Sailing on Foot — 1,863 Miles with Rand Timmerman | Ship’s Log #30

“I was taught at a very young age that I could cope with life and deal with almost anything – one step at a time.” – R. Timmerman

Episode Summary 

Rand Timmerman enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966 after hearing a radio report in an upstate New York bar — and nine months later found himself in a rice paddy in Vietnam. Decades later, four years into recovery from alcoholism and carrying an artificial knee, he stood on top of Springer Mountain, Georgia in a blizzard at age 72, setting out to hike the Appalachian Trail with his 71-year-old brother, Ron. 

In this Ship’s Log, Rand takes Jeanne from a frozen ten-foot standoff with the biggest black bear he’s ever seen, to five hours pinned inside a collapsing tent on a cliff edge in the Smokies, to the nightmares that followed him home from Vietnam and the recovery program that, in his words, gave him a whole new life — more joy at 80 than he ever had before. He walked 1,863 miles before a fall in Massachusetts ended his hike; Ron went on to finish all 2,200. 

The conversation closes with the lesson Rand’s father — a polio survivor who built a 20-foot boat in the family basement — taught him as a boy: deal with what life gives you, then cope with it, one step at a time. And of course, Rand brings three headlines to Two Truths & A Lie that all sound too wild to be true. 

Guest Bio 

Rand Timmerman is a Marine Corps veteran, retired attorney, and author. Born in a small upstate New York village with more cows than people, he served with the 1st Marines in Vietnam before an unlikely path took him to JAG school. At 72, he hiked 1,863 miles of the Appalachian Trail with his brother and captured the journey — and his recovery story — in his book A Spiritual Passage. 

Guest Links 

Website: http://randtimmerman.com 

Please visit Rand’s website, where the author discusses his book “A Spiritual Passage” and provides videos and other information about his journey. 

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Transcript

Introduction

Rand Timmerman 0:03

So the two aluminum poles rods, these are mountain tents. They're made for wind, you know, for wind and stuff, but not like that. And what it was doing, it was just collapsing on top of me and then springing back up again because of the rods. So it was beating the crap out of me. If I had not held those stakes in the ground, it would have just blown me off that mountain. I would have been nobody would have probably ever found my body.

Jeanne 0:26

Hello and welcome to Project Candor. I'm your host, Jeanne Andersen, and this is the show where ordinary people share unexpected stories. Today's guest brings together Marine Corps discipline, personal recovery, and a journey most people wouldn't attempt at any age. Rand Timmerman is a Marine Corps veteran, retired attorney, and author. Born in a small village in upstate New York, a place he says had more cows than people. Rand enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1966 and served in the first Marines in Vietnam. Years later, at 72 years old, he set out on a very different challenge, hiking the entire 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail. Rand later captured that journey in his book, A Spiritual Passage, Reflecting on Endurance, Recovery, Faith, and the lessons learned along the trail. Rand Timberman, hello. I'm so glad to have you here.

Speaker 1 1:25

Yes, Jeanne. Great to be here. Thank you.

Jeanne 1:28

So the way we go on the show is uh, you know, we say hello to you, and then we want to dig in and find out more about you. So I've got a list of questions prepared today. Are you ready to dive in?

Rand Timmerman 1:41

I am.

Why hike the Appalachian Trail at 72?

Jeanne 1:42

All right. So put your best Rand Timmerman hat on. Whatever that may be, whatever rank that may be, and whether it's Marines or hiking, who knows? I just thinking about that picture of you that I saw of you and your your hiking cap. All right, let's go on. Question number one. Rand, I think there are really two questions here. Um, first, how did hiking the Appalachian Trail even get on your radar? And second, why at 72 did you decide, yes, now is the time?

Rand Timmerman 2:17

Well, I was kind of forced into it by my brother. My brother was a combat army veteran, uh, machine gunner on a helicopter in uh the Vietnam War. And when he came back home, uh all of us guys, when we came back, we had a fair amount of trauma. And uh, but Ron met our mother's best friend, Edie. And Edie was 14 years older than Ron, and on their first date, she showed up with the three youngest of her seven kids. Whoa. Yeah, whoa. And she was a really uh beautiful woman inside and out, and uh my brother fell madly in love, and you know, they got married and he ended up with a huge family. Edie got interested. My brother was always a religious man, I was not, and when Edie showed an interest in uh the Mormon Church, the Church of Latter-day Saints, Ronnie said, fine, let's do it. And they ended up moving to Utah and lived in St. George for 40 years. Edie produced seven kids, 27 grandchildren, and now 30 great-grandchildren.

Jeanne 3:31

Whoa.

