00:00.00 kinkella Hello and welcome back to the suudo archaeology podcast episode 119 and I'm reminiscing about my good friend Cameron Griffith so as I said earlier and as I just looked through my miscellaneous sheet of just. Words and lines and imagery um some things I think of when I think about cam oh my god the word ross like we don't say that in the states right? like he would say it all the time a ras like oh yeah, like I can hear him say ah Mother Ross yeah so the word ros. It's like it's kind of a combo of like the f word and ass you know and it's like you just kind of use it in that in that way. ah ah like he in the story that he told that I that I gave earlier the the other rasing bridge or whatever it is. So he would he would use that but it it was in an honest matter and it never felt like forced or weird or like dude don't say that you sound like weirdo it was he kind of laid ownership to to the mother Russ oh that russing? Oh oh my russ. 01:16.54 kinkella Ah, like I think oh I have it I have a note here it says um, saying no to cam island water taxi I'm like oh my god I remember this one so we we ended up in Belize City and every so often. Honestly I would go to beize city just by myself because I couldn't stand the rest of the crew anymore we all had these moments you know where it's where you're just like you need a loan time alone time is so precious and I would just take a bus to Belize City on like a sunday. Um, like a Sunday morning I got to believe and just stay in police seat like walk around police city all day and then take like the last bus back to sending nasio seems weird but I just needed the alone time away like people stopped talking to me. But I think I told cam this at one point and and. I think we went up together I don't know how we ended up there but I do remember this. We're eating breakfast in Belize City and it was probably one of those goma breakfasts goma is the term. We always use in belief for hangover but we're hanging out eating breakfast like a late breakfast and cam gets a plan. You know and you can see because he gets he like focuses in on you and he's like hey Andrew you know what we're doing right now we're going to the islands. That's what we're doing right now and I'm like cam I can't go to the islands. 02:43.12 kinkella So the deal with going with the islands from Belize City is you go to the water taxi station which is just a little It's like it feels like a regular taxi station. But it's just right on the mouth of the Belize River and there's little like motorboats there that take you out to the islands and the motorboat takes like like about an hour. To get out to the islands and it's like a Sunday I'm like cam did I cannot go the islands with you. He's like he did his old. Yeah, but I've already done a jetdi mine trick on you and you're gonna do it because we're go and I'm like do the 1 thing you're goingnna see on that boat out to the islands is not me. That's what you're gonna see because I can't and I had something really important I had something real like that Monday to do I can't remember but I just remember I had that I couldn't screw around and he's like we're going right now you're gonna go out there with me. We're gonna have fun. We're gonna hang out. It's gonna be great and then you're gonna get the last water taxi back and. That's gonna be how it is and I'm like cam those last water taxis like dude sometimes they comes sometimes they don't ah, we're just like I can't I can't do that like I just it's not gonna happen. Guess you can. We're doing it and it's gonna be great. And I remember I I walked over with them to the water taxi the whole time I'm like dude I'm a walk you over here. We'll just hang out. But as soon as the boat comes, you're getting on and I'm not yes you are dude just stop it just stop the magic you're coming and I just told them I couldn't and to the very last minute to the last. 04:16.73 kinkella Instant he was like you're coming. You're coming, you're going the water taxi vote is there he is getting on it I'm like cam I'm not going I'm sorry I can't and then he just like turned away totally quiet and then the boat left and he would not look back at me because. See he had so much. It's almost like a childish joy and I say that in the most positive sense. But when you told him no he reacted no in that same childish like no way of like how dare you not go with my plan of awesomeness. So I do remember telling him. No I wasn't going to go out to the islands with them. Um would I have done it again today now because he needed to respect that I had something real that was going on but no harm, no foul man. That's that's that's who that guy was and on the flip side I was able to do so many. Fun things with him. You know that? ah that I otherwise wouldn't have done I remember he gave me and the students and Lisa a tour of the caves sometime around 2005 or so he that's where he did a lot of his archeology work was in the caves and Belize and he gave just the most. Kickass cave tour. We went to several different caves and believes that day we drove to each one. He just talked about him. The students loved him. Yeah, he's so good with people so like the he really had that infectious excitement and joy he loved archeology. He loved belize I mean there. 05:54.49 kinkella There will never be a bigger booster of the country of Belize than Cameron Griffith I mean number one he just loved it. I remember on that cave door though he was driving us around in in like a big van. And it was time to get back in the van and I'd already gotten in I was all the way in the back and all the students are filing in and cam goes is everyone in is everybody in is everybody in the ceremony is about to begin. And the students being younger. Nobody got the Jim Morrison reference so there was a beat and then from the back I shouted wake up and he looked at me in the rear view mirror and just smiled and just went like yeah. 06:53.30 kinkella Um, so as the time went on from there that's by by 2005 or so again I'd see him all the time in Belize and we'd hang out but then you know she'd get a little older have a family get married. Whatever. Um. Did see each other less there'd be a couple years that would go by when I wouldn't see him but we would always pick up where we left off. You know we would always pick up again and we did email each other back and forth sporadically um I remember in. 2017 or so at the belize symposium these are archeology meetings at the end of the field season usually around July first or so um, we ended up at a local ah hotel called the call call village calpech village the calapech village. Um. Hotel and by that point cam was there with his wife and his young son at the moment very very little like like a year and a half old or something and I happened to have the hotel room next to them. Ah, which was which was really great and came and I ended up just going out on the. Balcony he was he was sitting on his balcony and I was sitting in mine said we were like right next to each other. Um, but in these 2 different balconies and and we would were talking I remember like late at night and drinking some wine trying to be quiet because he had a young child. You know his wife's there and stuff. 