Pin It
Showing posts with label Summit Valley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summit Valley. Show all posts
Monday, June 28, 2010
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
In Regard to Goats
Pin It
We used to own goats.
No, really, we did.
Usually when I tell people that my family used to be the proud owner of goats they do the double take; they draw in a breath and to shoot me a strange look. This is usually coupled with a statement something along the lines of, “You’re not serious, are you? Nobody owns goats…”
Nope, I’m serious, just like a chemistry final. This is just one of the many curses of living on a farm while growing up in the rural expanses of the Great Northwest.
To answer your question, we had 7 of them.
Now, I know what you’re probably thinking…why in the world did you have goats? Well, aside of trying to ride them and getting yelled at by my mom on a regular basis? My mom had decided that we needed them for their milk. Yep, you heard me correctly; we drank their milk.
Now, before I get any further, just let me explain what goat milk tastes like for those of you who have no idea. Take a box of powdered milk which has been in food storage for an undetermined amount of time, make up a batch with water that has a slightly sulfuric taste, let this ripen a bit and you’ve got yourself goat milk.
Teachinfourth, why in the name of all that is holy would you drink this pungent liquid? To answer that you’d need to better understand my mom. She was a firm believer in natural foods and remedies. As a result meals were often served with Adam’s Peanut Butter, rice cakes, sugarless bottled juice, split pea and lentil soups, corn beef and cabbage, and puffed rice and wheat cereal for breakfast with honey.
Yeah, my siblings and I were the resident freaks during lunchtimes at school.
I could go on and tell you what a terrible childhood I endured, but I’m not trying to play the sympathy card here. Luckily, I had a friend at school who’d trade me her Hostess fruit pie at lunch for my apple. See, I was a survivor who could adapt when called upon…also, I had learned that Ketchup could make just about anything taste better.
Back to goats.
Each and every morning before school, church, or Saturday morning cartoons I’d head outside into the darkness to fulfill the twice-daily ritual of milking. Often it was cold, and each morning at dark-thirty it was pitch black. Undeterred, I would head out to the barn situated by the inky blotch of forest—inside of which anything could have been hiding, just waiting to slither out and get me. I was more often than not completely petrified, just waiting for that creature slinking through the darkness…what other thoughts would you expect to come to mind of a prepubescent boy outside all alone with the wind howling and dark shadows dancing along the hay bales and up in the rafters?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
I remember kneeling in the milking stall and stealing glances over my shoulder to make sure that nobody else was in there with me—nobody but the goats. I often wondered if there might have been an escaped convict—a killer—hiding up in the rafters or just in the woods outside, biding his time as he waited for that stupid kid to come wandering outside at five or six in the morning—easy prey and no witnesses.
As you might have guessed, I was never murdered while milking goats—much to the dismay of my older sister, but I would often frighten myself and could be found sprinting the distance back to the house with a two-gallon pail of milk sloshing all over the place.
When you milked your own goats, and lived on a farm, homogenization consisted of straining the milk through a ‘leading brand’ paper towel and then putting the milk in the fridge; this was mostly to get the larger ‘chunks’ out of the stuff and to make you believe that you’d really done something to clean it.
The funny thing about goat milk is that eventually, you become accustomed to it. Like a smoker who coughs and wheezes, their eyes water and lungs burn at first, with time and practice, they become an experienced smoker, drawing in clouds of smoke without the least bit of discomfort.
I hear it’s the same with country music.
My point is, after drinking this stuff for so long, I became used to it. On the rare occasion that a friend would come over and be served goat milk, I always found it fun to watch their face as they took the first drink. They would take a large gulp, confident that it was regular cow’s milk. It would take a moment or their taste buds to register just what they’d really just put into their mouth. Then their face would sour and pull a look akin to when someone smells something quite nasty. It was at this point that they’d request a glass of water and the rest of the milk was left untouched.
It was always entertaining to watch but could cost dearly in the trust department in the future.
For many years we milked our goats, but then one day it happened. My mom finally decided that she’d had enough with goats and we sold them all. While Mimi and Sasha, our first two, were now gone, I couldn’t help but miss them. They had been more than simply dairy providers, they’d been pets—and trusty steeds. However, the idea of no more early-morning milkings was delicious No more fears of murderers in the dark. No more sharp and biting milk. All of these things outweighed the sadness of losing our four-footed friends.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was in the local supermarket. As I passed by the dairy department, I noticed a quart-sized container of goat’s milk in one of the refrigerators. I paused, and even lifted the carton from the shelf, looking at it with memories tumbling around my mind.
