Rumor has it she got so mad about whatever that she stabbed Moon right in the ass with a Swiss army knife. Man Called Abe was there. He said it got pretty ugly. They had to call in Medivac. They landed in a chopper and wrapped Moon Dog's ass in a bandage. He couldn't sit in his boat. In fact, he couldn't sit down at all. He had to kneel. Man, total submission. Total bondage. They told the paramedic it was an accident. Moon took a lot of grief about that until just after the breakup. Then everybody backed off teasing him about his ex-wife. He can laugh about it now, though, and show us all the scar on his butt.

Anyway, I think Moon stills feels like he failed. At some level he probably did. No man is uniform. Guys are like a slice of Swiss cheese-full of holes, full of failures. Take a guy like Moon Dog. He's good with people. He cares. He's totally successful and finances a ton of business. But he couldn't stay married. There're probably other painful failures, too. The measure of a man is his holes, his failures. They make the solid parts in between all the more firm and brilliant. You don't have a great man unless he has a fair number of great holes and unless he learns from and accepts these holes. If you want to find out what a guy is made of, ask him about his failures. If he says he's never failed, he's lying. If he can't talk about it, then he's mushy-still a boy, maybe permanently. Just like no great boater is instantly great. There are fuck-ups along the way, especially in the beginning when you're a young buck on the way to becoming hardcore. But you take it all together and accept everything and learn and grow. In the end there's something really solid about a man, about a real dude like Moon Dog. We all look up to him big time. And Moon's also a great buddy. We soak him in like he's salt.

Anyway, The Moon started working with his father when he was a little guy. In high school he started his own construction business. He built it up and sold it. Then started another one; built it up and sold again. He got into real estate. With the real estate profits he started a mega construction company and diversified. He was making big money but everybody says he was the kind of guy that could leave it all in a second and be happy just canoeing, fishing and hunting with his dad. Around this time, he got married. I really think he cared for his wife and was trying to do the right thing. I know Moon wanted to have children, a family. But I guess she latched onto her ideas for him and his dough. All the while, the Moon was out there being a warrior, creating wealth, real wealth. He put himself through night school, then got an MBA. He cashed in everything and went to work for an investment group-one of his old clients, a buddy he used to hunt with. He's been doing that kind of thing ever since. But the real story is how he made it big in that scene.

It was in the early fall after the Wash blow-out, that The Moon went for some solitude and got on a long multiday run out West on the Yackamoo or "River of Dreams." He didn't know anyone on the trip and it was mostly rafters. So he had a lot of time to be alone out there on the river, watching the big country drift by, checking out the sky and the clouds. At night, the stars and the campfire. Day after day. Soaking in the peace. Letting his past life drift by. Letting the pain leech out for good. Feeling strong again. That's what can happen out there. Life just gets simple-river, earth, fire, sky and stars. Over and over again-river, earth, fire, sky and stars. There's nothing for the thinking mind to wrap around. Just mystery. Creation. The earth. Being. There's no straight line. There's no "now I'm here; now I'll get to there; next I'll become this or get that." It's just simple, basic, mysterious and never-ending. The rivers wind through millions, upon millions, upon millions of years. There really are no years. Just you as a flash of being passing along. And there was Moon out there with his big heart, coming to grips with what really matters.

They stopped at an aborigine reservation to watch one of the scheduled ritual dances put on for visitors. Kind of a tourist thing, but you know, Moon Dog has to know everything about everything. There he was, standing with the other visitors. I mean everybody else was pasty white with flowered shirts and stuff. The Moon is always pumped, but back then he was gritty and sun baked nearly black. Bare chested and dressed only in his river sandals and faded shorts, he was almost naked in the hot desert sun. The aborigine men lined up with their spears. Suddenly there was a big commotion. The white guides looked around a little worried like something was unusual. The aborigine men were in commotion and huddled together talking to each other and looking over at Moon. Suddenly this one powerful looking dude broke out of the group and strode right over to Moon Dog. He stared at Moon with those dark fathomless eyes, fierce. Moon stared back at him. He said it was like they both knew each other. Like they were living the same. The aborigine man shoved his wooden spear out to Moon Dog and spoke incomprehensibly. Even the guides weren't able to translate.

