Grimm’s Guerillas

It’s a long road back to 1975. that was the year I graduated from high school. I was supposed to be in the class of 1976, but it was decided that graduating a year early was the right thing for all parties consulted. In my two years in high school, I found more than my share of trouble. My poor father suffered through a long list of ‘accidents’, ‘weird occurrences’, and ‘strange coincidences’ that plagued my life. I got a Ford LTD stuck in mud so badly that it took three tow trucks to get it out. I discovered hunting was a lot more fun than going to class. Girls really got my attention. The theft of local population signs became a favorite hobby. I became an entrepreneur with my fledgling bootlegging business.

One night, as a result of the arrest of my bootlegging partner for public intoxication at a mixer, I met a guy, John David, who not only liked beer, but who also hunted and was a member of a search and rescue group. We drank beer that night and talked. We talked about hunting, and we talked the search and rescue group. I’ve never been much of a ‘joiner’ type of person, but this group sounded amazing.

Thursday night of the following week I attended my first meeting with Explorer Post 76, Marine Search and Rescue, ‘Grimm’s Guerillas’. Understand, we weren’t looking for ‘Marines’. We performed searches on land and water, that kind of Marine. Our membership consisted of boy and girls who felt like doing the amazing things that others only read about or saw on the news. And thus the adventure began.

This group didn’t have a lot of rules, but you did have to ‘be cool’ about stuff. No one cared if you had some beer, but you’d better not get caught with it or get in trouble because of it. Staying out of trouble was key because no one wanted their behavior to disappoint the advisers. Paul Grimm, Gary Angelo and Joe Peters were our advisers, and every member would move heaven and earth for them.

In the Post, we learned all kinds of stuff. I was already a diver, but others were divers too. We participated in the recovery of evidence from ponds for the police. We performed underwater searches for drowning victims. Whether it was a canal, big ditch, a river, a pond or a lake. If someone or something was lost there, we’d go do our best to affect a recovery.

We learned rock climbing and rappelling. One of the guys in the posted decided that we needed to learn to rappel. He and I drove to Memphis once and bought 100 feet of mountain climbing rope. It was a brand called ‘Goldline’. It was the cheapest climbing rope you could buy. It was the brand usually used by cave explorers. We bought a bunch of webbing and a ton of carabiners and breaker bars. The guy running the store demonstrated to us how to tie a ‘swiss seat’, where to put the carabiners. He ‘explained’ to us how to rappel. My friend and I went to Shelton’s Bluff to see if we could do it. Yep, you read that right. We went to a cliff to try it out. Critical thought was not one of our strengths at that time. We actually did figure it out as we went and no one got hurt. We read and studied all we could on the subject and eventually began employing safety protocols as we became aware of them. It’s amazing we survived.

If my mother had known what ‘rappelling’ was, she would have laid an egg. To me, it was the opportunity to do something I had only seen on mid winter editions of ABC’s Wide World of Sport.

Many of the Post took an EMT course and became EMTs. A lot of members went on to medical careers. The Post produced doctors, and nurses, and Xray Techs, and Paramedics. It produced a ton of soldiers who served long and productive careers in our nation’s military. The Post helped many of us avoid the things that constrained the futures of so many of our friends. We learned responsibility, and integrity. We learned compassion and caring. We learned that in many cases, the rules are the rules because they lead to good outcomes. You can break the rules and get away with it, usually. However, there are some outcomes that a person just can’t walk away from. We learned good judgment by helping those who were victims of poor judgement.

This weekend, we will gather in Jonesboro. This will be the first time I have seen many of these friends in nearly 40 years. We spent many cold, dark nights together looking for lost hunters. We spent a fair amount of time cold and wet after searching for drowning victims. On this weekend, we will be warm and dry. We’ll gather around a fire pit and remember how great it was to be a member of the Post, and we’ll remember the three men who made all of it possible. Our Post Advisers, Paul, Gary and Joe, are probably the closest we will ever come to knowing true saints.

So wherever you are Saturday night, lift a glass this weekend to men and women who work to make a difference in young people’s lives. They do make a difference, and there just aren’t words to express our gratitude to them.