Darren Tanke
Nov 4 · 2 min read

We used to drink A LOT of beer in our paleontology field camps in the late 1970’s to early 1990’s. My record? 110 cans in 12 days. A fair bit of wine and hard liquor was consumed too. We used to get liquored up and sometimes go for a midnight swim and mud fights in a nearby river. 5 would jump in, 1 would leave, 3 would join in, 2 would leave, 4 would join in, three would leave. No one ever kept count and the river was unlit so you could not see much of anything. In 1985, tragedy struck. I was not in that crew that year, but one night the midnight swim, part of our field culture, was conducted as described above. The next day a young man in the crew did not show up for breakfast. His bed had not been slept in and none of his bunk mates knew where he was. The last place he was seen was in the river at midnight. He could not have gotten into trouble there as he was on the college swim team. No one heard him cry out for help. As it became apparent he was truly missing, a search of the river began. His body was found a few days later several miles downstream from the camp. Several of our crew attended his funeral where his devastated mother yelled “Murderers! Murderers!” at them. A tragedy, and now swimming at dark is banned, including any drinking and swimming. In fact it is rare for anyone in our crews to swim in that river anymore. For the record, I hardly drink anymore. Several of my colleagues have died young due to alcoholism or alcohol-rich and crazy lifestyles.