At that point, I put it back on the shelf and grabbed a gallon of the regular stuff. After all, priced at over $3 a quart, goat’s milk just isn’t worth the memories.
Besides, I’ve heard that it’s terrible, just like country music.
We used to own goats.No, really, we did.
Usually when I tell people that my family used to be the proud owner of goats they do the double take; they draw in a breath and to shoot me a strange look. This is usually coupled with a statement something along the lines of, “You’re not serious, are you? Nobody owns goats…”
Nope, I’m serious, just like a chemistry final. This is just one of the many curses of living on a farm while growing up in the rural expanses of the Great Northwest.
To answer your question, we had 7 of them.
Now, I know what you’re probably thinking…why in the world did you have goats? Well, aside of trying to ride them and getting yelled at by my mom on a regular basis? My mom had decided that we needed them for their milk. Yep, you heard me correctly; we drank their milk.
Now, before I get any further, just let me explain what goat milk tastes like for those of you who have no idea. Take a box of powdered milk which has been in food storage for an undetermined amount of time, make up a batch with water that has a slightly sulfuric taste, let this ripen a bit and you’ve got yourself goat milk.
Teachinfourth, why in the name of all that is holy would you drink this pungent liquid? To answer that you’d need to better understand my mom. She was a firm believer in natural foods and remedies. As a result meals were often served with Adam’s Peanut Butter, rice cakes, sugarless bottled juice, split pea and lentil soups, corn beef and cabbage, and puffed rice and wheat cereal for breakfast with honey.
Yeah, my siblings and I were the resident freaks during lunchtimes at school.
I could go on and tell you what a terrible childhood I endured, but I’m not trying to play the sympathy card here. Luckily, I had a friend at school who’d trade me her Hostess fruit pie at lunch for my apple. See, I was a survivor who could adapt when called upon…also, I had learned that Ketchup could make just about anything taste better.
Back to goats.
Each and every morning before school, church, or Saturday morning cartoons I’d head outside into the darkness to fulfill the twice-daily ritual of milking. Often it was cold, and each morning at dark-thirty it was pitch black. Undeterred, I would head out to the barn situated by the inky blotch of forest—inside of which anything could have been hiding, just waiting to slither out and get me. I was more often than not completely petrified, just waiting for that creature slinking through the darkness…what other thoughts would you expect to come to mind of a prepubescent boy outside all alone with the wind howling and dark shadows dancing along the hay bales and up in the rafters?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
I remember kneeling in the milking stall and stealing glances over my shoulder to make sure that nobody else was in there with me—nobody but the goats. I often wondered if there might have been an escaped convict—a killer—hiding up in the rafters or just in the woods outside, biding his time as he waited for that stupid kid to come wandering outside at five or six in the morning—easy prey and no witnesses.
As you might have guessed, I was never murdered while milking goats—much to the dismay of my older sister, but I would often frighten myself and could be found sprinting the distance back to the house with a two-gallon pail of milk sloshing all over the place.
When you milked your own goats, and lived on a farm, homogenization consisted of straining the milk through a ‘leading brand’ paper towel and then putting the milk in the fridge; this was mostly to get the larger ‘chunks’ out of the stuff and to make you believe that you’d really done something to clean it.
The funny thing about goat milk is that eventually, you become accustomed to it. Like a smoker who coughs and wheezes, their eyes water and lungs burn at first, with time and practice, they become an experienced smoker, drawing in clouds of smoke without the least bit of discomfort.
I hear it’s the same with country music.
My point is, after drinking this stuff for so long, I became used to it. On the rare occasion that a friend would come over and be served goat milk, I always found it fun to watch their face as they took the first drink. They would take a large gulp, confident that it was regular cow’s milk. It would take a moment or their taste buds to register just what they’d really just put into their mouth. Then their face would sour and pull a look akin to when someone smells something quite nasty. It was at this point that they’d request a glass of water and the rest of the milk was left untouched.
It was always entertaining to watch but could cost dearly in the trust department in the future.
For many years we milked our goats, but then one day it happened. My mom finally decided that she’d had enough with goats and we sold them all. While Mimi and Sasha, our first two, were now gone, I couldn’t help but miss them. They had been more than simply dairy providers, they’d been pets—and trusty steeds. However, the idea of no more early-morning milkings was delicious No more fears of murderers in the dark. No more sharp and biting milk. All of these things outweighed the sadness of losing our four-footed friends.
