Thirty-Three Places I’Ll Visit After I Die

By Kim D. Rust

During his life, the author has subscribed to and lived the adage “what can be conceived and believed can be achieved.”
This book outlines the writer’s life, his achievements, his failures and his adventures.
Have you ever thought of wanting to or wondering what would be required to:
1. Become an officer in the U. S. Army and survive a war
2. Form, own and build a multimillion-dollar stock brokerage firm, with a salary, once prosperous, of $100,000 per month, then lose it all
3. At the age of forty-six, run two marathons, ride a bicycle coast to coast in thirty days, climb the Grand Teton and Devils Tower, run rim to rim of the Grand Canyon, swim Alcatraz to San Francisco then complete the Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii, doing it all in eight months
4. Be a partner in an investment banking firm
5. Climb high mountains on three continents
6. Live in a village in Italy of fewer than one hundred people, where no one speaks a word of English, for two to three months a year
7. Live for months in a home on a beach in Mexico
Live vicariously through the narrative or use the descriptive tales as a primer to do it yourself.
Henry David Thoreau is credited with the quote, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and die with their song still inside them.” Quite the opposite, the author’s philosophy of life is “just do it.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 25, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728301372

Kim D. Rust

After having been raised on a farm outside of a town of two hundred and fifty people in Iowa, over the years, he has become a “world citizen” by traveling to over fifty countries on five continents. Following four unproductive years at a university, the next four years were spent in the U. S. Army, rising in the ranks from private to captain, including serving one year in the war in Vietnam. Next, after obtaining his college degree and spending several years as a stockbroker, he, along with two partners, formed what quickly became the largest “penny stock” brokerage firm in the United States, with revenues in the tens of millions of dollars. As happens in many endeavors, quick gains and success turned into rapid losses. Such was the case, and the damage was more than just money; friends, prestige, power and, for a short time, freedom vanished. To supplant the anguish of the ensuing void, Kim turned to endurance sports, to include mountain climbing on three continents, distance running, bicycling and swimming, culminating in the Ironman Triathlon in Kona, Hawaii at the age of 46. After a hiatus from business for almost ten years, he returned as a partner in a successful Denver, Colorado-based investment banking firm for nine years. Retirement, for the last decade, has led to visiting over thirty-five countries and living for extended periods several times in tiny villages in both Mexico and Italy, while learning to become part of those communities where little or no English was spoken. Throughout these endeavors, he was instrumental in helping raise three delightful, loving children. Relative to most, Kim has led several lives, each of which is an adventure. While experiencing both extreme highs and crippling lows, he has achieved what should be the dream of everyone, happiness. Reading this book could prove to be a “roadmap” for others searching to make their lives more complete. It’s been a “hell of a ride.”

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Copyright © 2019 Kim D. Rust. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse   02/23/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-0138-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-0136-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-0137-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019902004

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

DEDICATION

PREFACE

Death

Who, Where And Why

The Randomness Of It All

GROWING UP

FIRST LOVE

JOBS AND TRAVELS - COLLEGE YEARS

California Summer 1962

California Winter 1962-1963

Summer 1963

Ski Bumming Aspen, Colorado Winter 1963-1964

US ARMY - VIETNAM

BUSINESS

ATHLETIC - ENDURANCE

RUNNING

The Boston Marathon

MOUNTAINEERING

Island Peak, Nepal, Asia, 20,305 Feet

Aconcagua, Argentina, South America, 22,841 Feet

Mt. Logan, Canada, 19,551 Feet

Antisana, Ecuador, South America, 18,714 Feet

EIGHT MONTHS OF ENDURANCE -1988

Run The City Of Los Angeles Marathon

Run The Boston Marathon

Ride Bicycle Coast To Coast

Climb Devils Tower And

The Grand Teton, Wyoming

Run Grand Canyon Rim-To-Rim

Swim Alcatraz To San Francisco

Ironman World Championship, Kona, Hawaii

HOME IN ITALY 2010

TRAVELS WITH EMERY 2010

Greece

Greece II

Turkey

Egypt

TRAVELS WITH EMERY 2012

Boston Marathon

Mt. Kilimanjaro

HOME IN ITALY 2014

EUROPE AND AFRICA TRAVELS 2014

France

Andorra

Spain I

Gibraltar

Morocco

Spain II

Italy

HOME IN ITALY 2015

HOME IN ITALY 2016

TATTOOS

PEOPLE - WHERE AND WHY

EPILOGUE

PHOTO LIST INDEX

DEDICATION

Dedicated to my wonderful children: Kristin Elizabeth Rust, Andrew Noal Rust and Emery Campbell Rust

PREFACE

ALTHOUGH AT FIRST GLANCE, DUE TO THE TITLE AND INITIAL SUBJECT matter, the disposition of my remains, this book appears to be about death. Quite the opposite is the intent of its message. This writing isn’t meant to be a sad premonition, instead, a unique and entertaining way of describing my life and those who have been important to me over its span. Other than my children, the plan is to outlive everyone.

