Welcome

Todd 0:00

This is the cluttered past, the compass for midlife. I guess today

Introduction

Todd 0:15

it's Rand Timmerman, a U.S. Marine combat veteran who fought in Vietnam. After the war, he became a successful attorney and in retirement, Ian's brother Ron decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. He ended up writing a book about it, and it's called A Spiritual Passage. It's the true story of two brothers in their 70s tackling the Appalachian Trail while facing their personal demons and strengthening their faith along the way. Today, Rand is here to share his story with us and uh talk about the adventures he had along the way. Rand, welcome to the show. Thank you, Todd. Great pleasure to be here. It's great to have you. Now let me just say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading your book. Thank you. I mean, it's it's it's a really compelling story, first off, and I like how you set it up. You switch back and forth between uh trail reports and also weaving in your life story along the way. So it really keeps the reader's attention. Just a wonderful book. So I appreciate you sharing that with the world. Oh, thank you. And the pictures were pretty good too. Thanks for calling that out because I was actually reading it on my Kindle, and you can zoom in on the pictures and see those as well. There are over 500 pictures in there. So really, really good pictures. Love that. Yeah. How did you take those pictures, by the way, of just your personal camera on the trail?

Rand Timmerman 1:30

I had an Apple 7, and I took pictures every day. I, you know, it's funny, my brother and I kind of did it different. Ron was grieving his wife, so he was kind of doing it like a military mission, head down, going as fast as he could go. And I was more frame of mind, I'm never gonna come this way again, you know, one step at a time. And I took a lot of pictures. And uh nice. Yeah, I actually, my brother studied maps and all kinds of stuff. There's pictures in the book, I'm sure you notice you all seem to be looking at a map. Yeah. And I kind of got in after a couple weeks, I go on, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna hike it like it's in the 1970s, where it wasn't a big thing. There was not a lot of signs, or you know, and I'm just gonna be surprised. Whatever happens, happens, and whatever I see, I see. And so I yeah, it made a big difference for me.

Todd 2:23

You definitely had a lot of surprises on the trail, so we'll we'll be getting into those. I'll jump into the questions now. Let's let's start with your early life.

Childhood in Adams, New York

Todd 2:30

Can you tell us about your childhood?

Rand Timmerman 2:32

Yeah, I grew up in my brother and I grew up in a village called Adams, New York. It's about an hour and a half from the Canadian border on the east side of Lake Ontario, up by the St. Lawrence River. More cows and people, around five years old. I realized uh we were kind of screwed. My dad had been a, I came from a family of warriors, Todd. I had three uncles that served in World War II, plus my dad. And he was a Mustang pilot. And then he came home, married my mom, had me, my brother, and then he got polio. And a lot of people don't realize polio was devastating, absolutely devastating. We in my village of about 2,500 people, there was probably at least 100 people with polio. My father had two cousins that got it and died the same day. There must have been something in our genes, but he made it to the hospital and spent a year in the it's a children's hospital in Utica, New York, actually. Uh, eight months on an iron lung. And I cannot imagine what that was like for him. I never knew my dad when he was who he was. He he was not the same man, I'm sure. Uh very hard worker, uh, amazing guy in many ways, but he was very tough. Tough guy. And he didn't like any kind of emotional and so uh yeah, and and I, you know, we were forced to go to church, kind of. My mom was pretty religious, and uh, my brother took that up and became uh a very religious man, never lost his spirituality. I was kind of like, you know, I was going to bed hungry every night, and it just felt like if there was a God, he was punishing me, and then, all right, he's a loving God, but then he's got all these rules, and I'm starving to death, and I'm stealing candy bars when I go to the store, you know, stuff like that. And uh funny story in the book that you noted in the notes where I ended up being uh president of the Baptist Youth Group when I was a senior in high school. And I did fine. We were doing uh uh collecting papers and selling paper, you know, paper stock and stuff like that, newspapers. And we were gonna go on this trip, and I don't know, I borrowed a black leather jacket with the chrome. This is a hood jacket, right? But the hoods wore. That's what we call the tough guys back in those days. Yeah, and I went to the the last meeting I chaired as president. I was smoking cigarettes and drinking beer. And I don't know, I was just rebelling, you know. And after the meeting, I did the meeting. I mean, but after the meeting, four of my Christian brothers met me in the parking lot, and it didn't end well for me. Oh no. Oh yeah, well, they beat the crap out of me, actually. Hey, brother, you know what's funny. I uh after uh when we were adults later on, I got along with all those guys, but I I don't know, I just went through this thing where okay, God, you know, screw you, basically.

Todd 5:51

Well, I mean, you know, you were a good Baptist then, drinking outside and you know, kidding. I'm kidding. I know. So wow, that was uh pretty eventful early life. Now,

Alcohol, the Marine Corps, and Vietnam

Todd 6:02

at some point now after graduating high school, Vietnam was going on, and you decided to join the Marine Corps. What led to that decision?

Rand Timmerman 6:11

Right. Well, at 13 years old, I tried alcohol. I actually got invited to a party with another friend, and uh 13 years old, I'm covered, I mean, I got acne. I'm wearing clothes that got patches on them, and shoot everything we had was worn out by somebody else, you know. Right. So I always felt like less than. I went to this party, found a bottle of chimpine. And me, the other kid drank it, uh crawled home. But I just remember it made me feel so the first part of it. You know, I I took that first muscle and it was like, how can anybody drink this stuff? And then that went that warm feeling went down, I'll never forget. Warm feeling went down my body, and I got big. Now I'm 6'4, I'm clean Eastwood, I'm looking good, I'm funny, sexy, happy, you know, it was just uh amazing uh experience. And we crawled home next morning. I woke up, I heard my dad, and I didn't get sick. Didn't have a headache, I didn't feel quite right, but and uh and I know I drank more than David, so I went in the garage where I heard my dad work and stood way back, expecting the worst, and told him what happened, and he just looked at me and he said, Well, David's in the hospital. Oh wow, yeah, and don't do that again. And my brain was like, I can't wait. You know? Oh wow, yeah. But I know I knew that it was gonna be a problem if I wasn't really, really careful. And I actually, it was a good thing in the sense, Todd, I made a decision, I'm never gonna do drugs. Because why would I? When alcohol did would do that for me, I just knew if I if I was gonna be having a problem with alcohol, I didn't need to pile other stuff on top of it. I never did. I never tried, I never did anything else. So in that way, it was kind of a blessing. But it, you know, it was a factor in my life for sure. So I ended up went off to college, first one in our family. I did three semesters at Oswego State. I was always working, even as a kid, I was trapping, hunting, always trying to make money, working on farms and everything. I was driving tractors when I was 12. And yeah, so I went to college at Oswego. I'm working as a janitor from midnight to eight o'clock in the morning, cleaning toilets, a pin center in a bowling alley, and selling Amway products on the weekends. And I have no money. Right? The college was just taking it all away from me. And uh, I did three semesters, changed my major every semester. Last one I was psychology major because I knew I was a nut job. So, and I would say my change to drink on the weekends because I couldn't afford it most of the time. But anyway, I one night I end up in a bar, I stayed there the whole weekend. Uh, the owner came in on Monday, I heard him put the key in the door. I'm on the pool table. There's nobody there, just me. I'm laying on the pool table. Bartender comes in, doesn't say a word, goes over, starts cleaning up the bar, turns on the radio, and they're talking about 1st Marine Division going into Vietnam. This is mar this is February of 1966. I graduated in 64.

Todd 9:18

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 9:20

And I'm laying there, just I made the decision. You know, I wasn't happy. I was working my butt off. I'm not going anywhere. I don't so they're talking about that. I had been in the Boy Scouts, I was an Eagle Scout, I did all that stuff, and I thought, you know what? I'm gonna. It was for me, it was like the French Foreign Legion. My version, right?

Todd 9:39

Right.

Rand Timmerman 9:40

So away I went, and a month later, I'm in the War Memorial in Syracuse, taking the oath to defend my country against enemies, foreign and domestic, and six months later I'm in a rice patty thinking maybe I screwed up.

Todd 9:55

Oh wow. And and you were infantry. It wasn't like you were just back in the rear with the gear, you were actually out in the field. So, I mean, what unit were you with there?