It wasn’t that long ago that I was in the local supermarket. As I passed by the dairy department, I noticed a quart-sized container of goat’s milk in one of the refrigerators. I paused, and even lifted the carton from the shelf, looking at it with memories tumbling around my mind.
At that point, I put it back on the shelf and grabbed a gallon of the regular stuff. After all, priced at over $3 a quart, goat’s milk just isn’t worth the memories.
Besides, I’ve heard that it’s terrible, just like country music.
Labels:
Best-Humor,
childhood,
memories,
Summit Valley
Monday, July 6, 2009
100 years
Pin It
I’ve had moments where it seems I’ve not been awake—my life of these past days has had many moments where it seems more I’m watching a movie about it instead of living. I watch the scenes play out before me—more or less reruns of the same part—time and again. The music rises and falls, plays its melancholy strains intertwined into the flickering images.
It never changes.
I got a phone call from my mom in Washington, Kathy. She told me about the Summit Valley School Centennial. It was Summit Valley was where I’d attended first through sixth grades a score of years ago; they were celebrating the building’s 100 years of existence. I found myself reluctant; I said I probably wouldn’t be in attendance. It was too short of notice, plus the fact that I was needed here made it all the more difficult to allow myself to go.
I hung up the phone.
The next morning I awoke to morning sunlight dancing in patterns through my window as well as to the welcoming aroma of sausages and eggs. I stumbled from my makeshift room to find my dad making breakfast, the role I’d been fulfilling many of the days I’d been here. I sat at the kitchen table to a plate of steaming fare, my dad and I ate. As we did, I told him about the phone call from the night before, and the celebration in Summit Valley—which had actually begun about an hour previous to our breakfasting.
Dad laid his fork aside and looked intently at me across the kitchen table. “Go,” he insisted. “The school only has a centennial celebration once every 100 years. You’re not going to be around for the next one.”
“It’ll probably be lame,” I protested, smearing my toast around my plate to gather up the remnants of egg yolk.
Dad was adamant. “So, it’ll be lame around here, too. At least it’ll be a change of scenery—go. In fact, I don’t want you around here today.”
With this aphoristic ‘kicking out’ I found myself driving the distance through the pined Selkirk Mountains. As I drove, a sparklingly fresh wind seemed to catch in my lungs and remind me of a passage from the book, “The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963,” by Christopher Paul Curtis; In the story, Kenny’s father talks about the freshness in the air that the family is unaccustomed to, and talks about how they’ve become ‘tangled up in God’s beard.’
As the road wound up higher and higher, the air became more brisk and bracing, drenched with the aroma of pine. I thought a lot about that passage and wriggled my fingers through the crispness.
It.was.wondrous; Like breathing the air of heaven itself.
Soon I reached the pinnacle of the ridges and mountains, and spilled over them, taking that long fall down the other side; down into a land and a time far distant. Miles passed before me like vacant mailboxes on the roadside of life.
All too soon the rooftops of a little town I’d once known came into view over the trees. I found myself slipping back into another existence, a different place, another person I’d long-since left behind…decades ago where the ghosts of my past came back to haunt me –or rather, I’d come to let them. I could only blame myself.
I drove these strangely-familiar streets I’d once strolled with middle-school friends in a car registered in another state—a whole other life; it felt peculiar.
I picked up my mom and we moved along the memory roads I’d passed over so long ago—and still knew all too well. The familiar curves of the highways, the well-known landmarks, the homes of friends long-since gone.
As we came closer to the school where I’d spent my formative years, I felt a twinge of ‘homesickness’ for lack of a better word. I would not want to return to those days, but a visit for a few hours to a simpler time would have been a welcome reprieve.
I suddenly didn’t want to be here, yet wanted to at the same time. It felt strange.
There were more people there than I thought would be, and most of them I did not recognize.
But a few I did.
There were a few I had not seen since third or fourth grade; but they all still remembered my name.
I looked through the dog-eared photos; listening to the reminiscences of the veteran homesteaders, gathered in small bunches here and there—talking about the ‘good old days’ and times which were long before those which were mine.
As I wandered amongst the strangers gathered—all sharing a common bonding experience—the school, I felt somewhat at home.
