In Loving Memory: TJ Langley

TJ, "in pursuit of excellence":
everything had to be just so.
Chiwawa, WA, January 1st, 2009.

On 8-8-08, TJ and Heffe showed up at the house on our first "open baby" after the birth of Kian, the very first of my friends to stop by. Maybe TJ just had to see it to believe it, but he came bearing beers and a book for Kian, "That's Not My Teddy", which to this day is still Kian's most favorite book. "It's paws are too woolly", "Its ears are too fluffy", "It's eyes are too shiny"..... "That's my teddy! His tummy's sooooo furry." These could be excuses that Teej used after a bike race: to win you must not have fluffy. Today I had fluffy.

Its an appropriate gift for Kian, as books were TJ's regalos of choice for all. Years ago at an undisclosed birthday party he gave me a book which introduced me to "The Rider". Talk about influential. This book was passed around my entire family during that Christmas vacation, and its still missing somewhere amongst my Veloce teammates. Wherever it is, on the inside cover is penned a smart-ass getting-old remark from TJ. Once, before I took off on one of several 5-month voyages aboard fishing vessels, I asked TJ for book recommendations and was overwhelmed with advice, and since then we spent many a time talking literature. There are still some recommendations that have gone unread and so I guess I need to get crackalackin: Steinbeck, the Master and Commander series, Hemmingway, are just a few I remember. In his outward life he was all play and sarcasm , but in his inner life he seemed to lean towards the sweeping epics and the poignant tales. And the poetic. But maybe I'll reread The Rider and That's Not My Teddy again first.

Everyone who knew TJ has a favorite Teej story - the guy was unforgettable. A couple of days ago I searched my yahoo account for TJ emails, and it was surreal to reread those that we'd exchanged many years ago. In recent years we didn't spend much solo time together, usually it was with the group, but there was a time when each time that I came through Seattle I'd pull my RV up onto his sidewalk (that was MY parking spot by the way) or swing by while out on a bike ride, and we'd head out on a ride to catch-up. For years it was always the same. His life seemed forever unchanged, and his cat Elvis seemed ageless too. Then shit started happening.

He was mauled by that bear, he got married, he got divorced, and it was sometime in these years that he seemed to change a bit. He was still a materialistic simpleton, prided himself on keeping off the technological superhighway by holding out on email and he held out on getting a cell phone even longer than me, and he was always the wise-cracker, but in his frugality he quit being cheap. He started buying the rounds at the bar, started bringing quality food to the shindigs instead of a box or two of instant stuffing. He seemed to become a better listener, more sensitive, and became a better friend.

In the past few years we did a lot of talking about climbing together but my tour guiding life wasn't compatable with his schedule and we kept missing out. At the beginning of this summer I told him how I was ready to "retire" from the bike racing gig and how, because of Kian, I wanted to focus on getting back to the woods. We planned a climbing trip to the Chiwawa-area, I'd never really been backcountry in my own backyard. I don't know exactly what peaks he had in mind, but I wonder if it was the same area that he turned up missing: Mt Clark, Lauana, Buck? I'll never know for sure, but I got to experience this amazing terrain last weekend with some of my best friends while engaged in the search for the missing TJ. It was hard physically and psychologically, but it was beautiful, fantastic, unbelievable. It was an experience that helped me come to terms with the eventual outcome: we were there, we were engaged, we were optimistic yet realistic, we were frantic and crazy, we were sad yet managed to laugh, make jokes, and enjoy! We enjoyed that place like TJ did the world: with friends, laughing, passionately aware.

The TJ Search Party, Team #1 below Buck
Mountain: waiting for the helicopter moments after
hearing the fate of our beloved friend.

Kian isn't aware of it yet, but he lost a friend too. Almost without exception TJ asked me how the little guy was doing, and was always interested in how Kian and Annie had changed my life. I never asked him why he was so persistent in asking me these types of questions because deep down I knew why. Because he genuinely cared, for one, but I also believe that he hoped and/or fantasized about having a family too: he would have made an exceptional father.

So long Uncle Teej, we'll miss you!

TJ and sister Joy digging out the firepit: someone had to motivate!