The history of spreading a deceased loved one’s ashes is a long one. Archaeologists finds have indications that as early as three thousand BC evidence shows the ceremonial deposit of ashes, after cremation, were made in Europe and the near east. By between 800-600 BC, the most common disposal method of the deceased for the Greek and Roman civilizations was cremation. From the time of Christ and for the next four hundred years, cremation was widely used and elaborate urns were made to store the ashes. It is thought that the Norse in the days of the Vikings (798-1000 AD) spread ashes for the God Odin to bring individuals back to the earth. The first crematory in the United States was built in eighteen seventy-six in Washington DC.

Is it done for the deceased, the remaining friends and family or both? It would be nice if the person from whom the ashes originated were watching from nearby and could feel the love in the heart of the beneficiary of the ashes, but no one really knows. We do know it is usually a comfort for the survivor to commemorate the life of the departed at a specific place; to have a prominent location that brings pleasant memories when visiting and sometimes fulfilling a last wish of the deceased, showing respect.

As expected, the process of the spreading of ashes is usually a reasonably sober, respectable and reverent event. Frequent places include bodies of water, mountain tops, home sites, places a loved one has lost their life, cemeteries, and the list goes on and on. Any place that had meaning to the deceased and/or the survivor can suffice. However, some people choose venues that are, to the casual observer, whimsical and even bizarre. Hunter S. Thompson, Gonzo, had his ashes fired from a cannon into the sky above Aspen, Colorado. Clandestinely, Disneyland is a favorite place, even to the extent of releasing remains on favorite rides. Any place that can be imagined has been used, such as a favorite clothing store for a well-dressed man, a shoe shine parlor where a man got his first job, the spot where a hunter shot his first deer. It has even been used as a last act of revenge, as in the case of a spiteful brother who, after his morning constitutional, co-mingled and flushed, so I’ve read.

Through this book and the requested actions of the individuals enumerated, I have taken this process to, perhaps, an extreme, but if there is a life after it will bring joy to me and while completing the process, hopefully, to those involved.

DEATH

I have been thinking a bit about death lately. Not to the point of obsession, but more than when I was middle-aged. It’s always been a concern, but gradually, due to my ever-increasing age, and associated actuarial mortality’s encroachment, it is becoming more of a reality. With semi-frequency, death has embraced others I know. My high school class of twenty-one has now dwindled to fifteen. I’ve attended seven funerals in the last five years, five of them younger than I.

As with most people, I assume, death was always something that would take place in the distant future. Well, I have crept up on the distant future and the future has become much closer to the present. I don’t feel it, think like it or presume I look my age, but I have lived for seventy-six years. I have become what I used to think of as old. I remember when I was in college and visited my grandparents, they then in their mid to late seventies, ancient, a few years older than me now, wondering when we parted if it would be the last time I would see them alive. One time, with each, it was the last time. Years later I had the same feelings about my parents. I now am nearing their respective ages. I sometimes wonder if the next pair of running shoes I buy will be the last. I believe I’m not alone in having these thoughts. Others my age I’ve spoken to about these feelings are experiencing the same thoughts and emotions. I wonder if my children may be thinking as I did about visiting their parents for the last time. It’s a question I won’t ask of them.

Many times I’ve heard the presumably comforting phrase to a surviving loved one, He’s in a better place. Well, I say baloney to that. No one knows for sure, but I think this world is a pretty good place and would ask for nothing better. I’m in no hurry to embrace that supposed improvement of status. Looking at some other people’s lives, from my perspective anyway, the hope of something better would, it seems, be welcoming. As for me, life is grand, filled with rich experiences, looked-forward-to adventures, many friends, a mate and a warm, loving family. And depending on one’s attitude and state of mind, everything is an adventure.

I presume and hope when the end comes, if there is time to contemplate, assess and evaluate its current status, death itself is the final adventure. Hopefully, I will view it as that, rather than fear it. But I want to postpone that experience as long as possible and infuse many, many adventures before that, hopefully, far distant event. I think I’m doing a pretty good job of it. In twenty thirteen I took twelve multi-day trips out of Denver, fourteen in twenty fourteen, twelve in twenty fifteen, fifteen in twenty sixteen and eight in twenty seventeen. I’m not running away; I’m exploring. To me, that is the fountain of youth.

My usual optimistic feeling through my adult life is enhanced by the idea expressed in Alexander Pope’s, An Essay On Man:

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast;

Man never Is, but always To be blest:-so-good times

The soul, uneasy and confin’d from home,

Rests and expatiates in a life to come."

To me, through good times and not so good times, life is always better when I have something in which to look forward. Whether it be a road trip, lunch with an old pal, the birth of a child, the potential of a business situation or just a good dinner, the present is better when an adventure of any extent looms on the horizon. One must be careful, however, to concentrate on living in the present.