08:23.44 kinkella But we were just bullshitting and and I swear I was trying to be Quiet. We were trying to be quiet, but both of us have unfortunately big loud voices. So I I know that I was not successful. And being quiet but we just sat and talked on the balcony and looked Out. We talked about archeology. Whatever family you know all this stuff. It was. It was really Enjoy. Ah enjoyable I Remember when when covered came um that I made this deal with myself where I was like. 08:56.11 kinkella You know what I'm going to touch base with a few old friends who I haven't talked to in a while and I did it for 1 or 2 people and cam was one of them I gave him a call I remember laying on my hammock like in my backyard and I gave cam a call and I talked with about archeology and I was telling them. I was working with Annabelle Ford again but this original person who we both worked with where I first met him and I had a question about some archeology stuff and he jogged my memory. He's like oh no dude. That's a total sweatbath remember me and Thomas used to hang out there I'm like oh my god he's right that building is a sweatbath. And I kind of knew it my subconscious knew it but cam like told me I'm like right? Um, after that because I was working again in this original office and lab up at ucsb I go up on tuesdays. I'd run run across some of his old paperwork every so often too and I would send him once in a long while I'd send him some stuff. He did a a profile drawing when he was a kid you know from 94? Whatever and I sent it to him and I'm like you know, look look at this wondrous imagery. Whatever you know, just joke and. He's like oh it should be in a museum. Whatever you know we would just just very lighthearted and fun and those stuff like that those were some of the last times that I interacted with him you know, just joking jovial emails and and. 10:29.82 kinkella It had been about a year since I interacted with him and it's like Summer's coming so it was usually in summertime when when we would touch base a little bit and in 1 of the oddest experiences of my life. Um, it was a Tuesday about two weeks ago whatever it was on Tuesday I happened to be in Annabelle's office alone and her office There's also a lab there too. So there's a couple rooms with with artifacts in it and stuff and paperwork. 11:06.51 kinkella But I was there alone when I got the note that that cam had passed away and it was one of those ones where you get a couple of them. You know all of a sudden several different people figured that you need to know because they knew that we were. You know, close friends and bullies and ah yeah, ah, at first I didn't it took me a minute but then I realized that I'd heard the news of his death in the exact same place. Where I met him 29 years earlier it was so odd I don't know how it's to explain it and then what I did I oh I'm so happy that nobody else was in the office and it's not because. I would do some weird hollywood rage it was because I want to be quiet and I didn't want to talk to anybody you know I just wanted to sit and just kind of listen to the world for a little while I just I walked around. In the lab a little bit and I just thought you know about my friend and um, when you get news like this, especially if if somebody has taken their own life. You know you you, you? you think like. 12:41.39 kinkella God why didn't they call or why didn't they reach out and then at the same time you're like well if he reached out to me. What do you think I would say oh good good good call no I'd be like hey idiot don't do that but he knows that. You know I just I had all these ah all these conflicting odd different emotions and I just sat there I just I really was happy I could sit there in the quiet for a while and just think and then what I did. I left the office and I I had my my iphone and my earbuds and and I walked around campus for a long time listening to the star wars radio drama which I always keep on my. Iphone. It's it's one of my um music collections. You know where I can just click on it. So I clicked on it and then I just listened to the star wars radio drama as I just walked around for a while and doing weird little rituals like that really helps. You know and then of course that evening I came back and oh I got home I I drank a rum and coke not I have to sip this one right here. Not not in a again, not in some weird rage just just just to sort of stop and think and. 14:15.76 kinkella And reminisce you know for myself and um, it was nice to touch base over Facebook and this kind of thing you know of other old friends who are kind of going through the same thing sometimes it's weird. Ah, you know when you're. When you sort of have something like this happen in in your life. You want to talk to people like that who are of the same vintage. Um, at this point you know i. 14:53.95 kinkella I Don't have any words of of wisdom you know to to wrap this up with I would say of course which everyone says and is True. You know if you're ever thinking of taking your own life. Good God Man. Don't do it. You know, take some time relax think a little. Talk to some people. The world is better with you in it. You know, chill and you know when I think of my friend I Just I think the. What I'm going to Miss and most is that he knew me you know and I knew him and he was a tough person sometimes to get to move away if he had a plan as you could see from this. He would follow through kind of no matter why he has these plans of ah grandeur. You know, but. I Always felt good that I could I could tell him now and even though it seemed to mean nothing at the moment I knew that if I said now or if I steered him in another directions. He would take it seriously and it would it was in there I could lodge a complaint at the front desk and it would be taken seriously. But it's very difficult to lose someone who knows you and understands you from from the past like that who knows that younger self of you and so you know I Just I think though the world will miss this. 16:26.86 kinkella Adventure seeking big loud personality star wars loving booster of all things Belize archeology friend of mine and. Going back to believes will never be the same and I will miss him terribly.