Rand Timmerman 3:32

Whoa, yeah. So I'm living on the East Coast with my family, and Ronnie's living in Utah. I had never been to his house. They came east every year, and then they had would rent a cottage on Lake Ontario. We'd get together. I might see my brother one time a year, you know, for an afternoon. And my younger brother and I would be drinking and carousing and and mocking him for being a dry, you know, not drinking Mormon bishop. It was all good-natured stuff, but I look back on it's not a pretty picture necessarily. But anyway, we never had any problems when Edie died. That was very difficult for Ron. And I could tell talking to him on the phone, and I said, Well, come out. And then the phone call, he said something, Jeanne, about hiking the Appalachian Trail. My brain just says, There's no way. That's just I had hiked sections of the Appalachian Trail over the years. I ran 26 marathons. Turned out both my brother and I were kind of uh exercise geeks, you know, we just weekend warriors, however you want to put it. So even though we were in our early 70s, we were both really good shape. I went out there and we were hiking in the desert, and he brought it up again, and I didn't think he was serious. And I said, Well, how are you gonna do it? And he said, I'm gonna take the bus to Springer Mountain, Georgia, and start walking. And I said, Well, okay, I'll uh that's not gonna work, bro. That's not a good plan. How about if I go with you? He said, You would? And I said, Sure, why not? And then I said, Well, when are you gonna do it? I'm thinking, like, in a year or so, right? He goes, March 22nd. I mean, he's got this all figured out. Well, March 22nd, 2018, in a blizzard. We're standing at the top of Springer Mountain on our way.

Jeanne 5:23

Oh, wow. Well, I have to go back. Edie, she met him when she already had seven kids.

Rand Timmerman 5:30

Yes, she was divorced. She had seven kids.

Jeanne 5:33

Okay, so she never had more kids with your brother. That's where I was like, Did she have more kids?

Rand Timmerman 5:38

When you said No, I think she was kind of worn out by that.

Family reactions and taking the first step

Jeanne 5:42

Hey, I get her pain there.

Rand Timmerman 5:44

My brother was, I don't know if that was I I don't think that was ever an issue. He certainly never said anything about it. Edie was just, you know, one of the funniest things that happened, Jeanne. Now, I've, you know, I had relationship problems between alcohol, trauma, and other things. I've been divorced three times and married four times. And I'm not proud of that, but that's just how it worked out. And there was never any verbal or physical aspects to it. It was just you do stuff when you drink that you wouldn't normally do. And anyway, but Ronnie was a totally wholesome guy, and they just had a fantastic marriage. Uh, I don't think they ever really thought about having more kids.

Jeanne 6:23

Oh, okay. Well, I guess that's not your story, but anyway, I just wanted to ask that question. And you don't have to feel bad about how you were divorced three times and married four, because I mean everybody has those stories, including myself. Alcohol was involved in one, but not me. But anyway, I married a second time. So this is the one that stuck.

Rand Timmerman 6:48

Well, I've been married now of 25 years to the same lady, and she's, you know, it works out.

Jeanne 6:53

Yeah, that's wonderful. So when you started telling people you were planning to hike 2,200 miles through the mountains at 72, what kind of reactions did you get? Were people supportive, or did some of them think you had completely lost your mind? I actually thought about it and I'm like, I didn't even know that was the things people did.

Rand Timmerman 7:16

Well, the family was very supportive. Ronnie kept a journal. When I saw his journal after the hike and was thinking about doing a book, it was uh every day he wrote in his journal the same sentence with me that I'm so happy my family's supporting me, or I love my family, all that kind of stuff. And uh I was writing more about the people we met and all that kind of thing. But I don't know, my wife wasn't particularly happy, but I don't think I don't think most people were too worried about it because they probably figured, like I did, two weeks max, and then these old guys will get over it. Everybody knew we were kind of gritty guys, you know.

Jeanne 7:56

Did your wife like meet you at different points along the way since she hadn't seen you? Did she like travel to a place in Georgia or what your next stop was? Tennessee.

Rand Timmerman 8:07

No, we were we were kind of on our own. Ron's oldest son, Rick, uh, was 60 at the time. He hiked 62. He hiked the first two weeks with us, which was a godsend, because he's a a gear geek. And uh I'm more of a just do-it type of guy. Ronnie had done a lot of studying of the maps and things like that. Uh and then uh Rick ended up finishing it with my brother. I didn't do the full 2200 miles because I fell down a rock sliding.

Jeanne 8:38

Oh, that's right. You did tell me that earlier.

Rand Timmerman 8:41

Yeah. So I only did 1,863 miles.

Jeanne 8:46

That's still like unbelievably long.

Rand Timmerman 8:51

And then the book I actually wrote when Ronnie, you know, we could hike all day long and not say a hundred words to each other. You know, we're guys that don't complain, we just kind of, you know, soldier through, if you will. And I was shocked when I read Ronnie's journal. And then he was shocked when he read the first draft of the book because I wrote in there that two weeks max. And he goes, bro, did you you thought we were we'd only go two weeks at the most? I said, Absolutely.

