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Posted by Buck (104.220.136.19) on 10:24:13 08/06/26
Not everyone can leave such a 'fun' and memorable legacy such as
Allison. She was such a good friend even beyond this forum. We had
many many hours of private discussions, both online and on the phone.
I was a wild and single guy at the time. By wild I mean a free-
living wilderness man, no relationships, no commitments, just me and
a passion for the wilderness and fishing and two German shepherd
dogs, Heidi and Sierra.
We literally would laugh on the phone until we almost passed out, not
able to speak a sentence for minutes due to laughter! Every time
we'd try to talk it would ignite more guttural laughter! We'd lose
track of time, but the same would happen online! There'd be long
pauses between responses at times because we couldn't even type we
were laughing so hard! You don't ever forget someone like that.
Her and Rosser came by to see me at REI when I worked there. She was
my 'Houston' on my months long backpacking journeys into the northern
Rockies. I checked in with her before a specific trip, let her know
my itinerary (I had mailed her one too but I had way more trips
planned than I could do in 2-3 months so I would let her know which
one I was doing). Then I'd call her when I got back out.
I remember telling her how I was moved to tears reading the Book of
John while at a remote lake in the Selway Bitteroots and she said she
then read it. She was a spiritual person but not necessarily a
religious one (I don't really like the word religious either), but I
was glad to inspire her to read John. We had such a fun
relationship, ups and downs on discussions because she was pretty
liberal and I was conservative but that's ok, we respected each
others differences. We wouldn't of had the relationship we did if we
let any of that get in the way.
Learning of her early and sudden death shook me to the core. She was
just getting started. I remember speaking at her memorial service, I
could hardly speak but I had to go up and honor her. Tell about some
of our experiences and what she meant. I'm pretty sure Dan M. and SG
were there too, and I remember talking with Mark R afterwards and I'm
sure Rosser was there too, they had a great friendship. I know a lot
of Loons had a great relationship with her, that's just who she was.
I remember games she started on the Loon Page like Queen Anne's Lace
that ended up being so fun! I jokingly referred to her as Pinko
Commie Hippy Chick or something like that, we could laugh at our
differences. That's not super common out there. Especially in
today's world. Anyway, I just wanted to post what was on my mind,
and this morning it is Allison.
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