These future events can be big or small, in the near or the more distant future. A combination of these works best for me. An example is planning a visit to the Degas exhibit at the Denver Art Museum in the next few days, but also excited about traveling to Italy in two months. Both are adventures. With that attitude, the present is better. It’s not that I am living in the future or concentrating on these upcoming events, it’s just that this background music of anticipation gives everyday life a positive, warm feeling. And when tough times come, and they usually do in most people lives from time to time, this philosophy helps. Hope smoothes the present. Knowing, or at least feeling that it will be better, improves the current feeling. When things are good, knowing that interesting, fun, exciting times are on the horizon, the status quo is even better. So, the more you do, the more you schedule future events, the more active you are, the happier you will be.

In the mid eighteen hundreds, Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden, The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. It is as valid today, if not more so, as it was one hundred and sixty years ago. Fear runs rampant in most people, if not blatantly exposed, indeed hidden slightly under the surface. Fear of death, illness, an IRS audit, losing one’s job, the children’s safety, a car accident and on and on are examples. While I will not go to the grave with my song still in me, I have been exposed to fear. Although masked much of the time by youth, adventure, endurance events, business successes and sometimes unbridled optimistic enthusiasm, it has lurked and has reared its ugly head from time to time. I’ve learned through observation, doing and help from others that fears are roadblocks to happiness. I’ve determined how to combat and defeat those fears for the most part, and that joy isn’t predicated on money, power, possessions, even health, and that happiness is defined by internal peace and contentment. For the most part, I have that.

Very few people live life with gusto like Teddy Roosevelt did; from ranching in North Dakota to becoming President of the United States to making the first descent of the River of Doubt. The following is a part of a speech he gave at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on April 23, 1910, entitled Citizenship in a Republic."

THE CRITIC

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

These words were so compelling to me that a few years ago I memorized this quote and say it to myself every night before falling asleep. Happily, I’ve always been in the arena, not the critic.

Several years ago a friend of mine for forty-five years, was driving his quintessentially grey-haired, slightly withered, aged mother, to the spot where they were going to spread the ashes of his father. She was sitting in the passenger’s seat holding a beautiful vase containing his cremated remains. Slowly she looked over to her sixty-something-year-old son, and in a soft and emotionally affected voice said, I’ll bet your dad never thought he would be between my legs again. Yes, there can be humor around death.

If asked, most people would vastly underestimate the volume of ashes produced from the cremation of an average sized person. Most would guess around the half gallon sized mass equal to Uncle Frank in the container on Aunt Harriet’s mantle or the size of numerable vases displayed on TV shows or movies. I don’t know what happened to the rest of Frank, because in actuality, much more ash, say about the volume that would fill a small overnight suitcase, once existed. Putting the burned remains of someone who dropped dead of exertion midway through The Biggest Loser contest in a suitcase would require a large one, indeed.

Human ashen remains are composed mostly of small, grayish grains, somewhat like fine sand, and an occasional tiny piece of bone that was once part of your dad’s leg, skull or toe, reasonably innocuous.

I would imagine, to most people, the physical evidence of a deceased loved one, regardless of the holding receptacle; be it a vase, a prescription medicine container or a taped salt shaker, would command a relatively high value on a list of personal memorabilia or possessions of the average person. Disposal of items such as, after twenty or thirty years of keeping a lock of hair from your favorite childhood dog, Lassie, who was run over by a car, or a book of matches from the restaurant where you dined on your first date with your wife of forty years, is somewhat easy. Doing something with a small vile of your sister, who died as a result of a childhood disease or mom, who’s life peacefully ended after spending ninety-five happy years on this planet, is an entirely different thing. Flushing the ashes down the toilet, using the garbage disposal or mixing with the trash, whether you use the recycle bin or not, is not an option. So, what do you do? I’ve answered that question relative to my ashes.

My father was born in 1913 and lived into the early months of the twenty-first century. His death didn’t sadden me. Not because I didn’t love him, but because he had experienced a wonderful life. In the final months, his health had deteriorated to the point that his quality of life had become significantly reduced.

Before his death, I visited him in a nursing home in Spencer, Iowa, twenty miles from where he had lived most of his life. It was apparent his current residence was a one-way trip for him and that it was soon coming to an end.

Two weeks later I received a middle-of-the-night call from my brother, Bob. Dad had died. I was scheduled to go skiing with my son Drew and his wife Ashley, in the morning. There was nothing I could do in Iowa, so why not go skiing? Yes, the often expressed, It is what he would have wanted, phrase applied. Dad loved the mountains, so it was appropriate. The ski area, Arapahoe Basin, is situated on the continental divide, with most of it above timberline. After hiking up to and pausing at the start of a very steep, tricky descent to the usual runs associated with the ski area, I dedicated this descent to my dad, Drew’s grandfather.

