New Memorial

We decided quite some time ago to update and replace Rick's memorial plaque in the Drift Creek Wilderness area.

After Rick died, a group of his friends and I, along with his brothers, and his son Chris, scattered his ashes at his favorite fishing hole on Drift Creek, and fastened a brass plaque to the huge old Cedar tree overhanging the stream there.

Over the years the tree grew enough to pull the fastening screws out and I had to replace them. The plaque was getting beat up from Elk rubbing the velvet from their antlers on the tree and the weather was taking its toll on the brass. The plaque almost always had a variety of fishing lures hanging from it,tributes from friends and fellow fishermen

Then when Chris died of Leukemia, we thought it would be fitting to include his name on a new memorial along with his dad's. We composed the wording and emailed it to Rick's daughter Roshelle, to see what she thought of it. She answered that she liked it and would like to go with us to put it up.

In August Carol and I went to Toledo, picked up the new plaque, and contacted our grandson David to find out if he would like to go along with Roshelle and me into Drift Creek.

FATHER AND SON

RICHARD EUGENE CLELAND

1965 to 1997

CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL CLELAND

1984 to 2006

THEY LOVED TO FISH HERE

AND WILL BE HERE FOREVER

With Love from Family and Friends

We agreed to go in on the morning of the 25^th of September to replace the plaque.

Roshelle spent the night, David arrived around 7am and after arranging our packs with tools, sandwiches and water, we hit the road in David's pickup.

We arrived at the Harris Ranch trail head on Butler Peak at 8am and started down the trail. On the way, David and Roshelle talked about his Army career and her starting college at OSU. He talked about going to Afghanistan this fall and she told us about her dorm and room mate. It's hard for me to believe that they are both so grown up.

We stopped at the so-called halfway point for a rest and while we were talking, we were surprised to hear a motor running somewhere. “My drill!” I said, laughing. Sure enough, it had jostled around and turned itself on in David's pack. He pulled it out and removed the battery.

Nearing the bottom end of the trail my legs were getting weak and rubbery, and I was starting to get worried about how I was going to be able to make the 2 ½ mile and 1500 foot climb back to the truck.

When we got to the old Harris Ranch site we found that the meadow was so overgrown with blackberry bushes and ferns we couldn't find the trail. After several failed attempts we decided to try following the stream up to Rick's Cedar tree. It involved climbing along the steep bank, crawling through the underbrush and for me, falling in a hole with one leg bent double, my knee buried in mud and my other leg stuck out like a “Dancing with the Stars” move. David pulled me out and Roshelle sat with me while I tried to get some strength back into my wimpy legs. David went ahead while I rested and in a few minutes he yelled back, “It's right up here!”

Eventually I hobbled my way to the Cedar tree and took my backpack off, ( which felt like it was full of rocks) and dropped it on the ground. David was in good shape despite the hike and Roshelle wasn't even breathing hard. I was pretty shaky, as I found out later, looking at the pictures I took. Most of them were blurry because of my tremors.

David made short work of removing the old plaque and installing the new one, and soon we were eating sandwiches and drinking bottled water. Roshelle and David took pictures with their cameras while we rested for the trip back up the trail. I brought out a little clay ashtray that Chris had made in grade school and tucked it into a deep hole between the roots of the old tree.

Feeling better, I took the pruning shears I had brought along to cut the blackberry vines, and went to see if I could find the meadow trail. It was easy to find from that end, and I backtracked across the meadow, trimming overhanging brambles and opening the trail as I went.

When I got back to the tree, David and I noticed a small fish struggling in the shallow edge of the stream. It would almost run up on the gravel bank before it splashed its way back out to deeper water. The three of us followed it up and down the bank trying to catch it by hand.”Look, it's got a crawdad in its mouth!” David said, “Maybe it can't see where its going.” We finally lost it in a swirl of mud and returned to the job of loading up our packs. Roshelle insisted, (much to my relief) that she and David carry all of the tools and gear, leaving me with a small, empty pack. David had most of the weight in my old backpack which is heavy even when it's empty.

Somehow I got a second wind, and my legs felt almost normal. It was a long grind up the trail and the last half mile seemed to take forever, but we made it out in an hour and fifty minutes, not bad time really. I was bone tired and exhausted, but David and Roshelle looked as fresh as if they'd hardly left the truck.

Oh, to be young again!