Rand Timmerman 10:05

First Marines. I was in the first Marine Division. We were in uh Camp Pendleton getting ready to ship out the the next day, and they had the last formation, and I got called to the front, and a guy looked at me a sergeant and said, You're going on mess duty for 30 days.

unknown 10:26

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 10:26

And I thought, oh my god. Well, I tried to argue with him, you know. So for 30 days, I sat on a stool from four o'clock in the morning until five or six o'clock in the evening, 30 days straight, peeling potatoes. Oh, that's it was a pile of potatoes square 10 feet tall when I walked in there at 4 a.m. And it was mostly gone by the time. But the problem with it was Todd that all those guys I had trained with, all that training, all the tactics, my buddies went to Vietnam without me.

Todd 11:02

Oh no.

Rand Timmerman 11:03

Yeah. I only I never saw, I only saw a couple of them by chance in Vietnam. So I was like, you know, a straggler when I got there.

Traumatic First Day in Vietnam

Rand Timmerman 11:14

And then the first night there, I got there in the monsoon, it was pouring buckets, got all my ammo, gear, you know, um M14 grenades, everything, and we went to the transition tent. And uh to go in there, it was probably midnight by then, pouring rain. And there's the guy that was showing me around grabbed the tent to open the door, and it's sandbagged and everything, but it was still a wall tent. And it was a bang! Oh my god. Total pandemonium. Guys are in there screaming, medic, medic, medic! And a little while later, people are running around, and eventually they brought the dead marine out on a poncho and took him away. And I went in and sat on an empty cot. And I just listened to them. They had come out of the field. They're going home the next day. This guy had just got they just got their mail in a big package. Like, that's how we only got a mail mail about once a month.

Todd 12:11

Right.

Rand Timmerman 12:11

And apparently, this guy had opened this up. You got you would always look for, like, I had a girlfriend, you know, you're gonna look for her letters first, and the most recent one, and that's what he did. And he opened it up and said, Dear John, I met somebody else. Um kind of a whirlwind. We got married yesterday, and he never thought. He just picked up his pistol. Oh my god.

Todd 12:34

That's terrible.

Rand Timmerman 12:35

Yeah.

Todd 12:36

Never it seems like every deployment, somebody gets a Dear John letter. Just it's terrible, man. So that yeah, the guy Jody. That's uh did you guys talk about Jody back home? Was that did you talk about that suspicious character?

Rand Timmerman 12:51

I wouldn't be surprised. I mean, we talked about all kinds of things.

Todd 12:54

Yeah, I was I started uh I joined in the 90s and uh we always talked about Jody. He's back home talking to your girl and all that stuff. So yeah.

Rand Timmerman 13:02

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had forgotten about that.

Todd 13:05

Oh, yeah.

Rand Timmerman 13:06

We talked about that.

Todd 13:06

You guys talked about that in Vietnam as well?

Rand Timmerman 13:09

I think so. Yeah, for sure we did. I don't know if it was Jody, it could have been, you know, Jerry or whatever, but yeah, somebody back home, yeah. Yeah. We talked about million-dollar wounds that we all wanted to get a million-dollar wound.

Todd 13:23

Man, just harrowing. So,

Overrun by the NVA

Todd 13:25

yeah, and you shared a story in the book about being, weren't you like overrun by the NVA?

Rand Timmerman 13:30

Yeah.

Todd 13:31

And can you share that with us?

Rand Timmerman 13:32

My chat, I was actually, I had uh three MOSs, military occupational specialty. I was an infantryman, 0311, I was a machine gunner, which I think was O341, and I was a quirk typist. I had an 0141.

Todd 13:46

Oh wow.

Rand Timmerman 13:47

So I didn't see I wasn't in combat all the time. I was a lot of times I'd behind a typewriter during the day, and then you know, writing up, doing up orders and stuff, and then I would be on patrol at night or perimeter duty, or sometimes we would we'd be off, but I'm an alcoholic. Uh I get bored pretty easy. Yeah. And so I would volunteer for stuff and uh end up writing around the middle of the night, shotgun, and uh got involved in a reaction platoon, which we were supposed to be like there to go out in emergencies, try to turn the tide type of thing. And uh yeah, we went out one night and uh we all knew it's gonna be bad. We just you know, you go on these deals and you just know this it's a monsoon, it's pouring buckets, it's like being in a full blast shower with everything on.

Todd 14:41

Ugh.

Rand Timmerman 14:42

And it's it's at night, and and we knew there was no air support. The helicopters can't fly around in the you know, like that. No radio, because it wasn't gonna work anyway. And even if it did, we were gonna be so anyway. We walked all night long and at daybreak. Our mission was to find a plane that had gone down, a C 130, a huge cargo plane. We if it hadn't hit a village and caused fires, we probably wouldn't have never found it. But it we walked all night, we found it just before daybreak, and then didn't take very long. We were doing okay until uh we ran out of ammo. Oh no, yeah. I had two bullets left. I was always afraid I was a coward, Dodd, and I am a coward.

Todd 15:27

I was a coward. I got you know, I read that in the book, and I really don't see it that way. Why most people don't, but that was my anyway.

Rand Timmerman 15:38

So I'm having a quick debate. I can see five enemy soldiers coming right at me.

Todd 15:42

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 15:43

And I'm having a debate. I got I knew I had we counted down. You always counted your rounds, right? So you know how much you had left. So I knew I only had two bullets left in my last magazine, and uh, and I was thinking, okay, I can shoot myself. I knew I couldn't probably stand being a prisoner because we knew what they did, right? Yeah, and I'm like, I didn't want to kill myself. So I just stabbed the guy. And uh when I did, I ended up being covered with you know his stuff. And uh and then I ran. I ran right straight at him. And uh I losed those last two bullets to save my life and ended up in a in the jungle, in the in a river. Anyway, took a few days, nights, but eventually I heard a tank. And I knew that the enemy didn't have any tanks. Because we're in the jungle in northern. I was in I Corps. Anyway, I heard so I guess it's gotta be Marines. So I came a few hours later, I bursted out of the bush. I am a total wreck. My clothes are pretty much gone, right? My shoes, my heels were going on my boots. I'm leaving a blood trail. I got my rifle and the bayonet's still on the internet. That's it. And they they almost shot me because the way I came out of the bush. I'm a marine, I'm not sure. A few hours later, I'm in the headquarters battalion of 1st Marine. I'm back at 1st Marine Division, but I'm in this bunker I don't even know existed. And it's it's a cement bunker buried in the ground, it's full of generals and colonels. And they got it's like out of a movie. They got maps on the walls, they got the big topographical layout right in front with where the units are and all that stuff. And this general's asking me all kinds of questions. Where were you? You know, trying to figure out where we were. I don't know where the hell we were. Kind of new. Anyway, and then it's at the end of it, he's like poking me. He said, Marines never run from the battlefield. You hear me, mister? And I'm like, oh, and I'm freezing. It's cold. You know, they gave me blankets and a couple sandwiches. I had, anyway, I went to the I went to the uh sick bay, fell asleep, somebody woke me up, it felt like I'd been asleep 10 minutes. I mean, I basically hadn't slept in days, right? And then he says, the sergeant says, you gotta go back. Well, I went back. And uh by the time I got there, it was sunny, no more rain, 120 degrees, probably, 100% humidity. I started uh I was I picked up a shoe which I shouldn't go into lost detail. Anyway, I picked up the the the sandal of a child. They made their sandals out of tires. I walked away, I walked over to the edge of the village, and uh standing in the shade, and all of a sudden I was surrounded by all these little kids, and they go, Mr. Marine, Mr. Marine. I mean, they were really, they were crying. I gave them all my water, I gave them all my food, all my candy, everything. Next thing I know, I'm staggering around, I'm like, you're ran, you're drunk. Uh when it came to, I was on the USS Repose hospital ship in Denang Harbor. And uh took me a while to figure out where I was and all that kind of stuff. And I did a personal inventory of my body after a while, and I realized I've got tubes in my arms. I had been, I must have been totally dehydrated and went into shock. Gotcha. So I was in a coma for a few days, and uh, so anyway, I'm coming to I'm trying to figure things out. I can hear this guy in the bed next to me. He's making these really weird uh noises. And uh eventually I figured out where I was. Like I see doctors and nurses down the bay. This bay was full of wounded Marines that I was in on this ship. And anyway, and we always talked about a million-dollar wound. And I'm doing personal inventory, and I finally realized there's nothing wrong with me. My feet are fine. Well, my feet aren't fine, but my feet are okay. And uh, my body, and I'm like, you don't have a million-dollar wound, you're not going home. And then I rolled over and looked at the guy in the bed next to me, he was one of my brown brothers, black eyes. His head was totally swaddled in cotton. Like a it looked like a basketball with but made out of white cotton. And there's tubes going in, and his bottom of it is full of uh pink liquid dripping all over the place, and his eyes are looking at me, and I'm and I looked at him and I went, Oh my god, you've got a million-dollar wound, you're going home. And then he really started, and I look roll back over on my back, and I said, You idiot. Yeah, he has no lower jaw. Oh he has no lower jaw.