The family plot where both my paternal grandparents, my father’s sister and her husband and both mom and dad are buried is in the Garfield Cemetery, located a little over one mile east of the farm on which I was raised. It was founded in 1893 and is a quintessential country cemetery, surrounded by one of the very few tillable acreage farms in Iowa that remains virgin, unplowed, undisturbed sod. Very pastoral, with cows grazing and ruts of by-gone wagons furrowed in the land. Because my brother Bob was on a township board dealing with cemeteries, and the fact dad was cremated, we didn’t go through the normal funeral procedure dealing with a casket. With family gathered by the family plot, Bob and Phil dug the hole for the ash receptacle, it was deposited and then covered by us. Not all the ashes were buried, many prescription drug containers were filled with ashes, each of us keeping three of four. Yes, some sadness, but mostly happiness for a life well-lived.

Bob, Phil and I sprinkled some of dad’s ashes at a nearby spot on the Little Sioux River called Kindlespyre, which had been a favorite family picnic spot, boy scout camping area and even where dad took mom on their first date.

Dad had spent a couple of years attending South Dakota School of Mines in the nineteen thirties. Shortly after that, he worked in a hard-rock gold mine in the mountains above Denver. Years before his death, dad and I visited the spot of the shaft, the Pyrenees mine. It was there I spread one of my containers of his ashes. A few years later, the contents of another receptacle were scattered at the remote 17,000-foot apex of our climb on Mt. Logan, the highest peak in Canada.

When mom died, a few years ago, our ashes ceremony was similar to dad’s; however, we didn’t spread them around the countryside. Like dad, mom’s ashes were in a receptacle placed in the ground in a hole we just finished digging. There was a funeral service in the Webb Methodist church, but for us, there was no minister, no service, no prayers and no songs at the Garfield Cemetery. Most of the family was there, the way it should be, to my way of thinking. Mom enjoyed a gin and tonic most evenings at sundown. Once in a great while more than one. Before the burying of her ashes, after the receptacle containing her remains was placed in the hole, gin and tonics were given to all the adults, a toast was made and half of everyone’s’ gin and tonic, including the lime, was poured into the hole. A fitting way to celebrate the life of a beautiful woman. Again, more laughs than tears.

WHO, WHERE AND WHY

A few years after mom’s death I had thoughts regarding the disposition of my ashes. Where would I want them to be spread and by whom?

So, first, I needed to compose a list of the people who had made an impact, a contribution to the many phases of my life from childhood to the present. Some were obvious, my family: my brothers, my children and my x-wives. For many, x-wives wouldn’t be a consideration, however, in my case, because of our continued relationship, the longevity of our marriages, the impact they have made on my life and their individual qualities, they were a must.

The second important group is close friends, all of whom I am fortunate to have. As a side note, the word friend has a personal definition for me, and it is very strict, based on two criteria. The word, by most, is used easily and frequently for anyone who they feel good about and socially interact with for a period. Someone who will bake a casserole for them if they are sick or drive them to the airport. Not so with me. To earn the moniker friend, with me, one must be willing to sacrifice for me and vice versa. What is the sacrifice? The willingness to give up something near and dear, and what is nearer and dearer than a body part or money? I, in addition to family members, am fortunate to have more friends than I can count on one hand that would fit my definition. I have as many for whom I would do the same.

All others are acquaintances, pals or buddies. Those in this group aren’t friends, by my strict definition, but close business associates, climbing buddies and social pals. Still, others are from the distant past with whom I rarely have, if any, contact, but at one time in my life, we had a significant, close relationship.

Once having listed the individuals, I needed to indicate a spot that was memorable to us. In some cases it was hard to pick the defining place of our relationship, with others, it came immediately.

People of faith believe that after they die there is an afterlife and that it is an excellent place to go. But, in truth, no one knows. If they did and it, indeed, is such a beautiful place, a better place, I’m sure most would be rushing to get there, ending this stay quickly, rather than lingering. Frankly, the spreading of the ashes of the deceased, I feel, is for the living. It is the final physical contact and gesture with the dead. An act centered around a meaningful place to both that can perhaps bring some closure to the process of grieving their departure.

Mom and dad led long and happy lives, which is entirely different than someone who died prematurely before a full life was lived, so spreading their ashes was light and joyous. If they had somehow seen us do it, which would be a bonus, they would be pleased. So it doesn’t necessarily need to be, nor should it be a solemn act. It’s a celebration of a memory of a person, time and place in one’s life.

I feel fortunate as to have had an extensive, multifaceted life with many, many experiences and interaction with a plethora of people with varied backgrounds. Very few of those experiences were without companionship; I didn’t do them alone. Some, of course, were family loved ones, some business associates, sporting/adventure participants, love interests, etc. Because I’ve lived as long as I have, had many varied interests, participated in many actives of broad description and because I do well with people, a relatively extensive list of ash spreaders are included.

This list has not been capriciously compiled. A considerable amount of thought has gone into my choices. Admittedly, some aren’t as important to me as they once were. But with everyone, there was once a vital relationship relative to that time in my life. I hope I add to the list as time goes by.

THE RANDOMNESS OF IT ALL

For better or for worse, I’ve pretty much lived my life by going with the flow, without logically weighing the pros and cons when making life decisions, instead, following my intuitive feelings. It wasn’t until the latter part of my life that I looked back and realized, for me anyway, that logical planning doesn’t probably make that much difference.