Speaker 9:20

There was any way in the heck we were gonna do the whole thing. Uh I I misjudged his determination.

Rand Timmerman 9:29

Oh wow, it had to be determination, definitely.

Speaker 9:33

Yeah.

Preparing for the trail and facing wildlife

Jeanne 9:34

So once the decision was made, what was the biggest challenge in preparing yourself physically or mentally for something like that?

Rand Timmerman 9:41

Well, I mean, we both kind of knew what we were doing. I had done a fair amount of hiking in the Smoky Mountains over the years, and Ronnie was doing the same thing. He did a lot more stuff than I realized because you know, we didn't really talk to each other very much over the years. And uh critters was one thing I had, you know, I did understand that. I had done I'd had uh encounters with bears, one of which was really troubling. I was fake charging that bear, and that bear was fake charging me, and he wouldn't leave me alone. I thought I was gonna have to do something drastic, which I really didn't want to do. This was not on the Appalachian Trail, this was prior. So, and I had hiked in the Smoky Mountains, which is part, you know, one of the hardest areas of it. So I had some idea how dangerous and hard it was gonna be, but but I'll tell you what, when we started actually doing it, I was like, oh my god.

Jeanne 10:35

Yeah, I like nature and all that stuff. But I tell you, when you start talking bears and everything, I'm like, my hikes are gonna be like up the tent stores to my hotel room in the Hilton or something. I'm not I'm not going out there where a bear, but hey, that could be dangerous too, you never know.

Rand Timmerman 10:52

Well, yeah, and there's lots of bear stories and pictures in the book and snakes. We had I had a fair number of encounters with poisonous snakes.

Jeanne 11:01

Oh, yeah. Georgia, North Carolina, I know they have lots of snakes.

Rand Timmerman 11:05

Yep. Shenandoah Park and the lower part of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia. Oh my gosh, the deer will walk right up to you. There's bears everywhere. We saw I saw a bear every day for seven days with one stretch. I actually ran into a ranger and said there's a lot of bears here. And he goes, Yeah, there's so there's 300 square miles of land in the uh Shenandoah National Park, and he said there's six according to their surveys, there's about six hundred bears. Well, that's two bears for every square mile.

Jeanne 11:38

Oh.

Rand Timmerman 11:39

And 80% of the train, the bears aren't gonna walk on. Nobody's gonna walk on it because it's straight down or straight up, pretty much. And so they so where do they go? They hike on the trail, they walk on the trail. I came around a corner and I had a the biggest black bear I've ever seen in my whole life right in front of me, like 10 feet away. I mean, that close and he froze with one paw up in the air like this, and I just froze, and we I just we're staring at each other, he's frozen, I'm frozen. And I very slowly because if he wants me, he's got me. There's not a thing I can do, right? I very recently slowed. Do I get a uh bear spray thing or nothing? No, I pull out my phone. This is so stupid. Because I want to get a picture of him. Oh no, really? Yeah, that's what I wanted. This thing was magnificent. The its head was about the size of a bowling ball, and he is literally 10 feet away from me. And the thing that shocked me was it was the most the first thought through my head, Jeanne, was this is the most beautiful beast I have ever seen in my life. Right? And his fur was so shiny, it was just I was stunned, and I wanted a picture of it so bad because I knew I would never see anything like that again. And I put the phone up, and when I did, he whirled around, went down that trail. Like in within a I couldn't, I didn't even get a picture of his rear end. He went so fast, and then he turned left and he went down the mountain. Now, the day before I had seen a bear, and that one was quite a ways away, probably you know, a couple hundred feet at least, and he just quietly went off the trail and disappeared, never made a sound. This bear, when he went down that mountain, it sounded like a bulldozer. I mean, rocks are flying, trees, it felt it sounded like trees are falling over, and this hiker comes up behind me, he goes, What is that? And I said, It's a bear. He says, It can't be a bear. I said, That's a bear, it was right there like five seconds ago, and it went on for like 30 seconds. It was on my he and I just stood there in awe. That was amazing.

Jeanne 13:51

Well,

A close encounter with a massive black bear

Jeanne 13:52

gee, I mean, that could have been a baby, for all you knew. I mean, there are some big bears.

Rand Timmerman 13:58

You think it was a an adult bear or oh no, it was huge, it was probably a 350-pounder, that which is big for a black bear. I've seen lots of bears. I know that was a big bear.

Jeanne 14:08

That was a big adult bear. Okay.

Rand Timmerman 14:09

If I was a bear hunter and it was the see, that's the problem. That's what the ranger said. There's no hunting season here, not for deer or for the bears. It's a problem. I his name was Gene Anderson. I said, I said, Gene, this is really not good. And he says, Yeah, somebody's gonna get hurt someday.

Jeanne 14:25

His name was my name?

Rand Timmerman 14:27

Yeah. Wow. He was part of the Potomac Conservancy section. Uh is what he told me. I ran into him a couple times. I didn't have this conversation the same day. It was a few days later, and we were further up.