There was all kinds of discussion between the guides and the aborigine men because visitors were strictly forbidden from taking pictures and selling and taking things. But the dark man insisted, and Moon took and held the spear. Moon Dog said it was intense; he had to fight back the tears. Just as the aborigine man turned away, he suddenly whipped around and with a wooden blade slashed Moon Dog across the chest. It left a seriously gaping wound. Moon Dog and the dark man stared and smiled at each other with their eyes. I guess the shit hit the fan. The other tourists freaked out. The guides had a fit. But The Moon just stood there bleeding with his spear-feeling it in his hand, the weight of it and the balance. I remember him saying how much it felt like holding a paddle.

So Moon Dog rode the train into the city, pumped right up the avenue, strode into his building, took the elevator up and continued right through the group area into his office. Everybody stared at him. People stopped talking and shook their heads and laughed a little, kind of affectionately. I guess for weeks his group had been going through a list of potential start-ups to buy into and bring public. His office was full of papers strewn all over the place and different companies were pinned all over the wall. The Moon had been working on this with his assistants when he was out of town, phoning back and forth. So he was right up to speed. He snapped out, "Ok, run 'em all by me again. Just give me the company, the product, the purpose and the person behind the vision." Everyone just stared at him. Moon was like, "Well, go on. Get on with it."

So one of the guys started in. The Moon took out the spear. He felt its weight and balance and length. He held it up javelin-like. Everybody kind of stepped back and just watched him, a little nervous as to what he was going to do with it. Moon was oblivious. He held the spear up and motioned back and forth feeling the balance and moving his hand around to find the sweet spot. He was listening and looking at the wall and balancing the spear. He spread his legs and suddenly sent the thing ... thunk. The spear drove right into the plaster board in the wall and smack through the middle of a letter.

"That'll be it," said Moon. "Whatta we got?"

One of his assistants meekly went over and read the paper. It wasn't even a company. It was an outdated letter from a financial consultant who wanted Moon Dog's boss to invest in one guy developing software. The letter had been lost in the shuffle and probably would never have been considered. Moon said, "Welp, that's our boy. What are you waiting for? Go get him."

Eventually, The Moon and Zooky cashed-out big time and the rest is history. This all happened during the reign of "The Great Leader" as Moon calls him. That was a time when real wealth was being created and there was a boundless energy raging supreme.

Moon Dog formed his own group and he works out of his house in the country now. The Moon is guns and free enterprise all the way man. And he has a ceaseless passion for the outdoors. Moon blew out walls in his house and installed glass to bring in the natural light. He makes everybody that works for him take a break and go outside during the day no matter what the weather. He used to work on the road out of his truck a lot. Back then he had prototypes of every mobile office gadget you can imagine: lap top, palm top and satellite link. He still hooks into all kinds of data and can figure out everything-snow pack, slope, water levels, releases and weather from here to kingdom come. You name it, he's got it. But at the same time, he can drop it all and grab just a boat, a paddle, a helmet and a spray skirt and simply run a river. Or he can do something like listen to Chaz Man's vibrations to find a putin. Moon Dog still works. Believe me, work is the life blood of any man, but he takes plenty of time to boat, too.

Anyway, after the whole office episode, Moon Dog took the spear home and hung it on his wall and he never took it down or talked about it again. It's funny, but sometimes I wonder about the spear and the whole incident with the dark man. It seems that if the entire chain of events hadn't happened, then Moon Dog might have gone "the route" and gotten obsessed with business, dropped out of boating, remarried, gotten pudgy around the middle and, well, not been there for us young dudes coming along.

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