Few, if any, books are started with an opening sentiment, Well, I just don’t know. This one does, however. Regarding the meaning of life, many think they know, some know they know. Some even feel they have proof and can make compelling arguments to back up their feelings, but in the end, it’s all speculation and conjecture.

Why do people have to speculate on there being a reason for life? Some, require order in their lives. Others need meaning in their lives, and still others need a reason for the occurrence of events, either planned or unplanned. Usually, it is to find solace when something unpleasant happens. For many it’s, everything has a reason or God has a plan. These beliefs tend to ease stress and pain. I’ve never heard anyone say the above quotations when something spectacularity wonderful happens. Bill, I just heard you won the lottery. True, said Bill in reply, everything has a reason. It never happens.

I’m not going to address the existence of a Supreme Being that may or may not exist and, if so, keeps track of every action, thought and motion of six billion humans, and formulates a reason or plan for everyone and co-ordinates it all. Also, taking a leap of faith there is a God, who’s to say that God even wants to have a plan for whomever He has created.

I’m not for a second saying I’m on the right track, so to speak, because, again, I don’t have a clue. More likely, in my mind, most things that happen in one’s life are set in motion by something or a series of things that are capricious and completely random. The following example, thankfully, didn’t occur, but on several occasions, it could have, all because of a casual, non-thinking act on my part. That act has lead to a great deal of pleasure, but it has had the possibility of going the opposite direction on many occasions.

In the middle nineteen-nineties, Laura, my second wife, and I were living in Denver. A large Denver bank employed her as a stockbroker. Her job was to provide financial assistance to bank customers. Depending on sales production levels at the year’s conclusion, the more significant producers were invited to a bank convention out of town in a beautiful hotel/resort. Laura qualified, and we attended in Phoenix, Arizona. Frankly, much of the time when I was interacting with her co-workers I was bored. On the second evening, a poolside buffet was scheduled. Suddenly, one of the servers came to me and asked if I was a climber. Why and how he thought he knew, I had no idea. Yes, I replied. How did you happen to ask that question? He said that I was wearing a J-Rat shirt and presumed that I climbed. In explanation, I had known a fellow from Boulder, Colorado that owned a small climbing gear and apparel company. I was attempting to do some funding for him, and in the process, he had given me a sampling of his products, including the shirt I was wearing.

George True was a climber and a total gear-head, i.e., he knew equipment and its specifications on many sporting disciplines and a plethora of associated products. I didn’t realize it, but in the pattern of the shirt rats were imprinted, and he recognized it as made by J-Rat; thus, I was a climber. George and I talked as best we could throughout the remainder of the evening. My boredom ceased. We exchanged contact information, communicated during the following weeks and before too long participated in outdoor adventures including climbing, canyoneering and canoeing.

We climbed on Aconcagua in Argentina, The Grand Teton in Wyoming, Weaver’s Needle in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona, and a couple of Colorado fourteeners. Buckskin Gulch, the world’s longest slot canyon, in Utah was navigated by us twice. We canoed part of the White River in Colorado and kayaked a portion of the Colorado River near Moab, UT. Also, other less known venues were experienced together, some successful, some not.

On more than one occasion, while participating together in a situation that there was severe risk, I’m not necessarily saying life or death, but the possibility of either, I have had the thought, Am I going to die because I randomly wore a J-Rat shirt?

Kristin and Andrew exist because Beth Israel Hospital in Boston was buying blood. I have an Italian part of my life, that will be described later, because I decided to drive to a tower on a hill and inspect it. Emery is on the planet because I capriciously decided to go to a due-diligence meeting after not attending one for six months.

How many life-altering, or death, situations can be traced back to a simple action or thought? Someone forgot something and realized it on the way to the car. The seconds it took them to go back to the house and get it resulted in the difference between being in a deadly car accident or not. Who knows what action or thought brings the resulting conclusion into being? And it’s not just one action. What if Laura hadn’t made a big sale months before and hadn’t qualified for the trip? What if George didn’t work on our table and was assigned elsewhere? What if I hadn’t gone to a meeting twelve years before and met Laura? In other words, it can’t be defined, too many variables.

I’m an ordinary person who has done and is doing, by most people’s definition, extraordinary things, for the most part, unplanned, navigating life by reacting to current circumstances. I think Teddy Roosevelt would have agreed with the way I have lived my life.

The most dangerous risk of all is the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the belief you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later. Extremely Canadian

GROWING UP

I HAVE SAID IT HUNDREDS OF TIMES, SO HERE IS ONE MORE, NO ONE ever had a better childhood or better parents than I. A bold statement, but that is the way I feel. I know many others feel the same way about their life, and they are correct, also.

I was born in the summer of 1942, about eight months after WWII began. I’ve often wondered if mom and dad had known the war was going to occur, would I exist? But since Bob and Phil were conceived during the war, it probably wouldn’t have mattered.