Jeanne 14:42

Oh, okay.

Rand Timmerman 14:43

Yeah, and he was part of uh, I don't know, his job, I guess, was to go out and meet hikers and hike with them a little bit. He he and I hiked together one day, pretty much the whole day. So he wasn't doing the trail, but he was just on the trail to be there and you know, talk to people and stuff.

Jeanne 14:59

I don't know what I'd do if I met a bear. That's I think parent trial. I would just all of a sudden I thought of the parent tribe. They were trying to say. Did she say two sticks or something? You know, click two sticks ahead of you if there's bears or snakes. I don't remember. Something stupid. That would be me.

Rand Timmerman 15:18

Well, what they tell you to do today. There used to be back in the 70s and 80s, they would tell hikers to get on the ground and get in the fetal position, cover your head with your hands and pray or something. Oh wow. Well, that doesn't work out too good. See, here's the problem, and I knew this from my prior experience. So what happens is bears can't see very good, right? So when they encounter something that they think might be food, they want it to run. If it runs, they'll go after it. They won't even hesitate, they'll just go. So you can never run away from a bear. You won't go 10 feet anyway. So it's over. That's so the worst thing you so what they teach now is you jump up and down and yell and so on and so forth. Well, that don't work very good either sometimes. But what I ended up doing was this bear would fake charge me. He would growl, the stuff would be hanging from it. You know, he'd be drooling like crazy because he's hungry. And the one that I had the worst encounter was, it was in the fall. So the bear was getting ready to hibernate, but it was still hungry. So it was kind of out of its mind a little bit, I think, because it wouldn't leave me alone. And what it would do is it would run at me, but it's not, and it's its paws are flying, the dirt's flying, he's growling, and he's looking like he's charging, but he's not really charging because he doesn't know what he's dealing with yet, right? Right. And then he'd stop, and then I would do a fake charge, and my legs would be puffing, and I'd be yelling, and my arms would be going, and it looks like I'm running 20 miles an hour and I'm moving forward like six inches.

Jeanne 16:50

Oh, it's too bad somebody couldn't have filmed that.

Rand Timmerman 16:53

Yeah, so it's like a fake charge. But he would we did that a couple times, and then he would wander, you know, he would go away, and then I would think it would be okay, and I'd start, and I'm all by myself. There's nobody around, I haven't seen anybody all day. And then the next thing I know, he's behind me and he's coming after me again. I'm like, oh my god.

Jeanne 17:10

Oh, wow.

Rand Timmerman 17:11

It went on for an hour and a half, and uh, and then finally, uh, I kind of did a more than just a fake charge, and that time he's when he left, he left.

Jeanne 17:22

But I wonder, do they smell you too? I don't know.

Rand Timmerman 17:25

Yeah.

Vietnam, trauma, and the road to recovery

Jeanne 17:26

Maybe if you have a lot of bad oh, that's what the bear spray is about, you know, making a stinky smell. Okay, let's move away from the bears because that gets a little scary for me. No, no, I think it's all fun. But uh, let's go to another question. Your story also includes recovery from alcoholism. Well, after that story, I I don't know how you could recover. I would be wanting to drink about that time. Sometimes people who have served in the military talk about how that experience shapes the way they deal with stress or challenges later in life. I'm curious, did your time in the Marine Corps have any influence on that chapter of your life or on the way you approached recovery?

Rand Timmerman 18:06

Yes, it did. So my brother and I both had traumatic experiences in Vietnam, and I knew the first time I drank at 13 that it was probably gonna be a problem because I just liked it so much. It was insane. And I got wicked drunk and crawled home, and my dad talked to my dad next day because I knew he was gonna find out anyway, and all he said was never do it again, and I thought I can't wait. But I made a conscious decision for some reason, Jeanne. I thought, you know what, because we were being exposed to marijuana and other things, and uh, I'm never gonna do any of that stuff because why would I? I didn't need to, for one thing. I mean, alcohol did everything for me I ever wanted it to. But being power, you know, we were very impoverished when I was a kid, and money was, you know. So it wasn't a problem for me. And then the military were long stretches, we didn't drink. When I drank, most of the time I got drunk. But so for a long time it wasn't a problem. When I came back from Vietnam, then I ended up married with a couple kids. I had enlisted, but when I came back from Vietnam, I went, they made me an officer, and I ended up in JAG school by a total fluke.

Jeanne 19:18

Oh, that's very cool.

Rand Timmerman 19:20

Probably the only enlisted Marine Corps veteran that was promoted to an officer that became a JAG officer without a without a college degree or a law degree. And I ended up in a class at the JAG school with 99 other lawyers. They had all graduated from law school. And I decided to, instead of drinking all the time like they were doing, I decided to focus on it, and I ended up being the I got the highest score. I was the class honor man, really ticked them all off.