Todd 20:41

That's rough.

Rand Timmerman 20:42

Yeah, so uh he had a million-dollar wound, not because he was gonna be really badly disabled, obviously. I don't know what happened to him, of course. But anyway, I I went, I was back out in the jungle and a couple days later, and I just thought, well, you're just gonna have to do what you gotta do. I at that point I figured there's no way I was gonna make it out alive. You know, that was kind of the mindset most of us got until then. And then usually by the time you got the last couple weeks, you go, damn, I might.

Todd 21:12

I might make it home.

Rand Timmerman 21:14

I might make it home. So anyway, uh way too much detail there, but no, no, that's great.

PTSD After the War

Rand Timmerman 21:21

Well, it caused me to have uh wicked bad nightmares uh eventually. After I got yeah, I had bad nightmares of that. I uh fallen out of a helicopter. I actually did fall out of a helicopter, but landed on the skid. Uh so I had these dream nightmares where I would either be falling out of a helicopter and then I didn't land on the skid. So or I had been disembodeled in my bed at home. And usually my bed smelled I could smell the gunpowder and the manure, and then my wife would throw the On and I'd be covered with sweat instead of blood. And then and then I would realize but the bed was full of manure because I had voided myself. And the first time that happened, my wife looked at me and we both knew. Because see, up to that point, I thought I was all right. I had come home, yeah, you know, got married, had kids, went to college, got a degree, became a lawyer, all that good stuff. But it right after a couple years, all of a sudden I started having those nightmares, and uh there was no treatment in those days.

Todd 22:28

Yeah. Yeah, we didn't, yeah. Until recent years, we didn't really treat PTSD. It was just, you know, suck it up pretty much. And people didn't want to go get help. So people didn't seek out help from psychiatrists or anything like that. So yeah. Yeah, things have changed a bit in recent years, thankfully. Yeah. Well glad you glad you made it through.

Rand Timmerman 22:50

So yeah, but there were other aspects to it too. I came home and I already talked about my dad a little bit. And uh

Becoming a Marine Officer and a Lawyer

Rand Timmerman 22:57

when I came home on well, what happened was, and I wrote about this in the book, they made me a second lieutenant at the very end.

Todd 23:03

Nice.

Rand Timmerman 23:04

Yeah, they called a Mustang lieutenant. So when I got ready to leave, uh Colonel came to talk to me and he said, Well, you can go, you're gonna go back to corporal, and you can go home and see I had a two-year enlistment and you can get out, or you can go to OCS and be a real lawyer, or be a real officer, second lieutenant. Well, I didn't have any. Hell, I didn't expect to survive, so I said, sure, why not?

Todd 23:32

Bonus, bonus, yeah.

Rand Timmerman 23:33

Well, you know what, Todd? It was the best thing that ever happened to me because a lot of the other guys came home and start, we all started drinking basically, right? Yeah, a lot, but what it did for me, it gave me 30 days off. I met a girl, got engaged. Nice, okay. I would go and do stuff with her in the afternoon and in the evening, take her back at nine o'clock, and then I would go out with my military buddies, some of them were in the army, and just drink our brains out. At the end of that, I was engaged. It's a little bit crazy, but anyway, I knew I was going to OCS. So I went right back into that whole, you know how the military is, the whole military boot camp all over again. Yeah, OCS, TBS, and these guys all got college degrees and everything. And I'm I'm this enlisted guy, somehow managed to get in with them. And and they kind of a little bit put, well, the so did the instructors a little bit put us vets. There was a couple other guys too, uh, on a little bit of a pedestal. We had a big advantage because we knew what the military was like, we knew what combat was like, and and so they kind of we could help out a little bit. So and then I got sent to so in Vietnam, I was a machine gun on a helicopter for a while in the first marine air wing.

Todd 24:51

Swinging with the wing.

Rand Timmerman 24:53

So I just I don't want to be a grunt anymore. I'm done with that. So I ended up in the first marine air wing at Cherry Point in South Carolina.

Todd 25:01

Oh, nice.

Rand Timmerman 25:01

After all that training, yeah. And I get there and I run into an old drill instructor who is now a Mustang captain. He was the captain of the day, and he said, Red, you want to go to school? I said, Well, I don't know, what do you got? And he's rattled him up and he says, Rhode Island. I said, Rhode Island? I've never been to Rhode Island. What's that?

Todd 25:20

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 25:20

Jag school.

Todd 25:23

Oh, nice. Okay.

Rand Timmerman 25:24

So I said, sure, why not? See, I was probably gonna end up being a Ford observer going back to Vietnam. That was kind of the track I was on. Okay. So now I'm in the air wing. I can still be put on the ground and tell them where to bomb and stuff like that.

Todd 25:40

Right.

Rand Timmerman 25:40

So that was kind of the track I was on. And uh so I went over there to that school, and 20 of us rented this mansion in Rhode Island in the off-season around the ocean. We each got our own bedroom, and these guys are all, you know, they're captains, they're out of the law school, they're real lawyers, and there's well, this uniform coat of military justice, this would be a piece of cake. And I'm like, darn, I think I'm gonna look at this. So I didn't drink during the week. I still was pretty good at disciplining myself. And uh lo and behold, I became the class honor man. Oh, wow. Well, that's great. Yeah, so the Marine Corps damn near got me killed about 20 times, and then it gave me a career because after that I went back to Cherry Point and became I was an illegal officer, and I started doing defense work on court martials, and I won a couple cases, got a couple quittles, so then they did the logical thing, made me a prosecutor. Right. And we had a detachment at Rosie Roads, so every time it looked like I was going back to Vietnam, all of a sudden I had orders I would go down there and do uh Article 32 trials for a month.

Todd 26:46

Sounds like God was looking out for you there.

Rand Timmerman 26:48

No, my buddy, my drill instructor. So I was his name was Dale Moan. And when I came back, yeah, I think it's the second time. I go, geez, Dale, I'm I'm not on the top of the list to go overseas. Again, drop me back down. I mean, I've only got a year to go. I mean it, maybe I won't even go. And he goes, You dumb whatever. Yeah, why do you think I keep sending you down? Oh, you're sending me down. He said, Yeah, I'm hooking you up. You get killed.

Todd 27:16

Wow. So you had the hookup. That is great.

Rand Timmerman 27:19

I had a guardian angel.

Todd 27:21

Yeah. So you eventually got out. So how did that play out?

Rand Timmerman 27:26

Well, I did the that at Cherry Point. I had gotten engaged, I got married in the Marine Corps. We had two daughters by the well, one daughter, another one on the way. When I left, I went to Syracuse. When I as soon as I got out, I was in college, did got my BA after a year and a half, and then law school and graduated and uh self-employed as an attorney for 40 years. I had a great career. I really did. Um, I ran, I you know, I was a weekend warrior, all us military guys, kind of that mindset type thing. Drink hard, play hard, work hard. And uh I hung out. I did 26 marathons. It was kind of banged up. Wow. I ended up losing everything in my right leg, my interior cruciate ligaments, a medium meniscus, so I ran 26 marathons on a bum knee. And uh by the time I was doing the Appalachian Trail, my right leg was a half inch shorter than my left.

Todd 28:28

Oh, wow.

Rand Timmerman 28:29

And I had an artificial knee in my left leg.

Todd 28:32

Yeah. So you weren't a spring chicken hitting that trail.

Rand Timmerman 28:35

But I did have that solid base of uh fitness, and um uh I limped. I like to brag, I was the limpiest man to ever walk the Appalachian Trail.