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Shortly after my birth mom and dad moved to a farm two and one-half miles east of Webb, Iowa, where they remained until dad’s death in 2000, sixty years later. My nephew, my brother Bob’s son, now lives in the house. It is nice to have a home where you were raised and where you visited your parents for forty years that is still in the family.

My mother, Betty Beal Palmer Rust, was born in 1912 in Concord, New Hampshire, then moved to Iowa in her teens, but always remained, to some extent, an east coast woman, with the apparent sophistication attached. Her parents, my grandparents, died earlier than my memory.

My father, Noel Douglas Rust, was born in 1913 in a house in Webb, Iowa, which still stands directly behind my Grandfather’s doctor’s office, where he practiced medicine for over sixty years.

Any discussion of my childhood must start with my paternal grandparents. My grandfather was born in Webster City, Iowa in 1880. Grandma was born in Marathon, Iowa, eight miles south of Webb, in 1883. The west was still wild, and to some extent, this was the west. Unlike many medical doctors of that age who had no formal schooling, he went to a medical school, Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, which is still one of the premier medical schools in the country. He started practicing in Webb around the turn of the twentieth century. He and my grandmother were the premier pillars of the community. I have said many times he was the Ben Cartwright, for those of you who remember Bonanza, of Webb and the surrounding area. My grandmother, Susie, took a backseat to no one, including Grandpa.

We had a very close relationship, and I stayed overnight with them in their sizable house in town nearly once a week while I was in high school. Along with dad, they introduced me to birds, gardening, hunting Indian relics and much more. Once they took Denny Adams, Gary Morris and me to the Snake Creek Indian village site on the Missouri River in South Dakota to hunt artifacts.

I think that my dad’s, mine and my children’s love for travel started with them. Twice in the early fifties, they drove from Iowa to Mexico City and back. They traveled the 1,700 mile length of the Alaska Highway, mostly gravel, the first year it was open. They went to Yellowstone Park in its early days when you had to leave the car outside the park and take a stage to Old Faithful Lodge, which was held up by outlaws the week before their visit.

A story relating to early travel by the Rust family that both my brother Phil and I like to tell was told to us by dad many years ago. It took place in the late 1920s. Grandpa, grandma, aunt Berma and dad were driving on a West Texas road and had a flat tire. One must realize that in those days tires and roads were both poor relative to today’s standards, so flats were frequent. It was a West Texas hot and windy day. They were all thirsty, and as a kid, it seems worse than when adulthood has been attained. On the horizon a truck appeared and as it drew closer the easily recognized Coke brand logo was spotted. The truck stopped, the driver got out and asked if anyone wanted a cold Coke. Of course, they all did. It was never forgotten. As Phil says, that one gesture made Coca-Cola thousands and thousands of dollars over the years, as the Rusts have been a Coke, not Pepsi, family ever since.

Grandpa started his practice with a horse and buggy. He made house calls, sometimes many miles out of town. There are two stories I remember him telling me. Once, while on a house call, his team of horses was knocked down by a lightning bolt. Another time he was in a blizzard and got lost. He gave his team their head by letting off on the reins, and they found their way back to town. By the time he died, a man had orbited the earth in space.

Grandpa was held in such high regard in the community that on the fiftieth anniversary of his starting his medical practice the town had Doctor Rust Day in Webb. The school closed, as did all the businesses, and there was an afternoon program on a stage on the school grounds. He and Grandma arrived in a horse and buggy and left in his beloved Chrysler Imperial.

Because dad the person and the fact he was the son of the head of the community, he was probably Webb’s most eligible bachelor. Mom had graduated with a degree in music from Grinnell College and was teaching in Webb grades 1-12. I don’t know the particulars of their starting to date, but it wasn’t until the last twenty years I learned that at the time dad met mom he was engaged to a woman living in Custer, South Dakota. Dad met her when he was attending South Dakota School of Mines. He cared enough for mom to take it upon himself to do the honorable thing and drove five hundred miles to the Black Hills to break off the engagement.

Around the time I was born, dad started farming the farm where we lived, which was owned by my grandparents. Mom taught school a while longer, but other than a time or two later for short periods she was a full-time mother.

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Even in a small town such as Webb, the approximate population nearing three hundred plus surrounding farms, there were social levels. My parents were at the highest level. All couples in that group were educated, played bridge and traveled. The ladies played bridge a couple of times a month in the afternoon and once every month or two there was a couples dinner, followed by bridge.

In the forties and fifties, life was different than it is today and add to it that a small rural community in Iowa is years behind the cities in almost all aspects of life. My aunt Berma and uncle Bob lived on Long Island, New York. Most summers they would visit for extended periods. Both had masters degrees, she from Columbia, he from Purdue. They were true intellectuals and our cousins, all three of them older than me, were noticeably more sophisticated and knowledgeable relative to school subjects and life then my brothers and me. They did, however, enjoy the novelty of coming to Iowa and spending time with their hayseed relatives.

