on my map a nearby fire road that would lead us down from the trail through someone's property and to the road where others were waiting for us. We headed out from the camp and back down the trail to find the fire road. We could see the ATV tracks, this was also the way they came up. Another ATV passed us heading up to the camp. Just behind them, they had dropped a map, so we picked it up and carried down with us. With each sound of branches breaking in the distance we would look over at each other without saying anything. At the bottom of the hill we came into the property. The sides of the fire road were littered with abandoned vehicles of all types. Lots of cars and trucks, some boats, campers and a few buses. Then I heard Kelly say faintly, "Miki?" and started to walk over toward a bus. Next to it was a vinyl record sticking about halfway out of the ground. Kelly pulled it out of the ground and it was fully intact and didn't appear to have any cracks. He brought it over to me and I simply read the title, "Dixieland Jazz" and placed the record under my arm and we continued on.
When we got to the others at the road there was a food truck set up for the rescue team. One of the items they put on the menu was a Philly Cheesesteak. The person inside the truck said they had heard we were from Philly. I don't remember if we ate or not. We handed over the map to the Ranger who was to give us a ride back to where we parked. People asked about the record. I told them we found it on the way down, but we didn't have a record player. We would have to wait until we got home to see if it would work. It must have seemed the oddest thing, but no one really questioned it.
It is about a three-hour drive from Philly to the Gathland State Park trail head where we left Jason's truck. Not long after Kelly and I were dropped off at the parking lot, Heather arrived and just behind her, Kelly's wife, Danielle. It's then that I had to tell Heather the news. My heart broke again, still thinking about his family and friends. We all stayed together for a little bit before getting in our cars.
On the ride home I received a call from the Ranger at the scene and we discussed how Jason's family was to be notified. It's just not possible to say enough how courteous everyone had been on that day and the following week in keeping me aware of everything that was being done.
When we arrived back in Philly we went to Jason's place to see if we could let his dogs out and make sure they were fed. We couldn't find the key, but Jason's sister had called his ex, Jess, to see if she could check on the dogs. While we were still looking for the key, Jess arrived and started trying her keys and was able to get in. We hung out with Jess and the dogs for a while and got to speak on the phone with Amy about plans for the dogs before heading home.
Kelly had taken the record we found to his house, but did not have a record player. On Wednesday, while we were both suffering from either a bad case of poison ivy or hives, still not sure which, Heather and I took our portable record player over to Kelly's. When we got there we cleaned the record off in the kitchen sink.
When Jason would come to our house he would thumb through our record collection and pick out something to play on the record player, which lived in our dining room, while we would hang out. Most of the time he would find records we forgot we even had and they would usually be gems. We still go though the albums from time to time saying "Let's see if we can pull a Jason."
After cleaning and drying the record, we put it on the turntable. It was visibly scratched as can be imagined for a record that was sticking out of the ground. It played without a scratch or skip, the whole album. Not only that, but the jazz music on it was some of the happiest, upbeat music I had listened to my entire life. We couldn't believe it. We listed to the whole thing in Kelly's kitchen, his kids coming in and out of the room while it played. It sounded great, even on the little portable player.
The following night I brought the record to a memorial show at the Mermaid Inn. The Mermaid is a bar just down the road from Jason's place and he frequented it often. The Mermaid is known for live music and especially for the Philly folk music scene. Jason would walk his guitar down the street to the Mermaid and present songs at the monthly open mic, songs that would eventually make it onto his album, A Mountain and a Hill. The Mermaid is also where Jason held his CD release party for the album. I brought the jazz record and my record player with me to the Mermaid and planned to tell people about the record and we would listen to it for a bit between other folk musicians performing songs to honor Jason. It was hard to stay composed though the whole night. We shared stories of Jason with each other while the album played in the background.
The following Saturday was Jason's service in Dover, DE. We brought the record and left it in the car. I wanted to share it with his family, but didn't know if I would have the opportunity on that day. We brought it just in case. After the services we were invited to visit with the family in one of the church's rooms upstairs. Before heading up I grabbed the album and player. I found a place to plug it in the corner of the room. We got to speak about the previous weekend we spent with Jason. I told them about the record we found when we were heading out of the trail on Sunday. I asked if I could play it for them. We put the record on and I saw Jason's mother, Nancy's eyes light up and a smile come across her face. I must have turned away for a brief moment, but I was told she even pointed her fingers up and started a little jitterbug. Nancy then went on to tell how that was her father's favorite music, and it that was part of the reason Jason had taken up a musical instrument in grade school.
I knew then why we found the record stuck in the mud, why we brought it home and eventually to Jason's family. The songs on the album bring joy, almost immediately when it starts playing, through music.
Waldorf Music Hall - Dixieland Jazz Album
The following week I started looking online for album display cases. I wanted to get this record displayed in a case and to give the album to his family. In the meantime I also wanted to get a record player that I could transfer the audio to digital format and make CDs for friends and family. I was able to accomplish both and that summer I was able to give Jason's parents, Pat and Nancy, the framed record. I mounted it in a case that could be easily opened so they could still play it when they wanted. I handed the CDs I had made from the record to fellow musicians who played on Jason's album and other friends. I think the joy the music brings forth is pretty comparable to the joy of having known Jason.
Since that day I have been privileged to spend time with Jason's family. Pat and Nancy are known in the family for camping. They camp in State Parks around Delaware about four times a year and they always invite Heather and I to join them. Lots of times other family members join us, Amy and her husband Dale, cousins Kathy and Erin, Uncle Dave and Aunt Leslie. I've through hiked the central section of Shenandoah National Park on the AT with cousin Eric. Jason's family and his friends let me in to their own circles and it been wonderful getting to know them. Since we lost Jason there have been weddings, new babies, illnesses and loss. I also had the privilege to take some of his family to the Ed Garvey shelter. I'll never be able to fully express what it has meant to me to be able to be there for the good and bad times, just be there, around them at all.
Miki and Jason's dog Trixie
Miki and Pat walking the dogs
Some of Jason's music was passed to me by Jason's family and friends and I've learned most of the songs on the album now. This last year, at the first Reunion Picnic in honor of Jason, I got to perform his songs in front of his family with some of his band members. I also started performing his songs at The Mermaid's open mic nights. Nancy and Amy have also been learning his songs on guitar and I look forward to playing with them in the future. Amy and Dale's son Ollie has also taken to music and hopefully in the future he can join us on some jams.
I've believed, for sometime now, about the deep founded connection of everything in the universe. An unseen energy that connects us to each other and to everything else. One of Jason's friends sent me a message a little while back that she saw on the internet. It went something like this - Instead of having a minister speak at your funeral, you should have an engineer speak and discuss the first law of thermodynamics. Both Jason and I met because we were both mechanical engineers who worked together at a small firm in Philly. Being mechanical engineers, we were both well acquainted with the first law of thermodynamics. The first law of the thermodynamics states that the quantity of matter and energy in the universe remains constant. It is also known as the Conservation of Matter. Matter can change forms, such as water to ice, but the the matter and energy remains the same.
I don't know who's energy placed that record in the mud for us to find that day, but I do know Jason's energy hasn't gone anywhere. It's still here, all around us, and I like to think it sounds like jazz, jazz that makes us want to smile.
Jason's own music can be found here:
https://www.reverbnation.com/jasonparish
https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/jason-parish/956588827
