Oh my god. Brian and I were room mates for a few years up here in Dallas. I
still laugh when I remember some of our misadventures. My favorite was a trip
we took to Honey Creek Cave. And I thought it would be funny to use duck decoys
for floatation instead of the usual plastic clorox bottles. It was funny for
the first half hour and then became the most miserable caving trip of my life.
But it is still a great memory. Another time; we were checking leads on the
rock prarie in Oklahoma. And I step over a karst tombstone and nearly step on a
large rattlesnake. I leapt back and landed on my tail bone on the tombstone.
The tail bone was broken and painful. But Brian thought it was funny and
laughed about it for days. I couldn't sit in a chair for weeks and wasn't quite
sure about the humor. but years later we were able to laugh about that over a
few beers at a TCR. I did, however, "get him back. I convince him to join me on
a series of strenuous "ridgewalks" over several years t!
o the
Guadalupe Mountains. We liked to check holes on the sides of vertical cliffs.
Our chief criteria in selecting the holes to check was "No one would be dumb
enough to check that". but we were. And so we would carry lots of rope, find a
rig point and rappel down to these holes. He always wanted to not come down
unless the hole "went". So I always told him to come on down; "IT GOES !". I
have a great picture of him on rope at one hole (that didn't go) with a joyful
expression of discovery on his face. Then he found out he had been burned
again...It was just a short cave. One evening I cam home from a "hot" date in
the mood to celebrate. And Brian was at home with his date for the evening.
They were drinking George Dickel shots---so I enthusiastically joined in and
soon became the evening entertainment. We laughed and laughed and laughed until
the wee hours of the morning....then I slept until the next evening and awoke
with the worst hang over of my life. And swore off George D!
ickel
Fine Kentucky whiskey forever.
Brian will be missed.
John Brooks