In those days, a farm of one hundred and sixty acres could support a family. That, coupled with the post-war baby boom, put Webb at its zenith relative to population and activity. The school of K-12 was a three-story brick building. Each class had between fifteen and twenty children. Because it wasn’t a transitory population to speak of, other than kids flunking a grade and having to retake a year, I graduated in a class of twenty-one, seventeen with whom I started first grade. I can still name every person with whom I graduated. Other than two, I have no contact with and haven’t spoken to since graduation, for the most part.

No, we didn’t have to walk to and from school five miles each way, both directions up-hill. We took a school bus. We were one of the first families picked up in the morning, and one of the first dropped off in the afternoon, about a forty-five-minute ride in the morning, ten in the afternoon. These days in our soft world there is a big thing made of bullying. Bullying on the bus was a frequent occurrence, and it was much more than teasing. It many times was physical. We had three guys on our route who were two and three years older than I, the same guys involved in the Andy of Mayberry incident described elsewhere, who were just plain mean. You were on your own, no one to protect you. Yes, it was scary, but a useful life training event. Dad told us not to start fights, but any means to defend yourself was fair game. Many times this was necessary.

As a kid, summer was fun, both in grade school and high school, for different reasons. While relatively young, during the mornings of the first two weeks of summer vacation we attended vacation bible school. We were not fond of this. Mom and dad weren’t religious and didn’t attend church very often, but it is something everyone did, be it Methodist, which we were, or the stricter Southern Baptists. We brothers attended Sunday School every Sunday. As we aged, we became members of and attended Church. Later, when in high school, Methodist Youth Fellowship, MYF was enjoyed during the school year because to me it was all about the social aspect, not Jesus.

After Bible school ended, the summer was all play. At least once a week, mom or another mother would take us swimming either to the Spencer pool, twenty miles north in the city, population of around eight thousand or to the Marathon pit eight miles to the south. It was an old gravel pit, no longer used, and converted to a park. Driving by the park now, no longer a swimming area, it’s hard to believe our parents would allow us in the brown water. After a picnic lunch, it was tough waiting for an hour before you could go in the water because it was feared we might get a cramp and drown. Of course, in the late forties, no one used either venue because of the polio scare. No one knew what caused the disease. Not only did we not swim, while in the early grade school years we even had a nap hour. Another somewhat scary thing, because it was the cold war, we had atomic bomb drills in school from time to time where we all practiced getting under our desks; like that’s going to save us from an A-bomb. Today it would be considered too traumatic for our young population.

Two other summer activities were great fun; Webb’s Wednesday night drawings and Saturday night’s free movie. To promote business, the retail merchants of Webb contributed money for a weekly cash drawing. Counting businesses that were based in people’s homes, like Weber’s trucking business and Lester Anderson’s corn-shelling operation, there were around thirty businesses in Webb. Approximately a dozen were store-front businesses, to include three gas stations, two restaurants, two grocery stores and a drug store with an actual soda fountain. At around 9:00 pm, everyone gathered in the center of the two blocks long main street to see if their name, which had been deposited in a large tin can the proceeding week, would be drawn. Usually, there were several drawings for a dollar, two or three five dollar prizes, a ten dollar one and a grand prize of twenty dollars last. If no one whose name was called answered, another name was drawn until claimed. If no one claimed the grand prize the first time, money was added to it for a bigger prize the following week.

On Saturday nights an old movie was shown outside against the white lumberyard wall. Benches were used for seating. When we could, Denny, Curt and I would look for dropped coins on the ground under the benches the next morning before Sunday school.

Gerald Hart, a high school friend of dad’s, was the barber. His brother had been killed in WWII. He was a much more interesting person than Floyd of Andy of Mayberry, but the same atmosphere existed. If you wanted to know what was happening in town, that was the place to go. He and one of the nearby farmers, who was plump and had had a soybean seed germinate in his belly button that required removal by Grandpa, had an ongoing gin rummy game. They kept score. One game lasted over fifteen years. I don’t know who won. When you were a young kid, Gerald would give you a nickel to buy a candy bar after your haircut. People loved to play practical jokes on Gerald. Once, after he had just purchased a new car, some of the town’s jokers kept sneaking into his garage and poured a little oil on the floor under his new engine. He couldn’t figure out how an oil leak could keep happening on a new car. Neither could the car dealer. Another time, undetected by him, the jokers would put extra gas in his tank, so he seemed to get excellent mileage.

Money for candy came from different sources. Dad and mom would give us an allowance. As we got a bit older, we trapped pocket gophers, which we got ten cents per pair of front feet bounty at the county seat in Spencer and we would hunt for pop bottles in the ditches and around town, worth a penny apiece. I don’t think Peewee, the grocery store owner who bought the bottles from us, ever realized that sometimes we would find the bottles in his storage area.

Like our grandparents, our family traveled, or as we said, took a trip, every year. I had been in around forty states, Mexico and Canada by the time I was fifteen. I had classmates that hadn’t been out of the state by that age, and Minnesota was only forty miles to the north.

