This is a happy story. It is a sad story. It is a story about the Josh. Most importantly, it’s a story about Tim Darbe.
The first time I ever saw Tim Darbe he was strapping 3 canoes on top of his big old white van at the Charles River Canoe and Kayak shop. A whole slew of us were getting ready to go and do “The Josh”. I had never done the Josh, and until about a week before I had never even heard of it. But a friend of mine, who saw me in one of those pictures they take of you going through the Kennebec Rapids, figured I could navigate a canoe. She offered to place me on one of the many teams she was putting together. Let’s see, spend some time paddling around a lake and then go to a big party afterwards, what’s not to like? So there I was at Charles River Canoe. Mind you this was in 1990, but even so I’m embarrassed to say I was wearing a cut off tank top and yes, green shiny Lemay jogging shorts. OMG, I must have been a sight – I’m talking Wal-Mart here, folks. But that’s me talking. To hear it from Tim he thought I looked just fine!
We we’re all headed out to the Berkshires, of course, and I was crammed in with 4 other people in my friend’s Saab. My first impression of Tim was how generous he was, bringing out canoes for a whole bunch of people and driving by himself. I briefly thought about joining him, though I’d never met him, but my younger self was just a little bit shyer than I am now, so I didn’t. I don’t think things would have turned out differently if I had, they might have just gone a little bit faster.
That first impression, it turns out, was quintessential Tim. He was doing the bike leg of the race and did not even know who was going to be doing his canoe leg much less who his runner would be. Yet there he was bringing out canoes for a bunch of other people. But that was just Tim, always willing to go out of his way to help people. He would drive across three states to move someone from one apartment to another. Or he would go out to help a couple of young women he had never met, stranded on the bike path with a flat, (well, maybe there was an ulterior motive there but, honestly, I don’t think so!).
As it turned out I was on his canoe team. I got teamed up with his cousin Dan to do the canoe leg. I can’t say we did well, but as we all know “To Stay is to Win!” So finish we did and ultimately got to the party which was really why I came in the first place! It was at the Josh Billings After Party that Tim told me about a ski trip he was putting together. It was going to be a week in Banff Canada, sponsored by a ski company as well as a couple of liquor companies. The agenda was ski all day and party all night. Well, as you might expect, this sounded pretty good to me. I immediately put down the $20 deposit Tim was asking for.
Now, over the next four months leading up to the ski trip Tim called me several times. The calls we’re ostensibly for trip organizational issues and installments on the cost of the trip. During each one of these conversations I would squirm, trying to figure out how to say “No” to the offer of a date that I knew was going to happen. Then each time at the end of the conversation when he didn’t ask me out I would hang up and think to myself, “I can’t believe he didn’t ask me out!” (Tim’s side of it is that he figured me for another one of those flighty chicks that he was just going to stay away from…a wise man!)
Well, fast forward 4 months, to the slopes of Lake Louise, Banff Canada. I did in fact ski all day and party all night long. It wasn’t until the last day that I actually skied with Tim. Understand that Tim not only is a carpenter, but he has the physique of a carpenter. Meaning, yes, the big gut, the tool belted pants hanging a little too low, you get the picture. So you would not expect him to look so good on the slope. However when I saw Tim Darbe ski, I thought “That man skis like a god!” (The rest of what I thought is not fit for publication.) So, put it all together: the majestic mountains of Banff, blue sky, man who skis like a god, heated pool under the stars, again not fit for publication!
Fast forward to 2015 and Tim Darbe and his wife, (yes me), have done every Josh since then together. (Well there was that one year when I was pregnant with my second child that I had to sit out.) We did one team as a Tin Man, Tim has done a lot of the biking, I did a run, but mostly we did the paddle together. All in all I have done 25 of the past 39 Josh Billings, and Tim, having only missed the first two, by 2015 had done 36. With the T shirts to prove it!
That is the happy story. Really a very tiny pie slice of an incredibly happy story. The sad story is that in September of 2015 just days before the Josh, Tim Darbe was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. He was unable to do the Josh last year though we did put together a team for him. Then, in less than five months, my big, fat, lovable, kind, generous, funny, skis-like-a-god, man passed away.
This is still a story about the Josh, though, so this year there will be many teams in memory of Tim. Just like my first year with him, we are putting together a slew of teams to do the job in memory of Tim Darbe. We will all be peddling, paddling, running, and partying while remembering our friend, husband, father, boss, and all around great guy. Ever the pragmatist Tim, when asked the question “How are ya?” would say “Unbelievable!” His reasoning was that even if things were unbelievably bad he could still say “Unbelievable”. So in honor of my optimistic Tim who is unbelievably gone, and unbelievably missed, my team this year is: The Unbelievables.
Alison Pardee 7/19/2016