Todd 28:48

Yeah, it I got the impression you were, you know, like the tortoise that beat the hare because you you talked about all these the kids would just fly by, blah, blah, blah, but they have to take breaks, and you were just slow and steady, and you'd end up passing them up. So that was cool.

Rand Timmerman 29:02

Yeah, we never stopped. Ronnie and I would meet in the middle and and uh for about five minutes, and yeah, and uh he kept going and I kept going, and uh we it's amazing.

Todd 29:15

Yeah, yeah.

Successful Attorney & Alcoholic

Todd 29:16

So now you had a lot of starts and stops. So prior to the Appalachian Trail, very successful career as an attorney in New York, but you were a heavy drinker. How did you get to the point where you were like, I'm an alcoholic? How did you realize that?

Rand Timmerman 29:31

Oh, I knew I was an alcoholic from the get-go. I just knew. I just knew I could drink more than in the Marine Corps. We had a battalion party. Like in the uh, there's a Vietnam movie where they're having this big beer bust and everything. It's kind of like that. The whole battalion. I started drinking at like noon and just party, party, party. And then the next morning, I'm standing there. The colonel is standing next to me, the sun is starting to come up. We're talking. Everybody else is passed out or asleep. There's Marines in prostate formation everywhere. He and I are the only two people standing, right? This guy's like six foot four, he's like clinishwood, six foot four. I mean, he's he's a picture perfect Marine. Yeah. And then there's me, five foot eight, 145, you know. And he looks at me and and he goes, You want to have another one, Lieutenant? Sure. That's so funny. You know? Yeah, it's crazy. So I knew I had a problem with alcohol for sure. And uh, but I was also very determined to be successful. Uh, had people working for me most of my life. Um tried to be a good boss. I was a very successful attorney, didn't really have any problems. I drank a little bit too much sometimes. Uh I would go for periods where I didn't drink at all just to make sure, you know, it didn't overpower me. But kids are gone, wives are gone. At the end, I was um it owned me. It owned me. And I so I came into a program, it's an anonymous program for alcoholics. And uh I wasn't successful at first. And I went into a rehab at one point for 47 days. I could stop, but I could not stay stop. And when I drank, I never had any idea how much I was gonna drink, but at the end, it was way too much. And um anyway, I would I had a divine intervention.

Todd 31:50

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 31:51

The only way you can describe it. I always kept putting my finger up at whatever this higher power might be and saying, I'm gonna do what I want when I would relapse, and and then I'd come back begging for mercy, and and but I was refusing to do the spiritual part of the program. And the program's yeah, yeah, you know, you're familiar with that, right?

Todd 32:09

Right, right. Yeah. Well, I've never I've never participated, but I know what you're talking about from your book. So yeah. And and you eventually met a man who would become your sponsor. His name is Billy. Can you talk about him?

Rand Timmerman 32:20

Yeah, Billy was amazing. So I had in three and a half years, I had been staying sober for three months without much problem, and I could never make four, and it got really, really bad.

Todd 32:30

Right.

Rand Timmerman 32:31

At one point, I was locked up in the VA and uh psych ward for a week because of my suicidal ideation, and uh it was really, really bad. And then finally, at the at the end, I went on a I called them Irvaka vacations. I would just, I just didn't care anymore. I just wanted it to end. I just wanted and I would just start drinking, and I couldn't understand why I couldn't control it. I thought it was a moral issue with me, something uh bizarre about me or whatever, like I'm unique in a bad way. Right. I'm I really wasn't any worse than any other alcoholic. A lot of people don't realize, but alcoholism is a disease.

Todd 33:15

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 33:16

Alcoholics metabolize alcohol different than normal people, right? And in 1956, the American Medical Association declared it as a defined it as a disease and put it in the in the list. And so we are uh, you know, it has been determined to be a disease. And the reason is because alcoholics metabolize alcohol differently than normal people, and we create an excess of acetone. And acetone is what gives you that feeling that you have to drink. A normal person starts to drink and they get that, you know, they start maybe they get a little giggly or whatever, and then they start to get a little upset, stomach, they don't feel quite right. Their body is metabolizing the acetone, and it's you know, and it's telling them maybe you need to stop, and they stop. Yeah, the alcoholic, it becomes it builds up, and it's it's that thirst. I would be coming out, you know, I'd be coming to again after two or three days of drinking, and I I'm I'm as thirsty as I was the day I started, and I can't stop. And I did not understand that. Most people don't. But so that helped me out too eventually. I figured that okay, this is not it's not a moral thing. It's a right. So anyway, I got wicked drunk, my last go-around, and uh, I was gonna go to the liquor store and get some more cherry vodka and just like a gallon. I mean, I was in really bad shape. Problem was it was Saturday, and it was seven o'clock in the morning. I'd been drinking all night, and liquor store doesn't open until nine. So I went and sat on this guy's front steps on this house.

Todd 34:59

Ah, okay. So just some random guy.

Rand Timmerman 35:02

Just some random guy and Billy comes out with his fishing poles. I found out later he loved to fish. He was gonna spend the day fishing, beautiful day, sun's coming up. Yeah, he sees me, he kind of looks like scared for a second, and then he puts his fishing poles down, he comes over and sits down next to me, and he says, I know you. You're just like me. He'd been in Alcoholics Anonymous for 30 years, helped hundreds of men. He had walked into his first meeting 30 years before that, and he did not believe in God either. Right. But he never drank again. The old guys put their arms around him and said, You stick with us, kid, you'll be alright. And he was. That's great. And then he devoted his life to helping other alcoholics. So anyway, he took me to the hospital. He could have dropped me off, told me to get the hell out of his car. He didn't. He went inside and spent the whole day with me in the hospital. I'm on the gurney with the tubes in my arms, and he's sitting in a chair telling me his story. And he became, like you said, he became my sponsor. And he got me out of detox four days later, and we went to a meeting, and we ended up going to a meeting every day for a year. And uh, and uh sometimes we I would we'd both drive and go to a meeting and pick up guys, and and we it was a hell of an experience, it really was. And he took me through the steps of the program. The best thing he told me was day one, after he picked me up out of detox, we went to a meeting after the meeting. He looked at me, he said, Rand, you need to pray to that God you don't believe in. And I'm like, Oh no, Billy, come on. I just spent all you spent all day with me. You know I don't believe in God. I don't and he just looked at me, he said, or you'll get drunk again. Yeah. And he was telling me the truth. And it hit me, it hit me right in the gut, and I just looked at said, I'll do whatever you tell me to do. Taught me to pray to that God you don't believe in. He he had a third-step prayer. I memorized that real quick, and I was praying for God to give me the strongest possible desire not to drink today, to not think about it so much, Rand, because that's all you do. Smash the idea, I have to drink again because you don't.

Todd 37:17

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 37:18

And it worked. It's been over almost 12 years now and have not drank again. And I've been doing that every day, and I had to do a whole bunch of other things. And then after like three months, sure enough, I had that day where I just wanted to drink so bad. I was gonna heading out the door, and I heard Billy's voice in my head said, get on your knees and pray. And I did. I was crying, Todd. I hate to admit this, but I was crying I was just I did not want to drink so bad, but I wanted to drink so bad. And in the past, I'd always given in to it. And uh I got on my knees, and I swear a minute later, I got up and it was gone. It was the first time in my adult life that I got that feeling that I had to drink and I didn't.

Todd 38:07

Right.

Rand Timmerman 38:08

That's God working in me.

Todd 38:10

Yeah. Right? And you didn't believe, but it didn't matter. Right.

Rand Timmerman 38:14

And then it happened again a few months later, and second time it was a little more, it wasn't quite so quick. Uh, I think God was saying, Well, let's see what this guy's really made of. Right. You know, it takes hard work. It's not, it's not magic. It takes hard work, it takes devotion, it takes faith, it takes yeah, um takes a lot. But yeah, changed my life, changed my life completely.

Todd 38:38

Yeah.

The Power of Human Connection

Todd 38:39

Yeah. And then Billy started encouraging you as part of your as part of the process, he encourages you to start calling people in the program to talk to them. Yeah. And that was hard for you at first, but it changed over time. So can you talk about that?