Jeanne 19:52

Oh, that's a really nice story.

Rand Timmerman 19:54

Yeah, so well, I like to say the Marine Corps got damn near got me killed about 20 times in Vietnam, for sure. I mean an inch or two even.

Jeanne 20:02

Stop, stop. I think that's one of your stories.

Rand Timmerman 20:05

Yeah.

Jeanne 20:06

In the two truths in a lie, don't go there.

Rand Timmerman 20:10

Yeah. Oh, sorry, I forgot about that.

Jeanne 20:13

Oh no. I'm just remembering what we're gonna go to next.

Rand Timmerman 20:16

Yeah. So when I came back, I had a, you know, I'm in college, I'm working three jobs, married two kids, and I'm just thinking, I'm every once in a while, I think, it's amazing because I don't seem to have any repercussions from the Vietnam War. And then I started having these horrific nightmares. And I would void myself in the bed with my wife, wake up thinking I'm in a battle covered with blood, and I'd be screaming. The first time that happened, she didn't know what was going on. She crawled over to the door where the light switch was and turned it on. And when I when she did that, I opened my eyes and I realized I wasn't covered with blood, I was covered with sweat, and I didn't smell urine and all that stuff. Or I did actually because it was mine. I thought I was smelling the gore from the battle. And we just both looked at each other and we knew that something, you know, it was bad. And there was no programs in those days, and I started using alcohol to uh medicate at night. Uh I put the kids to bed and then I would drink insanely for an hour and go to bed, and that way I didn't either the dreams didn't happen or I didn't remember them. I don't know. But so I would do that uh fairly regularly, and of course, you know, after a while you get a higher tolerance and the whole nine yards. Didn't really affect me until I got my late fifties, early sixties, and then I ended up in suicide watches and all kinds of bad stuff.

Jeanne 21:48

Ooh, I'm so sorry.

Rand Timmerman 21:50

That led me to a recovery program for alcoholics in which the members like to remain anonymous. And I went through the whole deal and It just changed my life. Amazing. I still go to meetings every day and uh I work with guys every day. It gave me joy in my life at a I'm eighty years old now. You know, I did it right through I got sober four years before we did the hike.

Jeanne 22:17

Oh, okay.

Rand Timmerman 22:18

Yep. And on the hike, every day I was talking to at least two guys that I was trying, you know, helping out, and I maintained my sobriety without any problem.

Jeanne 22:30

Well, that's wonderful.

Rand Timmerman 22:31

It's been an amazing journey, Jeannie. It's it changed my life. I I have more joy these days at 80 years old, I swear, than I ever did. That recovery program gave me a whole new life. I just remember being 68 years old looking at the mirror and looking, you're a complete piece of manure. Your life is over. You might as well be dead. And then it all changed completely.

When the journey became deeply spiritual

Jeanne 22:58

Well, that takes me to my next question, actually, which is more about the spiritual journey. Your book is called a spiritual passage, which suggests the journey became more than just the physical challenge. Uh was there a moment on the trail where something happened and you felt like the journey had become something deeper or more spiritual?

Rand Timmerman 23:17

Yes. Yeah, there was quite a few. My brother had some too. We both did. Some of them were where we were at in stress and danger, and then some of them were more just awareness, you know. So in the Smoky Mountains, I got caught at dusk in a bad spot on the trail um south of Klingman's Dome before you get to Fontana Dam. There's a section of the trail there that's like 10, 12, 15 feet wide, and it's hundreds, if not thousands, of feet straight down on each side. And I was trying to get to a place called False Gap and to pitch my tent. And when I got there, there was no gap. That's probably why it was called False Gap.

Jeanne 24:04

False Gap.

Rand Timmerman 24:06

And a thunderstorm was coming up, and I pitched my tent right in the trail and got in it. And I was in that part of the Smoky Mountains where the there's this huge valley, it's very wide to the south, and then it comes right to a point which is right where I was at.

Surviving a terrifying storm in the Smoky Mountains

Jeanne 24:24

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 24:25

So these storms came in, and I woke up in the middle of the night, and it was just sound like freight trains were coming at me. Sometimes I go to the right, sometimes I go left, and then when one would hit me, my tent would just collapse like an accordion, like ten times a second. It was just beating the crap out of me. And I felt like I was in a body bag. I was just gonna get blown off that mountain at any moment, and I would be dead. And uh later my brother would say, Were you hanging on to the rods that held the tent up? I said, Hell no, I was pushing down on the stakes with my hands and my feet. So hoping and praying it wouldn't rip out. And I was praying to God, like, you know, gosh darn it, I've been I've been a good boy for four years. That's how long I've been in recovery. And uh, you know, if you want me to die tonight, I guess I gotta accept that. But I really think I could do some more work for you if you just give me a break. But it went on, it was terrifying. It was the most terrifying thing I've ever done when nobody was shooting at me, and it went on a lot longer than most times other things would happen.

