|
If a creeping disillusionment with the wilderness-preservation movement weighed heavily on Guy Waterman's mind in his later years, so too must have the lonely deaths of his two sons. In the many published accounts of Johnny's life and death, Guy's relationship with his sons is the subject of much discussion. Laura, Guy's surviving son, and close friends
take extreme exception to those accounts, but the family's longstanding refusal to comment directly on the matter makes it difficult to know how responsible Guy may have felt for what eventually befell his boys. In Into the Wild, Krakauer quotes an anonymous source "close to the family" who alleges that when Guy and Laura
traveled to Alaska to climb Mount Hunter in 1971, Guy "came and went without even bothering to visit [his son]. It broke John's heart." Jonathan Waterman's In the Shadow of Denali offers a more benign portrait of Guy as a loving father unwillingly pushed away by Johnny's "tumultuous teenage rebellion" and by both of his older
sons' distrust of his new wife. "When Guy remarried," Waterman writes, "he felt that [his sons] never really forgave him: A stranger now occupied his attention. Furthermore, Guy and his new wife...moved to the woods of Vermont, forsaking any modern conveniences...Johnny and Bill took up residence in Alaska, as if they needed to get as far away as possible
from their ruptured family."
But others recall a strong bond between father and sons. "When Guy and Laura came back from Mount Hunter in 1971, he wrote them an 18-page letter describing the trip," Dunn says. "It was really elaborate, with drawings, and it clearly indicated to me that he was still very connected to them."
If Guy's relationships with other young men were any indication, he was an extremely attentive father. "I and some other teenagers were like his second sons," Dunn remembers. "He was very encouraging, I think just as he had been with his own sons. He spent a lot of time with his kids, more than most dads. He was only positive, and I'm sure they, like me,
desperately wanted to succeed in order to please him. But too much could be tough to take—he was such an upbeat, shining example. Bill, with his leg, had an out. And Jim, being the youngest, wasn't as into it. But Johnny tried to embrace it."
Another of Guy's "surrogate sons" was Doug Mayer, who met Waterman 12 years ago, when Mayer was 23 and in the process of planning an eight-day attack on the New Hampshire 48. "Guy was really into it," Mayer says. "And my dad had passed away, so I guess the connection was obvious. Different groups of us would go off and join Guy on these demented
bushwhacks. He was five-six and tough. He'd dance through this small spruce and fir, his feet never touching the ground for a quarter-mile, just whistling and humming little ditties to himself, totally in his element."
Demanding of himself, Guy also expected a lot from others. "I don't think Guy ever got angry," Mayer says. "He would get...disappointed. That was the one thing you didn't want to see. Even if it was something minor, like you couldn't make that next bushwhack or something, you dreaded that look."
Mayer doesn't know how much Bill's and Johnny's deaths may have weighed on Guy in his last years. "I do know Guy felt incredibly close to Johnny," he says. "But he had this intensely private side, and you couldn't help but feel respectful of it. So I never asked about his sons."
Laura is even more reticent on the subject. In a frank article she wrote for the local newspaper soon after Guy's death, she admits, "I did not fully understand why he needed to get out of life, though I can talk around the question." Still, she adds, "Losing two sons was undeniably paramount."
|