Rand Timmerman 38:52

Oh, yeah, that's great, Todd. Uh yeah. Like the second or third day, he goes, have you got any phone numbers on your phone of people on AA? And I'm like bragging. Like, oh yeah, Billy, I've been, I raised my hands 12 times saying I'm coming back. And they always send the thing around the room. Everybody puts their name and their phone number on it, gives it to you, and call somebody. Billy says, Would you ever call anybody, Rand, before you picked up that drink? No. No. So Billy says, I want you to call somebody. I want you to call five guys a day. And I'm like, oh my God. But I didn't, Todd, I did not want to drink again. So the next, I said, can I start tomorrow? You start, mister. Billy, Billy did not screw around with me. He really, you know, people talk about their suggestions. No, not in Billy's boot camp, it wasn't. It was do this or drink. It's your choice. So I remember the next day vividly. I waited till eight o'clock. I picked a guy I knew worked.

Todd 39:59

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 40:00

Called him. I said, My name is Rand. And the guy probably knew me. I my name is Rand, and Billy's my sponsor, and he told me to call uh five guys a day. So I'm calling you, and I'm fine. Mm-hmm. I hung up. I'm like, why is this so hard? Yeah. To myself, I had a conversation with why is this so damn horrible? I don't want to do it. And then I realized it's because I didn't want to admit to anybody I needed help. I'm trying to live in that old facade of the tough marine, the you know, the big shot lawyer, uh, at least in my little pond. You know, that's a pretty big shot in the little pond. And, you know, and I got I got this. I can run, I can do all these things. And I couldn't stop drinking. So that helped me a lot. Next day, Billy goes, Are you making those phone calls, mister? Yes, sir. I'm making them. Well, what do you say? And I said, uh, I tell him I'm fine. Billy says, You're not fine. Okay, I said, Billy, I don't know what to say. I've been calling guys because I know they're working. I'm just leaving messages. I haven't actually talked to anybody yet because I'm scared to actually say this. I'm like, I need help. I don't want to talk about my shit. And he says, No, you don't do that. You don't do that. You ask them, how, whatever you're dealing with, like if you're dealing with the issue of a higher power, you know, something outside of yourself. A higher power, all the higher power is something. Obviously, I am powerless against alcohol, right? I couldn't. Yeah, I tried everything except the right thing.

Todd 41:42

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 41:42

All right, it didn't work. So I got to have a power outside of me to help me out. And it's got to be bigger than me. Because obviously it's not going to match me. It's got to be bigger. It's got to be a higher power. Billy says, You're struggling with that whole thing. Ask them how they made a connection with their higher power. Holy crap. So I started doing that. I would ask them questions. Why do you go to meetings every day? Why, you know, and then I would just shut up and let them talk. And it worked. I mean, it was fantastic. And today, I've been helping guys now for uh over 10 years. And uh yeah, I answer the damn phone. Rand, if an alcoholic calls you, you answer the phone.

Todd 42:25

Yeah. And I ask him how they're doing it. That's cool because he he didn't he didn't say, hey, this is why you're doing it. You've got to do this. He's just giving you basic stuff. Do this. Because he knows the result when you're connecting with uh other people, and it works. It works. That's that's a great story, man. Yeah, it's wonderful.

Rand Timmerman 42:45

Well, then to answer your question precisely. So after a year, I've done the whole, I've done all the steps. And one day after a meeting, I was going to meetings, I would go to two or three meetings a day, especially when I was in the early recovery, especially. I in a meeting, I was safe for myself, and I knew that. So if I had if they urged the drink out too bad, I would go to another meeting in the middle of the day. I would go to a meeting with Billy at night, then I would go to a meeting first thing the next morning. Because it was keeping me sober, it was helping me. Yeah, right. I'm in the I'm in rooms with sober people living a sober life and telling each other how they do it. Right. That's very powerful. Yeah. And so after the, and I was a litigator, you know, so I can talk pretty good. Sound pretty good. And um, after a meeting, a young guy came up to me and said, Would you be my sponsor? I got like 13 months of my brain is like, no, Rand, you're not ready.

Todd 43:43

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 43:43

So I did what Billy did. I said, Come back tomorrow.

Todd 43:46

Uh-huh.

Rand Timmerman 43:47

Billy was getting, I mean, every day people were asking him, right? So he said, Come back tomorrow. So I did that. And then usually they don't. I mean, 90% of them just had that moment, and then they go, Oh, I don't really want to do it, you know. Sorry. I but I need to go talk to Billy. So I went and talked to Billy. I told him what happened, and and uh and I just waited, and he goes, Oh, hmm, that's a good rant. Go for it. Billy, I you're supposed to tell me I'm not ready. I'm not ready. He goes, Oh, Rand, you're ready. You got a lot of bad experience.

Todd 44:22

You're perfect.

Rand Timmerman 44:24

No, I got a lot. Yeah, I'm like decades of bad experience. And he said, and now you got good experience.

Todd 44:31

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 44:32

And you got me. So if you get stuck, you you know, we'll figure it out. It'll be fine. The first two guys I tried to help weren't ready. They both went back out and died.

Todd 44:42

Oh, wow.

Rand Timmerman 44:43

Yeah, it's a very, you know, it's a tough deal sometimes.

Todd 44:46

And your

The Deceitful Mind of an Alcoholic

Todd 44:47

book doesn't pull punches. You don't pull punches when we're writing about alcoholics. That was an eye-opener for me. Because at one point you described the mind of an alcoholic, and this is important. And I think a lot of people that know me uh need to hear this. Now, would you describe the mind of an alcoholic? And you use those words conniving and scheming. Talk more about that, would you?

Rand Timmerman 45:08

Sure. So now I've been doing this a while. I have never met a stupid person in the program I go into, the anonymous program. Alcoholics all seem to have a lot of brain power. And it's not necessarily, you know, then they're all different. It could be a carpenter, it could be, it could be a janitor, it could be a rocket scientist. I mean, but I've never met somebody in alcoholics who did not have a pretty damn active brain, right? Right. Which also has the ability to lie to ourselves. We scheme and oh my God. I was basically an honest person. I did not have any financial problems. Right? I always took care of my bill. I did all that kind of stuff. When I wasn't drinking, I was very nice to people. I was well liked in the professional community because I was kind of do my job, you know, be prepared, do a good job. Judges love me. I'd bring in case law and give it to them, all kinds of stuff. So I had a good career that way. But I always knew in my mind I gotta be careful. I did not drink. When I was working, I did not drink. I wasn't going to lunches and getting or any of that kind of stuff. Right. Yeah. But I ended up retiring earlier than I thought I would because I knew it was going to be a problem. It was going to explode on me. And so yeah. But we do. We have we have very busy minds, most alcoholics. And we do scheme, and I would lie through my butt to defend my right to drink.

Todd 46:40

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 46:41

That's where the scheming and the that's what alcoholics do. We kid ourselves. Well, this time it'll be different. No, it's going to be different. It's going to be worse. Guaranteed. The acetone levels are going to build up, and you're going to your towers gets way high. You're scheming and conniving, trying to maintain this lifestyle, not letting buddy know, and it doesn't work. You either you either find a path, and there's one all laid out in our big book, and get on that path, and you'll be fine. Or institutions and death. That's pretty much the way it goes.

Todd 47:17

Yeah. Yeah. And you talk about I mean, in addition to the conniving and scheming, you there's something that you put in the book there. Um I'll think about it here in a bit, but uh let's let's let's talk about Billy. You tell a story in the book about Billy actually kicking a guy out of a session. And it seem at first it seems pretty brutal, but can you talk to can you tell that story?