It was at this point I noticed that nobody was taking pictures. Well, haphazard shots taken with disposable cameras and point and shoots taking place in random forms.
This would not do.
I remember something my grandfather had said many years ago, something he subscribed to…a motto of sorts. He had the firm belief that if you had a nice camera and walked around a place—just about any place—acting like you owned it and acting as if you were supposed to be there, nobody would challenge you.
He was right.
I took out my camera and let the shutter fly in a burst of rapid-succession clicks. People found this intimidating and moved aside, putting down their cameras when I would do so.
It made me smile.
I took photos of the room I’d spent 3 years of my childhood in; I took photos of complete strangers, listening as my childhood friend’s father was honored by having the new ball field named after him for his commitment to sports, and helping so many youth to achieve throughout the years. I took photos of childhood friends now grown.
Quite simply—I captured moments.
Nobody stopped me.
Nobody questioned.
I gave the photos—all of them—to the technology guru at the school so as to have them shared with whoever would like them.
The pinnacle event was the ringing voices of those present singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the old schoolhouse, and then the balloons being launched to the heavens; the resounding voices of those present floated on the winds and carried through the valley, rising and with just as much buoyancy as the colorful helium orbs to the clouds.
However, the moment which was most moving of all to me was when they rang the old schoolbell, the bell that had called me in for recess—the one which had hung in the belfry year after year. I remembered ringing that bell myself, too; the force of the backswing able to yank some of the kids off the ground as they clutched to the well-worn rope.
It.was.magical.
Words cannot describe what it felt like. A whole lifetime of memories rushed into me. Secret rendezvous with friends, early-morning snowball fights, knapweed forts and games of childhood all rushed into me like a gust of fresh air after being submerged.
I reconnected with a few old friends, I was…home.
My mom and I drove the familiar road to the Columbia River to Cloverleaf Beach where we had traveled to so many times and swam summer after summer. As I drove, I fumbled with my iPod, and soon the sounds of Kenny Loggins flooded through the speakers and out the open windows, just like he had so many years ago. The road had not changed, only I had. I was a little bit older, that was all.
I stood at the water’s edge and listened. The years seemed to compress and stretch until this moment and the moment I’d been here as a child seemed to meld together. Echoes seemed to play in the recesses of my mind—laughter which was faded and worn like a much-loved pair of shoes.
We drove to the ferry and rode across to Inchelium, passing through the Indian graveyard there and riding the long stretches of highway where the crystalline blue waters sparkled iridescently in the sunlight.
It.was.breathtaking.
We stopped and had a late lunch at Barney’s Junction up near Kettle Falls, and saw the small performing theatre where I’d starred in a number of smalltown plays a lifetime ago. Ice creams were in order, so we stopped off at Sandy’s where I immediately noted a few spelling mistakes on the menu sign—my class would most certainly have fun finding the errors in that come this August.
As we drove nearer to Colville, a marquee rose up on the right hand side of the road I’d long since forgotten about—the old drive-in theatre. At this point, I turned the car around. I had to see the place again. I remember going here with my family and seeing movies. I’d gone here with my friends.
It was just as old and nasty as I remembered.
It.was.awesome.
The ground was littered with gopher holes and the screen was peeled and dilapidated—in pitiable need of repair.
I had to get out and walk around.
It wasn’t much to look at, but nestled amongst the rolling hills of the Great Northwest, it was more than enough.
As we drove into Colville, we passed the fabric store—oh, an entire blog post could be written on this hellacious place of child torture—and one day will; therefore, I will forbear at this time to write anything further of it. Just know…
It.was.awful.
However, next door the business had burned down. I don’t remember what used to be there. This remains unimportant. Nevertheless, the building was gone.
An alley had been created with its absence, and there was a cracked mural on one of the brick walls.
It.was.amazing.
However, without a model—something to draw your eye—it wasn’t nearly as impressive as it could be for a photograph. Nevertheless, while taking a few shots, I noticed a local Hispanic boy from the Mexican restaurant next door; he was milling about and soon approached me, wanting to know what I was doing. Why was I taking pictures of a wall?
I explained that I was a photographer and I asked if he’d like to be in a few photos. I’d then be willing to give these photos to his parents—for free. He readily agreed and the following images were born.
Mom and I had a wonderful conversation throughout our little adventure of which I’ll not expound as this post as already reached epic proportions. In fact, while typing this I see that I have now reached page 5 in Microsoft Word. This tells me that it is time to close.
