Needed to get this out somewhere.
I got a phone call today. One of my good friends, Jack, was out camping with friends from his hometown. At the moment the details are vague but he evidently got caught in a whirlpool in some water rapids and drowned. His friends there got him out of the water as soon as they were able and took him to the hospital but it was too late. I expect they were whitewater rafting when this occurred, sounds like a thing he would have loved to try out.
Some of my friends had met him late last year through a service fraternity organization, and he very quickly became friends with all of us. He was easily the most active and spontaneous person I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Just in the past five months he had driven 18,000 miles in his new car on various weekend road trips, the most recent being to the Gulf of Mexico. He graduated in December at my college as a Computer Science major and had a full-time job as well. He spent last summer living in his old car (child-molester green Eagle Summit Wagon with no PS, missing first gear, a mattress in back, etc) just to see what it was like, and was planning to live permanently in a houseboat once he saved up enough. He got his nickname "Jack" by just introducing himself as it once to friends when he was a new kid in high school and having them call him by it for weeks until they realized his name was Roger.
To get a sense of his personality, here's an email he had written to the group when we were trying to plan a trip once:
Quote:
Ok you guys are silly, I am in West Virgina now, i just decided to go on friday morning, and we've had a litiny of adventures up and down the east coast, including sneaking on to the roof of the Sands casino in Atlantic City. This trip has no particular destination we are just going where we know we are welcome. There was no planning, just got picked up by this kid Matt who I'd never met before on Friday at 3. We actually havent slept for real yet, a couple of hours in the back of the car here and there. I am sharing this because I feel you guys have a tendancy to over plan then second guess yourselves. Granted I may be on the other extreme and should plan a bit more (all i brought with me was a stick of deoderant and a pack of gum and 50 bucks cash). But just pick a weekend and go thats my advice dont calculate how much you expect it to cost because you know it will be more than what ever you plan on. And as for the idea of flying it is my personal opinion that the trip can be as fun as the destination, but it depends on what you're goin for. Also wanted to brag a bit about how awseome a time I'm having. I hope to see you all on Monday when I get back. Also my sister is going to be in town all week next week so i'm excited she is going to get meet all my friends, so you should all stop by and say hello at some point. Ok thats enough of this email.
-Jack Sprat
Yes I'm rambling, forgive me ... it's all a bit of a shock. This is the first time anyone I have known has gone unexpectedly -- it's a simple though painful reminder of how precious life is. Looks like I'll be driving to New York sometime next week.
RIP Roger James "Jack" Schafer 1983-2006 
this picture is from another adventure, he and I went for a walk in a blizzard for the fun of it... holy frostbite!
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