Rand Timmerman 47:41

Sure. Yeah, Billy was really old school. And I came from an area up north and where I was originally trying to get sober, there weren't a lot of meetings. And they were all devoted to alcohol. And there's a lot of other drugs and things, as you well know. Um, Billy was all about it's AA. When we go to one of our meetings, it's that's that's what it's about, not talking about drugs and stuff. But he would try. We had a guy at a meeting one day, and the guy was a young guy sitting in the back of the room, not in good shape. And and Billy was chairing the meeting, and he asked him right straight out, you got a desire to stop drinking? And the guy goes, Yeah, well, it's not really my problem. And Billy goes, Well, do you drink? Well, and he keeps asking me. And finally, the kid says, Well, I don't drink very much, hardly ever at all. It's the other stuff. And then Billy lost it. Kicked him out. And I, oh, my stomach was turning. I mean, I love the guy. He saved my life, right? He was the he was the the thing that taught me how to stay be a sober man. He was the vessel. God spoke through him to me, yeah, and saved my life. And now I do the same thing. I'm not the I'm not uh magical or anything like that, but God speaks to me when I'm working with another man, and I can tell my experience, and then I can help them, right? Yeah, and that's the way Billy was with me. And then he's kicking this kid out, and you know, we got fentanyl, all kinds of stuff. My anyway, my stomach was turning, and uh, but when the guy, the kid walked out, and he was probably in his 30s, but I'm 80 now, so everybody's a kid, right? Yep, yeah, and I just remember one of the old timers got up and walked out, and I thought, hmm, I wonder what that's all about. And then when the meeting was over, an hour and 10 minutes later, I walked out. There's the old guy talking to the kid, the young man. I go, oh, now I get it.

Todd 49:41

Mm-hmm.

Rand Timmerman 49:42

See? Billy wanted to keep our meetings focused on alcohol, and there's other places to go. I was more of let everybody come in. And and we we debate this stuff all the time, but most people wouldn't ever. I've never that's the only time I ever saw anybody kick somebody out of a meeting.

Todd 49:58

But yeah. But there was a reason, and it wasn't like, hey, you're out, somebody pulled alongside and outside the meeting and talked to him. So that's yeah. That's

Escaping Bitterness & Resentment

Todd 50:08

cool. Now, there's a thing that you talk about in the book. You talk about the replay machine that's in an alcoholic's brain. I remembered what I wanted to ask you. Can you talk about that bitterness and resentment that you mentioned in the book?

Rand Timmerman 50:20

Oh, I got a perfect one. I got a perfect one. They're called resentments. Right. And resentment means to replay over and over and over again, the same thing. And then a couple of the old timers would talk about you watch a football game, and uh the re the wide receiver goes up to get the ball, and he kind of catches it, and then he's in, and then he flips over and lands on his head and drops the ball, and and then they replay it over and over and over again. Well, that's what alcoholics do with resentments. So that very first week that Billy was working with me in my current recovery 11 and a half years ago, Billy goes, You got a resentment against anybody that would take you back out and drink again? I said, Yeah, I do. And I get it's a guy in Alcoholics Anonymous. So I tell Billy what it was. A guy had outed me. I had gone to a meeting, raised my hand. Was not the last time I drank, but it was, I don't know, six months before that. And this guy was uh he was sick of seeing me. And he after the meeting, he spread in the doorway because my MO was the as soon as the meeting was over, even though I raised my hand and got all those phone numbers, I'm out the door. I don't want to talk to anybody. And this guy knew, and he blocked the door, and he's had two response, one on each side. He's a great big guy, six foot whatever, poking me in the chest, and he's going, Randy, you know what your problem is? Oh, and he's yelling at everybody in the room is looking at us. No, I'm pretty sure you're gonna tell me. I didn't say what I wanted to say, Todd I just kept my mouth shut. And he says, Your problem is you're not humble enough. Well, then my brain exploded. Yeah, he doesn't know I'm a combat marine. I serve my, you know, I I'm a husband, I'm a lawyer, I'm a all my good stuff. I'm talking, you know, and I barched by him and walked out.

Todd 52:12

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 52:13

So Billy knew who the guy was, and he said, Well, I want you to pray for him every day in 10 days, two weeks, it'll go away. Oh, wow. Okay. So I said, okay. Next morning he goes, Are you praying for this guy? And I said, Yes, Billy, I am. Oh, well, what are you praying for, Rand? I'm praying that he gets what he deserves. Strike him down, God. No, you pray for him that he that he stays sober, that he he's gainfully employed. You pray for him that he has everything that he wants to have.

Todd 52:46

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 52:46

Todd, 10 days later, I woke up in bed. I was doing what he told me to do. I don't want to drink again, right? I have thought about this guy every day.

Todd 52:54

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 52:55

And it's been years. At that point, it had been months, many months.

Todd 53:00

Right.

Rand Timmerman 53:00

Almost, oh well, over a year, actually. And so one day, so Billy says, Are you still praying for this guy? It was the 10th day. I'll never forget it. I woke up that morning. I said, I told Billy, I said, I woke up. I didn't even get out of bed yet. I had said my prayers, and I'm laying there and I was thinking about them. And I just got a smile on my face. Because I realized he had been sober for 10 years. He was always helping men. He worked for an agency that was helping disadvantaged children. He was living with a woman with 30 years of sobriety. He was always going to meetings. He always had a great message. And I thought, what the hell's wrong with you? And I just got a smile. And then after that, every time I thought of him, I got a smile. And then I had finished the steps. I'm starting to work with guys. I ran into him at a meeting, and he and I were the only ones in the building. I got there early. I'm getting a cup of coffee, and he walked in. I said, and I said, Here, have a cup of coffee. And I looked at him, I said, You save my life. He's looking at me. He's looking at me. I said, That time you told me I was wasn't humble and you were poking me in the chest. That would make me so mad. And he said, but I said, but you were right. I realized his name is Brat. I said, I realized, Brat, that you were right. I wasn't humble enough. What does humble mean? It means I'm willing to do God's will. What's God's will? If I'm an alcoholic, so I don't drink alcohol.

Todd 54:16

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 54:17

Right? Wow. And so I aligned my will with his will. And I said, Brat, you saved my life. It took a while more longer, but you know, I got Billy and everything. And he's looking at me and he's shaking his head. He goes, Rand, I have no idea what you're talking about.

Todd 54:33

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 54:34

But I'm glad you're all right. And you want to look up really crazy, Todd? I ran into him. I haven't seen him in years. This honest got truth. I ran into him this morning at a gas station.

Todd 54:48

Uh-huh. You did this morning.

Rand Timmerman 54:50

This morning.

Todd 54:51

Wow. That's cool.

Rand Timmerman 54:52

And I didn't know, I didn't realize. And he saw me, he ran over to me.

Todd 54:57

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 54:57

And he's like, big guy. Gave me a bear hug, put me up, and says, How you doing? I said, Oh, I'm doing. I'm doing great, Brad. We chit-chatted for a few minutes.

Todd 55:08

That's great.

Rand Timmerman 55:09

I haven't seen good stories. Yeah. It just happened this morning. How does this stuff happen?

Todd 55:14

What a good story, man. That is so cool. I call it Providence. That's what it is.

Rand Timmerman 55:18

So Divine Intervention, man.

Todd 55:20

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 55:21

I don't know how to

Rand & Ron Hike the Appalachian Trail

Todd 55:23

Yeah. So let's uh let's switch gears and talk about the hiking the Appalachian Trail. And I mean, to set the table, what is the Appalachian Trail for people that don't know?

Rand Timmerman 55:32

Appalachian Trail is the longest footpath trail in the whole world. Goes from Springer Mountain, Georgia, through 14 states to Cadadin Mountain in Maine. It's 22,198 feet long. They keep making it longer. No, they do because they go over the top of every mountain. It goes over 600 mountains. 300 of them are named. There's 46,500,000, so almost a half a million feet of elevation changes. Wow. And you're going up and down, up and down all day long. About 3 million people uh hike on the Appalachian Trail every year. I got this off of one of the uh websites. Uh but only about 2,500 to 3,000 actually try to do be through hiker.

Todd 56:25

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 56:26

And of that, about 17% make it each year. So we're talking about 450,500 people a year that actually do it. Yeah. And it's amazing. It's absolutely amazing.

Todd 56:37

So you and your little brother Ron in your 70s, you decide to hike the Appalachian Trail. How did you decide to do that? What how'd that come about?

Rand Timmerman 56:47

Well, okay. Ronnie, Ronnie's wife Edie uh had a massive stroke in 2011. Now, Edie was our mother's best friend when Ronnie met her. He came back from Vietnam. He met Edie, our mother's best friend. She was 14 years older than him, divorced with seven kids.

