A Man of Rubber: A True Story of Love, Adventure & The Art of Staying Flexible Paperback – August 13, 2025

This is a true story about Gary and Beth Harper that begins with a compelling narrative of epic whitewater adventures in Grand Canyon. This was during the 1983 the Big Water Year at over 60,000 cubic feet of water per second (almost 4 million pounds of water per second) flowing down the Colorado River through the bottom of Grand Canyon. How they survived the whirlpools, surging eddies, house size waves and holes is a miracle in and of itself. They were working as part of the crew rowing an eighteen foot raft called the baggage boat loaded with over a ton of gear on a 13 day trip that covered 225 miles from Lees Ferry, AZ to Diamond Creek AZ..It also tells the earlier true story of Gary who helped pioneer whitewater rafting on the Middle Ocoee River in southeast Tennessee. He was a founding partner in the first outfitter to open a shop near the river in the summer of 1977. This book describes in detail how he named over half the rapids on the Middle OcoeeIt continues with Gary finding his true love Beth in 1978, selling his interest in the outfitting business and them together starting their own company and becoming a successful husband and wife business team. Today they are running a thriving wholesale supplier in the niche market of providing equipment, gear and other products to professional whitewater outfitters across the US, Canada, Central and South America.And the most important lesson of all... learning the fine art of staying flexible and how doing so can be the key to surviving our day to day existence while keeping our sanity intact. Read more