Jeanne 25:36

Well, what was hitting you?

Rand Timmerman 25:37

Was it rocks or was it tree branches, or what was the Oh, all that was going on, but just the air, the wind was so strong it was when it went over the top of the tent, it was collapsing it. It was like an accordion. Oh, okay. So the two aluminum pose rods, these are mountain tents, they're made for wind, you know, for wind and stuff, but not like that. And what it was doing, it was can't it was just collapsing on top of me and then springing back up again because of the rods. So it was beating the crap out of me. But the worst part was it felt like it was just if I had not held those stakes in the ground, it would have just blown me off that mountain. I would have been nobody would have probably ever found my body. I mean, you know.

Jeanne 26:20

Yeah, the wind's that massive, you would just be like a feather. It could just blow you off.

Rand Timmerman 26:27

Yeah, well, when I before I got in the tent, I was standing there taking a you know, doing a leak, and I'm looking down and I can see pine trees down between my legs behind me. So I'm on a cliff that's basically an overhang right there.

Jeanne 26:42

Oh, okay.

Rand Timmerman 26:43

And the other side of the trail, the cliff went straight down hundreds of feet. I mean, literally, it's just unbelievable. So when it finally, just before it started getting light, the wind stopped. But it was like probably five hours of just pure terror.

Jeanne 26:59

Oh, wow.

Rand Timmerman 27:00

And hanging on and um and praying.

Jeanne 27:03

That could be very spiritual.

Rand Timmerman 27:05

And praying for sure, yeah. And when I got out of the town at daybreak, I turned my phone on every morning. So the guys were calling me, they know I would turn my phone on in the morning and they could call me. And they both did, and then I didn't, you know, I wasn't scared of them or anything, but one of them said, I was really scared for you because I was watching the weather there, and it looked, they said there was tornadoes there. And I said, Well, I didn't see a tornado, but it was it was pretty bad. I didn't go into details.

Jeanne 27:32

Well, I know because I live in Florida and I've lived in places all on the coast all my life, and hurricanes are pretty rugged and things flying by you and everything. So I understand the wind impact, but I wouldn't want to be in a little tent in that. Oh, wow, that's amazing. Well, I know that um you've got a lot more you can share with us, but I do want to transition to our two truths and a lie. Are you ready to play our game?

Rand Timmerman 28:01

Yes, ma'am.

Jeanne 28:02

Okay.

Two Truths and a Lie

Jeanne 28:03

So the part of this show is to actually get um for those listening, is to get uh headlines from the guest in advance of three stories that um two of them are true, and one of them may be a lie, or it could just be a twisted truth. So we're gonna play our game now. What'll happen is um I'll read out the headlines and then I will guess, and then our guests will take us through each of those without telling us which one's the lie. But uh somehow I think we might be able to guess them a little bit based on our questions. Anyhow, let's go ahead and I'm gonna share my screen. This episode is sponsored by Rebel 180, the home of brave pivots and fresh starts. Rebel 180 is all about helping you rediscover what's possible when you stop settling and start listening to that little tug inside that says, life can be different. Whether you're navigating a career shift, dreaming about a new direction, or standing at the crossroads wondering if it's time for your own 180-degree turn, Rebel 180 is a reminder you don't need permission to change your story. And now, as we open the door to our second sponsor, we're stepping into the world of tech. Simple socket print, the lightweight blazing fast label print solution designed for those who need reliability without the bloat. With version 1.5, you get instant printing in milliseconds, fully maintained print sequence, and automatic base 64 decoding all without needing print driver installs. If you're running SQL Server 2016 or newer, SimpleSocket Print 1.5 drops right in and gets to work. Keep your workflow simple, keep your label printing fast with Simple Socket Print. Thank you to our sponsors. And here are the two truths and a lie on screen. Number one, here's your headline. The United States Marines Corps tried to get Rand killed at least 20 times and then gave him a career. Number two, Rand says hiking the Appalachian Trail when he was 72 was the hardest thing he ever did when nobody was shooting at him. And then three, there was a time when Rand thought a guy like him could never get sober. So I am going to pick. Well, I can't really pick that one's a lie. They all sound really reasonable to me, so I'll just pick one. But you take us through these stories, please.

Rand Timmerman 30:39

Okay. Well, yeah, I enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1966. I got drunk in a in a bar. At the university I was attending. I was so desperate at that point. My life just I had a job as a janitor from midnight to eight o'clock every morning, cleaning toilets at my old high school. I was a pin setter in a bowling alley that did not have the automatic pin setters yet. And selling AMWA, and I had no money. And I had no idea what I was gonna do. I had changed my uh my major three times, and the third time was to psychology because I knew I was a nut job, and and I had no purpose in life whatsoever.

Jeanne 31:25

Does anybody ever sell AMW for real and get any money?