With the sun beginning to dip beyond the distant westerly hills it was time for me to be returning to Sandpoint. I began the ascending climb back to the home of my dad and my ‘other mother’ for the remainder of the day; I made my way yet again through God’s beard. This time, when I reached the breath of heaven summit, the Great Northwest smiled at me—and I smiled back.
It never changes.
I got a phone call from my mom in Washington, Kathy. She told me about the Summit Valley School Centennial. It was Summit Valley was where I’d attended first through sixth grades a score of years ago; they were celebrating the building’s 100 years of existence. I found myself reluctant; I said I probably wouldn’t be in attendance. It was too short of notice, plus the fact that I was needed here made it all the more difficult to allow myself to go.
I hung up the phone.
The next morning I awoke to morning sunlight dancing in patterns through my window as well as to the welcoming aroma of sausages and eggs. I stumbled from my makeshift room to find my dad making breakfast, the role I’d been fulfilling many of the days I’d been here. I sat at the kitchen table to a plate of steaming fare, my dad and I ate. As we did, I told him about the phone call from the night before, and the celebration in Summit Valley—which had actually begun about an hour previous to our breakfasting.
Dad laid his fork aside and looked intently at me across the kitchen table. “Go,” he insisted. “The school only has a centennial celebration once every 100 years. You’re not going to be around for the next one.”
“It’ll probably be lame,” I protested, smearing my toast around my plate to gather up the remnants of egg yolk.
Dad was adamant. “So, it’ll be lame around here, too. At least it’ll be a change of scenery—go. In fact, I don’t want you around here today.”
With this aphoristic ‘kicking out’ I found myself driving the distance through the pined Selkirk Mountains. As I drove, a sparklingly fresh wind seemed to catch in my lungs and remind me of a passage from the book, “The Watsons go to Birmingham—1963,” by Christopher Paul Curtis; In the story, Kenny’s father talks about the freshness in the air that the family is unaccustomed to, and talks about how they’ve become ‘tangled up in God’s beard.’
As the road wound up higher and higher, the air became more brisk and bracing, drenched with the aroma of pine. I thought a lot about that passage and wriggled my fingers through the crispness.
It.was.wondrous; Like breathing the air of heaven itself.
Soon I reached the pinnacle of the ridges and mountains, and spilled over them, taking that long fall down the other side; down into a land and a time far distant. Miles passed before me like vacant mailboxes on the roadside of life.
All too soon the rooftops of a little town I’d once known came into view over the trees. I found myself slipping back into another existence, a different place, another person I’d long-since left behind…decades ago where the ghosts of my past came back to haunt me –or rather, I’d come to let them. I could only blame myself.
I drove these strangely-familiar streets I’d once strolled with middle-school friends in a car registered in another state—a whole other life; it felt peculiar.
I picked up my mom and we moved along the memory roads I’d passed over so long ago—and still knew all too well. The familiar curves of the highways, the well-known landmarks, the homes of friends long-since gone.
As we came closer to the school where I’d spent my formative years, I felt a twinge of ‘homesickness’ for lack of a better word. I would not want to return to those days, but a visit for a few hours to a simpler time would have been a welcome reprieve.
I suddenly didn’t want to be here, yet wanted to at the same time. It felt strange.
There were more people there than I thought would be, and most of them I did not recognize.
But a few I did.
There were a few I had not seen since third or fourth grade; but they all still remembered my name.
I looked through the dog-eared photos; listening to the reminiscences of the veteran homesteaders, gathered in small bunches here and there—talking about the ‘good old days’ and times which were long before those which were mine.
As I wandered amongst the strangers gathered—all sharing a common bonding experience—the school, I felt somewhat at home.
It was at this point I noticed that nobody was taking pictures. Well, haphazard shots taken with disposable cameras and point and shoots taking place in random forms.
This would not do.
I remember something my grandfather had said many years ago, something he subscribed to…a motto of sorts. He had the firm belief that if you had a nice camera and walked around a place—just about any place—acting like you owned it and acting as if you were supposed to be there, nobody would challenge you.
He was right.
I took out my camera and let the shutter fly in a burst of rapid-succession clicks. People found this intimidating and moved aside, putting down their cameras when I would do so.
It made me smile.
