I just heard Mike Clough passed away. I don’t know how, but man I wished I had seen him in recent years. My last memories of him were from high school and a bit after circa ’93, ’94, ’95 or so when I last saw him. I have some wild memories of him though.
Here’s some of what I remember:
Mike was a strong guy and had guts like no other and was definitely a thrill seeker. Most of my vivid memories of him involve doing such things like that.
I remember he had this old black Nova SS that he was working on. There was this one day that we took it out for a spin down that dirt road in Woodsville near Wanda Downer’s house. It might have been Swiftwater road??? there by the Ammonoosuc. But we were going like 50 MPH down this dirt road and then he decides to jump off the side of the road into the corn field.
We couldn’t see anything except a wall of green and big ol’ corn stalks. I was shitting my pants and he was laughing as we plowed through all those corn stalks and then jumped back onto the road totally Dukes of Hazzard style.
He had another toy for a while too. It was like a white and blue Honda CBR 600. He used to do wheelies down main street in Woodsville. There was this day that he came and picked me up in Monroe on it and we were heading down route 5 on those straights at 135 MPH. I just felt like if I lifted my head a bit I was going to blow off the back of it.
Then there were the times we would go to the train trestle bridge in Woodsville and jump off. He was the first to show me that spot. What’s that 40-45 feet? Nutty again. Then there was this day Scott Clark decided to do it. He wanted to wear his socks for some reason and when he jumped his sock got caught on that plank and we watched him drop all that distance and land on his side. Hilarious!
There was another bridge in Monroe/Barnet and I remember him and Joe Williams decided to jump off in May. These guys didn’t pause a second and just like ran off it looking very cool and ballsy, so I had to do it too… And when I did I remember hitting that water, it was so cold and I panicked. I thought I wasn’t even going to make it to the shore, lol^^. Meanwhile Joe and Mike were laughing at me there on the river bank.
There was this other time with Alia and the 3 of us were under the influence of something… We were down by the McIndoe falls bridge and Mike suddenly gets inspired to bolt up the side of the trestle. He gets nearly to the higher part of the end, freaks out, starts laughing and climbs backwards down. It looked nuts.
One of the most memorable crazy, beautiful moments I ever had was with this guy. I think the three of us Alia, Mike and I were out driving around near Ryegate, VT. There had been this crazy lighting and thunder storm and we went to Tickle Naked Pond.
Being the geniuses that we were we decided it would be a great idea to go swimming. It was night time and there we were standing in the pond up to our waists in water watching this insane lighting and thunder show. It was awesome. It had stopped raining and you could see the reflection of the lighting in the water. We were both in awe of this awesome planet and the show we were getting.
I remember standing side by side in that water looking at him and saying something like if we had to die now this would be the perfect time to go. There were handshakes and I think there was a bit of howling perhaps. It was one of those “I love you man” moments. Then I remember Alia in the car calling us morons or something and we finally got out.
Those are some of my most vivid memories of Mike. There were others too. There were other bridges, parties and other exploratory missions out in the woods. Despite some of the trouble he sometimes hung out with I remembered my mom always liked him a lot and thought he was kind.
I wish I saw you when I was back in NH last Mike. I remembered one of the last things you said to me – that you were going to come out west and visit me someday.
I hope you still do.