Rand Timmerman 31:30

Yeah, the bronze, uh, you know, the shine stuff, and yeah, I did that door to door in a swiggo. I was going to a Swegel state at that time.

Jeanne 31:39

Okay.

Rand Timmerman 31:39

And I got drunk, and uh this was kind of a God thing, I guess, the in a way. The bartender came back the next morning, and I'm passed out on the pool table. I'm the only person in there, and he unlocks the door and comes in, starts cleaning up and turns on the radio, and they're talking about 1st Marine Division going into Vietnam. And uh I made a decision right then. It was my version of the French Foreign Legion. Back in those days, if you were desperate and you didn't know what to do with your life, and you were a young man, you could go and join the French Foreign Legion. That was the old saying. But for me, it was the Marine Corps, it was probably uh the most dramatic thing I ever could have done. I always felt a lot of patriotism. I had been very involved in the Boy Scouts, and uh I really felt loyalty to my country and love of my country. I'd been taught that. All my uncles had fought in World War II, my dad, Mustang pilot. Uh, just felt like I had to carry on the tradition. My brother had already enlisted in the army. He was in Vietnam at that point, and he did two tours. So, and nine months later, I'm in a rice paddy going, hmm. Damn. What have I done?

Jeanne 32:48

I would rather be selling Amway. Yeah, that was pretty traumatic. Okay, we already know about you on number two, I think. We've talked a lot about that. So this isn't a surprise story. You want to say anything about that?

Rand Timmerman 33:04

No, we did cover pretty good. I mean, there's lots of stories in the book. There's 500 pages. Um I I wrote in there how we did it on a daily basis, where we went from into. If somebody wanted to try to, you know, emulate what we did. They got the whole blueprint in the book, along with my story about recovery and how I did that with with the help of wonderful people, and then my brother's spiritual journey and how he got through the grief. I think Edie's dying challenged him spiritually in ways that were difficult. And then he chose to go, like he called it nature's call to see God's work. And my gosh, on that trail, you see things are unbelievable. If you can't believe in a higher power, go on a long walk and you'll change your mind because something had to create this that was huge.

Jeanne 33:56

Yeah, I every time I see, you know, just even going to the zoo when you just even look at an animal, uh, a lion or even the monkeys or what it's just like who could make something without it being God? I mean, this is not random stuff.

Rand Timmerman 34:13

Giraffe with two hearts because it's got a long neck. It's me.

Jeanne 34:17

Somebody was telling me about giraffes and having sponges in their neck because there's they drink and they can't it can't go that fast down their neck, so they've got built-in mechanisms like our sponges along the way to catch it and then have it filter down in. I mean, that's such ingenuity that who would ever think about that. I mean, you know, we have a esophagus, but can you imagine the size of the giraffe's esophagus? Uh uh, I could just go on and on. So I'm with you there. It must have been really, really powerful to see God's handiwork along the trail.

Rand Timmerman 34:53

Amazing and amazing people, too. I mean, and spiritual counters there. Uh, there's lots of stories in the book. It's just it was an amazing experience I wanted to share. And it turned out it's as apparently my recovery story has helped some people get on the right track, I've been told.

Jeanne 35:11

So I think you have a lot of good stories that can benefit uh listeners and other people in general. Just um, yeah, just keep going.

Rand Timmerman 35:19

Yeah.

Jeanne 35:20

Uh so number three, you said that you didn't think a guy like you could ever get sober when laying on a pool table somewhere.

Rand Timmerman 35:29

Well, yeah, I mean, at the end of in my late 50s, early 60s, alcoholics metabolize alcohol differently. I thought I was something there was something wrong with me. I couldn't understand how a man of my willpower ran 26 marathons, fought in a war. I, you know, I was a litigator. I stood on my feet almost every day in court, and I did a really good job, never had any problems, never got grieved by a client or anything. I mean, I just had a great, you know, awesome career. And but then the alcohol took over. I couldn't understand why. I couldn't stay stopped. And when I why when I drank, I just got thirstier and thirstier. Well, we know today that alcoholics metabolize their alcohol differently than normal people, and it creates acetone, and that acetone is what gives you that feeling that you can't stop drinking. It's hard to explain to normal people. Can't even my wife doesn't understand it. You know, it's impossible.

Jeanne 36:27

Well, I know I drank in the Navy, but I tell you I can't drink very much, and I don't drink much now either. But I will have a margarita every once in a while. But they gave me a margarita about a month ago, and I thought, maybe I haven't eaten enough food or something, but I drank some of that thing, and I told my husband, I looked straight out of him, I said, I'm going down. We need to go home. One margarita.

Rand Timmerman 36:52

Oh well, that's where we get that feeling we can't stop. I mean, I would start drinking, and then I'd be three days later, and I can't. I'm thirstier than I was when I started. See, I thought it was a moral failing. My wife thought it was a moral failing, but it's not. That's why the uh American Medical Association described it, you know, categorized it as a disease in 1957.