Todd 57:11

Oh wow. Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 57:13

The next thing I know, they're hanging out, they're going line dancing and stuff like that. And he married her. He married her and he became the patriarch of this huge family. They got very involved in the Mormon church. He became a bishop. He was always a spiritual guy. He did a lot of funerals and uh weddings and all kinds of stuff. Um, they went out to Utah and lived for 40 some years, and uh then uh he had the stroke, never got better, it got worse, many strokes. Ronnie took care of her for six years. She passed in November of 2017, and I was talking to him on the phone. I was worried about him. And I said, What are you gonna do, bro? And he said, I'm gonna hike the Appalachian Trail. I'm like, okay. I said, bro, I better come out and see you. So I went out in January and we went hiking in the Utah Desert. I I couldn't imagine he was serious because I had hiked quite a bit of the Appalachian Trail and Smoky Mountains and stuff. I had done fake bear charges with bears. You know, I mean, I had quite a bit of experience. Turned out he'd been a ton of hiking in Utah. He was in really good shape too for our ages. We were both pretty good shape. I was walking eight, I still walk seven, eight miles a day. Nice hiking. Yeah, I'm averaging 50 uh miles a week, pretty steady.

Todd 58:35

That's great. I need to step it up. So yeah. So that was another inspiration in the book for me was man, I need to step it up.

Rand Timmerman 58:43

So yeah. So he said, I asked him, what are you gonna do? And he said, I'm gonna I'm gonna hike the Appalachian Trail. It turned out he got in the maps, he bought a bunch of gear, he was all ready to go. I said, When are you gonna go? And he said, March 22nd. I like, well, that's crazy. I said, What are you gonna do? And he said, I'm gonna get on a bus ride down Springer Mountain and start walking. Well, I knew that wasn't gonna work. Yeah, so I said, I'll go. Uh-huh. So we did on March 22nd, 2018, in a snowstorm. Oh, wow. We start well, you saw in the book the the snow the first couple of days there.

Todd 59:18

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 59:19

I love the picture.

Todd 59:20

What happens now? Was Ron a Marine? Now Ron went to Vietnam as well. Was he a Marine too?

Rand Timmerman 59:24

No, he was in the army.

Todd 59:26

Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 59:28

He was the machine gun on a helicopter uh for an army unit down by uh July in the middle of Vietnam. Right. I was way up north. I was almost in the North Vietnam, actually.

Todd 59:39

Yeah, I was just gonna say when Marines go to the field, it's always raining. There's always bad weather. So oh my god.

Rand Timmerman 59:45

Well, a lot of bad weather on the trail, too.

Todd 59:47

Yeah, you faced a lot. Those are some cool

“Naked Day” on the Trail

Todd 59:50

stories. Yeah, and you shared a lot of crazy experiences on the trail. So can you tell that story about the pack of hikers who decided it was naked day and they hiked completely nude that day?

Rand Timmerman 59:59

Yeah. That was funny. Let's see. It was Father's Day 2018. Uh-huh. So I think it was June 20th, something like that. Doesn't matter. We're in Virginia, and beautiful hiking. And you get in a bubble where you see the same people for a few days, and then they either speed up or slow down, and then you're in a different bubble. But so I'm in this bubble with a guy by the name of Growler. It looks like Dan Boone or I don't know, Davy Crockett or whatnot. Big guy with a full beard, very built. I mean, and he was with a woman, her name was her trail name was uh Coors Light. So uh we always left early in the morning, I mean, right at daybreak usually. And I was always hiking north. Ron would we would park. We had two vehicles, so we would park on the trail. And then in the morning, I just start out. Ronnie would drive down into the valley on one side or the other, which was closer, and go up and go up another road until he got up to the trail. There are roads crossing the trail every 10 to 15 miles for a lot of it. Not all of it, but for a lot of it. So and then he would park and he would go south and I would go north. And we'd meet in the middle, then he would finish up where my truck was, where we had spent the night before, drive around, go back up where we left his car. I would come out, we'd stay right there. So that was how we were doing it. Yeah. So one day, this day I'm hiking up the mountain. Nobody's started out yet. And then I hear people behind me, so I pull over and I look back down the trail. And here's uh Coors Light in front, and another woman behind her, and then Growler in the back, and they don't have any clothes on. And I'm like, whoa! So I kind of pulled over because they were gonna go, they were faster than me anyway. And Growler comes up and I said, What's going on? And he goes, uh it's it's naked day on the Appalachian Trail. Um Ranbo. My name, my trail name was Rambo.

Todd 1:02:08

Hope you brought a lot of bug juice.

Rand Timmerman 1:02:11

Yeah. Mosquitoes are bad. I said, Well, I'm gonna do you guys a favor. So I step aside, they go by me, and uh Gowler, Growler was actually in the front when they were coming up, but somehow when they were going past me and going up, Growler's in the back.

Todd 1:02:29

Oh, yeah.

Rand Timmerman 1:02:30

So I'm following up behind him, and he's got more hair. He's covered with hair anyway, but he's got more hair on his you know, and we're on Hogback Mountain, go figure, right? That's the name of the mountain we're climbing.

Todd 1:02:43

And you're staring at Growler's butt.

Rand Timmerman 1:02:45

Yeah, I just pulled over. I couldn't take it. Uh oh my goodness. A few hours later, I did catch up with them. They were on top of the mountain, they had their clothes back on.

Todd 1:02:56

So oh my word. Lots of bug bites, I'm sure.

Rand Timmerman 1:03:00

Oh, yeah. Oh my goodness. Funny stories. I there was an Oriental guy who was in one of the bubbles with us for a while. Short guy, he was dressed like a samurai warrior with the robes and everything. He could have had a sword, you would never know because he had so much. And then he had this head thing on, and and he uh carried a pack, of course. And yeah, we can see him, and and I'm always limping. I'm bad. I had a lot of knee pain and other medical problems, but anyway. So one day he stops me and he goes, Rambo, let me hold your hands. Okay, I'm gonna do, I know what I'm doing. You just let me hold your hands. I'm gonna help you with your knee pain. I'm I'm gonna we're gonna pray and it'll go away, okay? So we're standing trail holding hands and he's praying, and people are walking by, he's like, What the you know, and I'm standing there, and all of a sudden I realize he's he says Macbeth. Okay, and then my brain goes, he's quoting Shakespeare.

Todd 1:04:02

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 1:04:03

I said, you know what, I think I'm feeling a whole lot better. Yeah, I feel like we would have stood there, but but you still feel better, actually, Don.

Todd 1:04:13

That's great. Oh my word.

Rand Timmerman 1:04:15

Oh, I could tell you more stories. They're in the book. Yeah.

Todd 1:04:19

Yeah, it's a good book. Now you

Injuries on the Journey

Todd 1:04:21

and Ron were in great shape, like you said, because you did a lot of hiking prior to the Appalachian Trail, but it's a it's a brutal existence, just hiking day after day. So you had quite a few injuries along the way. So you there were times where you had to start and stop and go get medical attention. So can you talk about some of the struggles?

Rand Timmerman 1:04:38

Yeah, well, the worst one for me, of course, I have knee pain wicked anyway. In the beginning, like you said, climbing in the mountains is totally different. You can walk, I can walk eight miles today without too much problem. And I don't do it all at once, I do three miles, and then I'll do another three, and then so on. But um, but in the mountains is a whole different ball game. You're lucky if you can do a mile and a half in an hour. I mean it's just up, up, right? Down, down, down. And I have hammered toes, so even after the like the second day, uh I had blisters on top of all the knuckles in my toes.

Todd 1:05:13

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 1:05:13

So they were bleeding. And my socks would be pink every night. My socks would be pretty much saturated with blood. And I'm not thinking too much about it. I wash them out, and you know, I had two pairs, so on and so forth. But um, after two weeks, I started getting this wicked bed. I thought I had done shin splints or something in my leg. My daughter actually thought I'd broke my leg. I said, Well, I don't think I could hike with a broken leg, but so I went to the emergency room. Turned out I had um infection. And almost I doctor said I was like 12 hours from being septic. Oh. I hadn't come off the trail. And he, I don't know, he spouted off some. So they put me on quadruple antibiotics, and uh I ended up uh not. hiking for a week. And then I felt better and so Ronnie said, You want to start again? I said, Yeah, let's do it. So I went back.

Todd 1:06:10

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 1:06:10

And um yeah, I fell every day. I broke four poles hiking sticks.

Todd 1:06:18

Yeah.

Rand Timmerman 1:06:18

Yeah. It was tough.