I took photos of the room I’d spent 3 years of my childhood in; I took photos of complete strangers, listening as my childhood friend’s father was honored by having the new ball field named after him for his commitment to sports, and helping so many youth to achieve throughout the years. I took photos of childhood friends now grown.
Quite simply—I captured moments.
Nobody stopped me.
Nobody questioned.
I gave the photos—all of them—to the technology guru at the school so as to have them shared with whoever would like them.
The pinnacle event was the ringing voices of those present singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the old schoolhouse, and then the balloons being launched to the heavens; the resounding voices of those present floated on the winds and carried through the valley, rising and with just as much buoyancy as the colorful helium orbs to the clouds.
However, the moment which was most moving of all to me was when they rang the old schoolbell, the bell that had called me in for recess—the one which had hung in the belfry year after year. I remembered ringing that bell myself, too; the force of the backswing able to yank some of the kids off the ground as they clutched to the well-worn rope.
It.was.magical.
Words cannot describe what it felt like. A whole lifetime of memories rushed into me. Secret rendezvous with friends, early-morning snowball fights, knapweed forts and games of childhood all rushed into me like a gust of fresh air after being submerged.
I reconnected with a few old friends, I was…home.
My mom and I drove the familiar road to the Columbia River to Cloverleaf Beach where we had traveled to so many times and swam summer after summer. As I drove, I fumbled with my iPod, and soon the sounds of Kenny Loggins flooded through the speakers and out the open windows, just like he had so many years ago. The road had not changed, only I had. I was a little bit older, that was all.
I stood at the water’s edge and listened. The years seemed to compress and stretch until this moment and the moment I’d been here as a child seemed to meld together. Echoes seemed to play in the recesses of my mind—laughter which was faded and worn like a much-loved pair of shoes.
We drove to the ferry and rode across to Inchelium, passing through the Indian graveyard there and riding the long stretches of highway where the crystalline blue waters sparkled iridescently in the sunlight.
It.was.breathtaking.
We stopped and had a late lunch at Barney’s Junction up near Kettle Falls, and saw the small performing theatre where I’d starred in a number of smalltown plays a lifetime ago. Ice creams were in order, so we stopped off at Sandy’s where I immediately noted a few spelling mistakes on the menu sign—my class would most certainly have fun finding the errors in that come this August.
As we drove nearer to Colville, a marquee rose up on the right hand side of the road I’d long since forgotten about—the old drive-in theatre. At this point, I turned the car around. I had to see the place again. I remember going here with my family and seeing movies. I’d gone here with my friends.
It was just as old and nasty as I remembered.
It.was.awesome.
The ground was littered with gopher holes and the screen was peeled and dilapidated—in pitiable need of repair.
I had to get out and walk around.
It wasn’t much to look at, but nestled amongst the rolling hills of the Great Northwest, it was more than enough.
As we drove into Colville, we passed the fabric store—oh, an entire blog post could be written on this hellacious place of child torture—and one day will; therefore, I will forbear at this time to write anything further of it. Just know…
It.was.awful.
However, next door the business had burned down. I don’t remember what used to be there. This remains unimportant. Nevertheless, the building was gone.
An alley had been created with its absence, and there was a cracked mural on one of the brick walls.
It.was.amazing.
However, without a model—something to draw your eye—it wasn’t nearly as impressive as it could be for a photograph. Nevertheless, while taking a few shots, I noticed a local Hispanic boy from the Mexican restaurant next door; he was milling about and soon approached me, wanting to know what I was doing. Why was I taking pictures of a wall?
I explained that I was a photographer and I asked if he’d like to be in a few photos. I’d then be willing to give these photos to his parents—for free. He readily agreed and the following images were born.
Mom and I had a wonderful conversation throughout our little adventure of which I’ll not expound as this post as already reached epic proportions. In fact, while typing this I see that I have now reached page 5 in Microsoft Word. This tells me that it is time to close.
With the sun beginning to dip beyond the distant westerly hills it was time for me to be returning to Sandpoint. I began the ascending climb back to the home of my dad and my ‘other mother’ for the remainder of the day; I made my way yet again through God’s beard. This time, when I reached the breath of heaven summit, the Great Northwest smiled at me—and I smiled back.