Jeanne 37:15

But they have nothing really to give you to cure it. Not really. They have some pills, I know, but they don't really have anything much. And then it's all willpower. They want you to be willpower, which if everybody could do everything from willpower, then everybody'd be skinny, tall, buff, every don't drink.

Rand Timmerman 37:36

Well, willpower. I'd be about four inches taller for sure. That's funny.

Jeanne 37:44

Well, hey, it's been such a pleasure to have you on here, and I know people are gonna want to know how to get in touch with you. So I'm gonna share my screen one more time so that I can show you um how to contact Ray and get more information about his book and everything else. And you also gave me this great quote um when we were talking before and preparing for this call. So you want to talk about that?

Lessons from a father who overcame polio

Rand Timmerman 38:08

Oh, I was taught at a very young age that I could cope with life and deal with almost anything one step at a time. Yeah, my dad was paralyzed, polio from the waist down. He almost died. He ended up eight months in an iron lung, not even able to breathe on his own. He had two cousins that got polio and died the same day. He was probably incredibly lucky to make it to the Utica Children's Hospital. And I can't imagine the medical bills, but it drove us into abject poverty. But my dad was an amazing guy. I mean, I don't know what he was like before the polio. He's probably a little bit nicer, but he was a tough, gruff guy. He could not stand emotional stress, so he had to solve every problem immediately. And so sometimes that would be could be kind of violent, but uh, but he taught me how to cope and deal. You deal with what life gives you and then you cope. And he made himself, he was the hardest working man I ever knew. He taught basically worked from dawn to dust, and he made himself creepers and special chairs and tools and all kinds of things. And he he was uh just an amazing man. He could make fix anything. We built a 20-foot boat in the basement of our house.

Jeanne 39:33

Wow, that's like Jethra Gibbs on NCIS.

Rand Timmerman 39:36

Yeah, and I'm like, how are we gonna get how's he gonna get this out of here? Oh wow and the spring came. He had me and my brother go outside and start digging in the back lawn, and we end up digging this ramp that goes down to the foundation of the house, and he built a door so the boat can go out the door, but it's got to go up this ramp, right? And he was a mathematical genius, but I just remember him standing there. We're pulling the boat out with a tractor and a with a chain, and my father's standing there watching the boat go up, and the foundation, the house, the sill, the bottom of the house, right? The first floor above the basement. It's permanent. You can't take that out, and the boat is going out, it's getting closer and closer and closer. My dad's got a cigar in his mouth, and that cigar is just going like this. And that boat went right up and just touched that sill, and then it cleared. Oh or it would have been wedged in there.

Jeanne 40:40

Oh, and that's the time you also want movies being kept, but hey, it didn't happen then.

Rand Timmerman 40:46

Yeah.

Jeanne 40:46

Unbelievable. Or did you capture it somehow?

Rand Timmerman 40:50

No, no, just in our minds, but it was he was an amazing pilot. I don't know. But you know, you want to I was listening to one of your other guests about and talking about this very thing. You real what it comes down to is we have to accept what it is, whatever the problem is, deal, right? And then cope with it. Deal with it, okay. It's there, can't change it. Now I'm gonna call how am I gonna cope with it?

Jeanne 41:15

Right.

One step at a time

Rand Timmerman 41:16

Well, one step at a time. That's the easiest way. Just say, okay, well, the first thing I gotta do, and then just do that. And it's the same way as hiking the trail, right? All I gotta do is take one step at a time. And 45,000 later, I will have finished that day's hike.

Jeanne 41:33

So one of my guests also said, Alan Mallory, he climbed Mount Everest, and he said, Find your own Everest. So I'm telling you, your Everest was this Appalachian Trail, but I'm not going in those directions that you guys are doing. One step at a time, and that's just gonna be me getting my stuff done around here, you know, practicing my piano. That's probably my worst. That's my Everest. I need to spend more time on it because I love doing it. I just don't do it as much as I should.

Rand Timmerman 42:02

I just took a picture of that. That's beautiful. Thank you. I really appreciate you, Jeanne. This has been awesome.

Jeanne 42:10

Oh, well, great. I'm so glad you were on, and I hope people will reach out and contact you on your website and you know, get more information on your website about your journey as well as order your book. So um thank you so much for being a guest. And for those listening, I hope you will tune in next week when we have another fabulous guest. And until then, from your Admiral of the Unexpected, I wish you smooth sailing.

Rand Timmerman 42:36

Thank you.

Jeanne 42:37

Thanks for joining me on Project Candor, where the doors are open, the stories are unexpected, and the treasure is always real. If today's episode made you laugh or think, follow the show and share it with your crew. Otherwise, I might just make you swab the deck. I'm Jeanne Andersen, your Admiral of the Unexpected. See you on the next voyage.