Todd 1:06:19

I mean it's It's not easy.

Rand Timmerman 1:06:22

No, it's not easy.

Todd 1:06:23

But there were anybody's ever been in the military and you've humped a pack. Then you add things to you know the trails and the mountains and all that stuff that's tough. And you did it in your 70s. So kudos to you man. That's that's great. Now the book is entitled A Spiritual Passage.

Spiritual Aspects of the Trail

Todd 1:06:41

So how was hiking the trail a spiritual journey for you?

Rand Timmerman 1:06:45

For me it was for sure because I had four years of sobriety at that time. I was helping a couple of guys like I always was and uh so we made a deal they would call me every I would turn my phone on every day at a certain time and try to be at the top of a mountain where I had a signal. And so they were talking to me. They were helping me stay sober. I was doing a meeting in my head every day with the readings and then um I almost died one night on the trail in a really bad storm in a bad spot. I really made a bad decision and I was on a point in the Smoky Mountains where the trail drops off hundreds of feet on both sides. And I was the shelters were full so I was trying to get to another gap and there's a gap on the Smoky Mountains on the south side of uh what's the name of the middle point? I can't think of it right now. But anyway called false gap. Well it's called false gap because there's no gap. So I pitched my tent in the middle of the trail on the on a on a ridge with no trees and it dropped off hundreds of feet straight down on both sides. Wow. And then in the middle of night these storms came up and it sounded like freight Todd I have never been so scared in my life when nobody was shooting at me. I mean this it sounded like freight trains coming up from the south and the the way the valley was it was wide and then it nailed right where I was so these winds were coming up sometimes the freight train would go on one side of me or the other and then when it hit that tent it was just collapsing like an accordion just boom boom boom boom boom boom my brother said were you hanging on to the rods I said hell no I was pushing down on the stakes as hard as I could because I felt like I was in a body bag. I mean it felt like I was just going to be blown off that mountain at any moment and I'm praying to God I'm like God I've been a good boy I've been a good boy for four years now I'm helping people I don't are you trying to kill me I don't want to die but if you and I'm Todd I was sincere if this is it for me okay I'm okay with it. Yeah I'd rather not but and it went on until just before daybreak and then finally they stopped and uh I got out of the tent and my I turned my phone on and all of a sudden it rang and I answered it it was one of my guys and he says I said how you doing he says I'm doing good I'm checking in Rand and he said I've been really worried about you because I've been watching the weather and they said they were like tornadoes where you are and I said well I don't there was no tornadoes I know but I was really bad. I didn't tell them the whole detail I didn't want him to worry about me too much but yeah uh so Ronnie had one moment in the book as you may recall with the he was really tortured that day it was Father's day and he was worried you know think about our dad and and E and and then he saw that halo there's a picture in the book with the halo. Yeah yeah and he felt like and it looked like there's a person standing it was the only light we saw that whole day it was a really dark day gloomy as heck and and I don't know if Ronnie was seeing what he thought was Jesus Christ or if he were Buddha could you know could be Hindu it could be whatever it can be whatever you want. But he felt like he was getting a message that it's from our dad and ED's it's going to be all right Ron it's okay we're good we're together now we're it's good and it it changed the his parameters in a good way. Yeah.

Todd 1:10:13

Sense of peace.

Rand Timmerman 1:10:14

Yeah yeah so things like that I mean a lot of things happen.

Todd 1:10:18

Yeah now what I like about it at the end of every chapter you put a little nugget of wisdom just to summarize what you're what you know you've covered in the chapter. So so much wisdom in the book man I it's it's good stuff. And now

Rand’s Purpose for Writing the Book

Todd 1:10:31

before we met today as we were interacting talking about the interview you said something about your mission and goal for writing the book and doing these interviews can you share that with the audience?

Rand Timmerman 1:10:42

Sure. I you know I had 5,000 pictures and it was a very exciting I mean it was it was a monumental deal. And uh I'm I was thinking about my family my grand I got some grandkids and Ronnie's got 27 grandkids and now almost 30 great grandchildren so he's got a huge family that ED left him and I just thought well you know maybe it'd be good to document it and then when I started writing I realized I don't know somehow I just started you know I feel like God was kind of saying let's let's go a little bit further with this and let's put a story out there of how you got sober include that in it and make it a spiritual not only journey for the the physical part of it but the spiritual part of it and share that and it'll help other people and I that's my whole well first it was for the family and I published that book and then I got a publisher and did it professionally so to speak but right um you know and it's funny because I've been doing podcasts I had a host one of the very first ones I did after we got done he said man he said I wish my dad could talk to you and he was telling me how bad his father was and everything I said well give me his address and I'll send him the book well he didn't do that right away and then finally I got an email from him he said Randy you can send my dad his address the book here's the address and don't tell him I had anything to do with it so I did I sent out the the the book and I wrote in it you know uh may you overcome your difficulties happy trails sign my name and send it to him and about I don't know six weeks later all of a sudden I got an email and said I don't know why you sent me this book but I liked it and I think I'm gonna do something different.

Todd 1:12:28

That's great. It's a great message in the book yeah yeah so good what a great story. So so as as we're wrapping it up now what

A Message for People Struggling

Todd 1:12:37

what is your message for just in general people that are struggling?

Rand Timmerman 1:12:42

I I would hope that they'd be inspired to do more than what they probably are doing I know a lot of people my age that are sitting on the couch waiting to die. And that's not a good thing. And yet I also know people my age that are coming to programs and with walkers and oxygen bottles and they got a big grin on their face and they're happy and they're making the best of their life that they can do. I'm hoping it will inspire people to take a look at their lives and say you know what I don't have to live I can I can have some serene and peace and and love and joy in my life. I just got to get off the couch and start moving a little bit one step at a time you can do we can do a lot more things than we think one step at a time just do the first step. Get up off the couch you know get the walker get this go do that and how and interact with other people that's the worst part of what the where we're living our lives today because get outside people and what's the message for alcoholics don't drink today no matter what yeah but more importantly make a connection with a higher power surrender give up you don't have to be like that you know that program I'm in is last count was somewhere around four million people I think it's a lot more than that now I can't advertise it. You know we have a tradition where we don't do that. We talk about attraction rather than promotion and so I can't really promote the program so that's why I'm being kind of coy about it a little bit but understood. Yeah but uh it works and it's a spiritual program. See that was the part I didn't understand. I think Todd that God kept me alive under unbelievable circumstances for a reason. Yeah I'll finish with this a few couple years ago I was you know working with a guy and we did his fifth step where you admit your wrongs and and you kind of throw everything out there and then you can move on and uh he looked at me said Rand if you could go back and get sober you know quicker than you did and would you change? And I said no I wouldn't because I wouldn't know what I know now.

Todd 1:14:43

Exactly that's a good message. Yeah it's it's dangerous looking at the past and wishing for that it had played out differently. So nostalgia that one thing I learned is nostalgia and regret those are two deadly things because it removes us from the present and makes us sad. So yeah it's it I heard someone say recently look back but don't stare right yep yeah so it's uh that's good scoop but um so where

Where to Connect With Rand

Todd 1:15:13

do people find you how do they connect with you ran?

Rand Timmerman 1:15:15

Actually if you google my name it will pop right up or if you put in a spiritual passage in on Google you'd be right on uh Amazon or they can go to my website which is rantimmerman.com and then and then there's a link to Amazon and thriftbooks and all that and they can good stuff see some of the videos and other things yeah nice I'll put links in the description here and uh wow what an uplifting story I enjoyed reading the book and I enjoyed talking to you even more Rand so this is cool.

Todd 1:15:47

Yeah thank you Todd I really appreciate it very yeah

Closing Thoughts

Todd 1:15:50

so my and my takeaway here is you know coming from uh having family members who struggled with substance abuse and things like that um this was encouraging to me and uh it was a reminder to me that I could easily uh uh fall into that as well and uh my family have a family history there so that's a that's a dangerous thing uh but at the same time I was given hope by your message so uh I didn't believe but you still we reached the point where you said I'm gonna do it I'm gonna pray and God reached into that man what an uplifting message I appreciate you sharing that and it is just wonderful thanks to my friend friends if you enjoyed this episode please consider leaving a review and share it with your friends and until next time we'll see you on the top