Labels:
Arlene,
Kathy,
memories,
mom,
Mom's last days,
music,
sick,
Summit Valley
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Summit Memoir 4: Superheroes & Learning to Fly
Pin It
I have always been intrigued by superheroes. It has been in awe that I have watched reruns of Wonder Woman, the Bionic Man, and Batman & Robin. Before we’d moved to Summit Valley we had had much better T.V. reception in our hometown of Rockford, Washington. We were fortunate enough to watch all of these shows, plus many others.
I always admired Wonder Woman. Not only did I think she was beautiful, but I often wondered what it would be like to have her bracelets which could deflect bullets, her headband that could be used as a boomerang, and her invisible jet that was…well—invisible. However, there was something about that invisible jet that really bothered me. I just couldn’t understand how was it that she could still be seen, while her jet was invisible. After all, she must have looked simply ridiculous to people standing on the ground who saw her flying around in a sitting position. I also wondered…if her jet were really invisible, just how did she find it again after she got out?
Despite this shortcoming, it didn’t stop my siblings and me from making our own superhero utilities and weapons; yet no matter how vigilantly I cut the paper, colored the stars on the bracelets, or how carefully I taped them to my wrists, they simply wouldn’t deflect the Legos and tinker toys my sister threw at me.
One of my other favorite shows was the reruns of the Bionic Man. The show as about this normal guy, just like anyone else, until the day he was in a horrible accident. He was going to die. The government decided that the only way he could be saved was to mechanically rebuild him using parts of machines. After his surgeries, Lee Majors could run amazingly fast, see for miles with a bionic eye, and even bend solid steel bars! I remember trying to run with bionics, but just couldn’t seem to go fast enough…or slow enough rather. Whenever he ran in slow motion, he always got to places quickly, whenever I tried to run in slow motion, it took me a lot longer to get to wherever it was I was going. I remember at one point that I had thought about getting myself into an accident so that the government would outfit me with bionic limbs, but when I thought about getting my arms or legs torn off, I decided that this wasn’t really wasn’t worth it...no matter how cool bionics were.
While most of the heroes I admired as a young boy had shortcomings and weaknesses, there was one which had none of these. This hero needed no machine parts attached to his body to make him strong, no bracelets were required to deflect bullets, and he needed no special toys or gadgets to make him the hero he was. You got it, I’m talking about Superman.
Superman was, by far, the greatest hero that I had ever heard of, and I wanted to be just like him. Now, it wasn’t his ability at catching bullets in the palms of his hands, the way he could pick cars up over his head, or even his x-ray vision which made me want to be like him. It was something altogether much more amazing…it was his ability to fly. Superman was the only hero who was able to become airborne without balloons, helicopters, or airplanes. It was this power which made me so envious of him. Superman, with his blue tights, red cape, and curl of black hair down his forehead was the ultimate hero.
When I was seven years old, I imagined myself having Superman’s powers. I got myself completely wound up as I thought about flying over the trees and fields of Summit Valley, looping all the way up to the clouds. Oh, I could just see the looks of jealousy on the faces of my second-grade friends. Even the big fifth and sixth graders would have been impressed as I leapt super-high to make an out during our recess kickball games. I would be a hero myself, protector of little kids (when I wasn’t flying around having fun that is), and I would incinerate any bully who tried to push me around with lasers from my eyes. It would be soooo cool.
Since my mom would never let my siblings or I have any candy, getting it was a rare treat. I thought of how I could fly to Blue Creek, the nearest town, and get all the candy I could possibly eat….it would be fantastic. Best of all, I could fly back home again and my mom would never even realize that I’d gone.
However, imagining that one can fly is not nearly as amazing as actually doing it, or so I’d convinced myself, and I decided that learning to fly is what I needed to do. Now, I started out simply enough with my flying lessons…my first few attempts consisted of running across the lawn as quickly as I could, and then leaping into the air with all my might. Unfortunately, I usually only ended up knocking the wind out of myself, and getting a lot of grass stains on my clothes.
I realized that the problem must have been velocity. I was sure of it. I wasn’t traveling nearly fast enough. I looked around the yard until I spotted what I’d been looking for. The tire swing! I walked over to the weeping willow, and swung the tire swing out as hard as I could. I watched it as it arced out, nearly two feet over my head. It was perfect!
I was at once ready to try my first flight, but then I thought wiser of it…I realized that I should probably head to the kitchen first, and get a snack for my journey. After all, maybe I’d feel like flying around all day. I thought of how nice it would be to have something which I could eat on the trip. Mom was busy someplace, and nobody else was in sight; so I helped myself to three or four plums from the kitchen counter. I carefully put them into my pockets so that they wouldn’t fall out, and set out again for the weeping willow.