Most summers we went west; the Black Hills, Rockies and the Big Horn mountains were visited. It was exciting. Dad would get us up at 4:00 am, a different world existed to a ten-year-old at that time in the morning. We boys would immediately go to sleep. Mom would wake us at Sioux Falls, South Dakota for breakfast. There were no interstates in those days, so the going was slow. Air-conditioning was rolling down the windows, no seat belts either. Around noon we would get to Chamberlain. Immediately after crossing the Missouri river the topography drastically changed and we were in the west. From then on the drive was exciting. The sizable prairie dog statue in Kadoka was a way-mark. Billboards advertising all sorts of oddities in Rapid City and The Black Hills, including the Reptile Gardens, which we visited, added to the excitement. We changed time zones in Murdo. Many times we drove through the Badlands, now a National Park. Of course, no trip would be complete without stopping at Wall Drug. It would take thirteen or fourteen hours to drive the five hundred miles. Most times we left Memorial Day weekend because around that time there was a lull in farming activity. The crops, corn and soybeans, had been planted but were not up high enough to cultivate. Haying hadn’t started. Many times dad would listen to the entire Indianapolis 500 race on the AM radio. We would play a game to see who could spot the mountains first. I remember the scent of the pines, a new and wonderful smell for an Iowa farm kid.

One summer we went through Canada to Quebec City, then down to Boston via New Hampshire visiting York Beach where mom used to spend summers as a child. Next was Long Island and New York City, staying with my aunt and uncle. They had a TV. The first television program I saw was Kukla, Fran and Ollie. A trip to Texas, New Mexico and Arizona during Christmas vacation was taken as well as another Christmas sojourn to Florida.

It wasn’t all roses for everyone; we were the lucky ones. Many families did nothing. No sleepovers, no trips, no visiting other families, no movies that we were enjoying as a family every two or three weeks at Spencer or Sioux Rapids, no going out to dinner or even a hamburger lunch for them Many parents didn’t go to school activities.

The presumed peacefulness and happiness of all people from small agrarian towns living off the land is a myth. I remember several suicides in Webb. Per capita, a much higher rate than in large cities. When I was in high school, my granddad said about fifty percent of the medication he gave out was sugar pills, a placebo. They weren’t sick but thought they were.

About twenty-five years ago I told dad that during the eighteen years I lived in Webb while growing up I only remembered one divorce. He thought about it, and that was the only one he could remember. That may sound like happiness for all, but for many, I would suggest the exact opposite. Yes, I do think a fifty percent divorce rate is too high, indicating a combination of a rush to get married and then not trying hard enough when differences occur. But with only one divorce in eighteen years in a community, you know many people that were living together were living, as Thoreau would say, a life of quiet desperation.

Everyone in those days knew everyone else in both Webb and the surrounding farms, so there was very little privacy. Even now, as I have observed while helping my brother, Bob, with his harvest for five years, everyone knows everyone else’s business. As much bigotry, backstabbing and malicious treatment of others, maybe more, among the few residents exist as in any city. It’s easy to become shunned if the wrong person gets offended, as happened to one minister and his wife, she happened to be Vietnamese, for some simple misunderstood action.

Sports occupied a significant portion of our lives as we matured. Starting at age eight or nine, we played baseball on organized teams every summer. First peewee league; as we got older midget league, then on to legion league ball and finishing with four years of high school baseball were experienced. Slightly larger towns had six-man football; in our high school, we only had baseball and basketball teams, the Webb Spiders. Also, speaking of spiders, we had a school newspaper called The Spider’s Web, named by my aunt in the 1930s.

In high school, baseball was played both in the fall and the spring. Our conference consisted of seven schools of similar size. We played each team in the fall and again in the spring, sometimes two times each season. Also, we had games with other surrounding towns, usually larger than Webb. Often they weren’t in our conference. By the time we were in high school, we had fielded a pretty good team after having played together for so long. I was on the starting lineup as a freshman, second base. During my junior year, I was transferred to third base. I was a good hitter. My senior year, fall and spring combined, I batted fourth, clean-up, and my batting average was a very respectful 444. I was an all-state honorable mention.

Each fall and spring the season ended with tournaments. First played was the conference tournament, which we usually won. Next, the sectional tournament that had many of the surrounding towns represented, a much larger field of teams, with larger schools than Webb included. It was not uncommon for us to win that tournament. The statewide winners of the Sectional competitions were next paired geographically, not by size, for the District tournament. For the most part, we were, if we had won the Sectional championship and competing in the District tournament, playing much larger schools. In the state of Iowa at that time, there was only one tournament system working up to the state championship, no divisions of equally sized towns. A town of two hundred, like Webb, could be playing a city of thirty thousand in the district and above.

I don’t remember who we were playing, but I do remember my final play in high school baseball. We were in the finals of the District tournament for the District championship and a chance to go to the Sub-state tournament. It was the bottom of the ninth inning, and there were two down. The