Full Circle

Last night, around the dinner table, my step mom asked all of us who had come to Montana for Thanksgiving about the most scared any of us has ever been. We went around the table, starting with her story of a friend who fell down a mineshaft while they were out on a hike. Joey was the one who, for five hours, stayed at the entrance to the hole while the others went to get help. When Search and Rescue arrived, she had been trying to talk her friend into continual consciousness with varied success. The friend, we'll call him Al, had begun hallucinating from the pain of his broken hip, but otherwise had undergone the ordeal with amazing luck. The rescuers killed the rattle snake he'd been keeping company, and they measured the fall at 60 feet. That's quite a distance, especially when you consider that at the bottom was a piece of rebar sticking straight out of the ground. Al had tumbled down the shaft and somehow missed that, as well.

The act itself was terrifying, I'm sure, but one reason I think the story qualifies as her most terrifying is due to the protracted nature of the whole thing. A tumble is one thing, but when you've got to sit and think of the repercussions of gravity for half a day, that's quite another. Especially when the victim is saying, "I hear a rattle".

In another interesting twist of Al's fate, he works at the EPA in Denver. His employment isn't so overwhelmingly interesting, but when you consider that Spencer, my step brother, works for an oil and gas lobbying group that generally opposes the EPA in Denver, we begin to breach irony worthy of head scratching. Apparently, Al and another woman from Spencer's employer are nemeses, and Al is a total pain in the ass for them. I'm sure he has always had it out for the extractive industries after that fateful day hike.

When it was my turn, I talked about how I'd been climbing a particular route that left me above some 30 year old quarter inch bolts that were rusted to all hell. The slab moves were only supposed to be 5.10, but when I looked about 15 feet to my right and saw a dusting of chalk, I knew I was off route. Maybe the route was 5.10, but I found myself in some slippery 5.12 R territory. I was perched on a dime sized edge for what seemed like an eternity, and while trying desperately to match feet in my efforts to get back on route, I careened off the wall. Looking down, I had sufficient time to wonder just how far I'd be going when the bolt tore out of the wall, but my daydream halted when my face slammed into the rock. There was an immediate shock of pain, but then I realized that I'd only gone 25 or 30 feet, so the protection must have held. More pressing was my dismay at what was tumbling down the rock. Two white nuggets were rolling down the face, and I quickly ran my tongue across my teeth. Interestingly, all were accounted for, and I realized my mistake. In my mental haze, I'd mistaken spilled chalk from my chalk bag as molars.
Besides a few more cuts, bruises, and a face that looked like it had just met the business end of a boxing mitt, I was ok. Standing on that edge waiting to die was likely the most scared I'd ever been, though.

When I woke up the morning after our story session, I was prepared to amend my tale of terror.

I dreamed that it was raining in Boulder and I was trying to get home. A group had gathered in the lobby of a local hotel, and were drinking and catching up. All of these people were alums from Wheat Ridge High School, home of the Farmers and my Alma Matter. Normally, I find any reason available to avoid cocktail hour with old high school acquaintances, and for this night I decided I just had to walk in the freezing rain. Fully drenched and shivering, I returned to the lobby and said hello to the group. I expressed how much I missed everyone and everything long forgotten, and excused myself. It seemed I was cold and wet, and needed to get home. How convenient. In my dream, I had reunited with my girlfriend from those same high school days, and here she was sitting in this very hotel. When I asked her what room we were in, my head spun. Terra, the old high school flame, explained that we weren't actually staying at that hotel, but lived together down in Westminister. Not only had I gotten back together with my high school girlfriend, I'd decided to move in with her, and into possibly the worst city in America. Three strikes, and I'm out.

When I woke up, I wanted to tell my family of the horror. I figured they'd laugh about the gigantic step backwards that a reunion with history would represent. Thinking of me living in Westminister, a soulless city along a highway that is full of shopping centers and apartment complexes would set them to howling. Instead, the whole family was still asleep, inebriated from too much turkey.

Alone, I made some coffee in hopes of freeing myself from the pain I was feeling. Too much food over the last couple of days was leaving me sluggish. Normally, I'd just take a heaping spoonful of pure psylium husk and be done with the stricture the following day, but I hadn't brought any. When I saw my father's Metamucil on the counter, I figured that it was an acceptable substitute. In the quiet of the morning, I chugged down some fiber and smiled at the reality of becoming my father, at least in my guts. Like him, I could look back with some perspective at the choices I'd made, and know that if I'd made them today, it would be the most terrifying decision of my life. In it's proper context, though, it's just a punchline that takes 12-24 hours to come full circle.