Now, I was ready! I climbed aboard the tire, and began to sway my body back and forth, back and forth. It didn’t take long before I’d built up quite a bit of momentum; I moved from side to side like pendulum of a clock. Soon I was traveling pretty quickly, the air rushing in my face. As I watched the ground racing by, I began to feel just the teensiest bit nervous. Okay, I was petrified. However, I blew out a deep breath, closed my eyes, and on the next arc of the tire, flung myself out into space.
I left the tire swing like a rock from a slingshot. I felt myself flying through the air, I’d really done it! I was flying. However, as suddenly as I felt this incredible feeling of air travel, I felt myself being drawn to the earth like a sack of rocks someone had thought were pretty once, but then decided to get rid of. I hit the ground, pretty hard, and felt something wet shoot all over my legs.
When I opened my eyes I was winded, after all, it had hurt. Had I been in any sort of condition to speak, I probably would have used a few of those words I’d used when Doug had been over several weeks before. However, bad words were the last thing on my mind. When I looked down at my legs, I saw that they were covered with a reddish liquid and this pulpy stuff was hanging in chunks out of my pockets.
I had exploded! Some of my insides were now on my outside! I think I screamed, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know if any part of the pulp was part of my lungs! In fact, I couldn’t breathe…it must have been my lungs.
I was going to die!
I must have sat there for a minute, too scared to move, afraid that I would squash some of my insides, and then they wouldn’t work anymore. I carefully felt my sides and stomach, I didn’t feel any gaping holes or any areas that had been torn wide open. Upon careful inspection, I realized that the pulpy stuff was actually the plums I’d stuffed into my pockets. I stood carefully, not totally convinced that the fleshy tissue hadn’t actually come from me. However, a moment later I breathed out a sigh of relief. None of it was from me after all.
That night when I went to bed I was depressed, I was no closer to flying than I had been at the beginning. As I lay in bed staring up at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, I put my bright little mind to work on why Superman could fly and I could not. As I dropped off to sleep nothing came to me.
I remember at some time in my life somebody had told me that if you ever have a problem, and couldn’t figure out what to do, you should think about the problem just before you went to sleep, and when you woke up in the morning, your brain would have it all figured out. Had I known this when I was younger, I would have been doing this all the time. However, this little bit of advice worked like a charm, even though I had yet to hear about it….when I awoke in the morning the answer was in my brain, just like magic.
The answer was so simple, and I don’t know why I hadn’t been able to figure it out before. Superman would always fly as Superman and never as Clark Kent. Of course! How could I have been so stupid? All I needed in order to fly was a cape. It was only with this vital accessory that flight could finally be achieved. I immediately set out to find the perfect cape because, after all, it had to be really special for it to really work. One of Mom’s bath towels wouldn’t work properly, and neither would the sheet from my bed...it had to be a special piece of fabric; one that was certain to be magical.
It was after much deliberation that I finally decided to use my favorite blanket as my cape. I had had it for as long as I could remember. For all I knew, it had been left to me by a genii or wizard one night as a cape with miraculous powers, and I had never realized it. There it had sat on by bed for years and years without me ever knowing its ultimate potential.
I used a safety pin to attach the two corners of the blanket securely under my chin. I poked my fingers a few times, but finally at last attached my cape. I walked to the bathroom and studied myself in the mirror…definitely super-heroish. As looked in the mirror, I still felt that I was lacking something. Superman had a really cool costume and even though I didn’t think I needed one to fly, I still wanted to look as much like him as I possibly could. From what I could remember, most of his costume was blue…that is, with the exception of the red underwear he wore outside his tights.
I began to dig through all my clothes, and finally decided to wear my favorite shirt—the one with red and blue stripes. It had been my favorite shirt, and one I was sure would undoubtedly help me to soar among the heavens. After all, I probably wore this shirt five days a week. It was with me whenever I went exploring or hiking; it only seemed fitting that it should accompany me on my grandest achievement of all.
I carefully removed my cape and changed my shirt; it felt better, so much more special and magical with all its familiar smells and memories. I don’t know why I loved this shirt the way I did, but I did. I would have never taken it off had my mother not forced me to do so…to me it was more than simply a piece of clothing; I felt that it was almost a part of me, an extension of myself. I would have worn it to church on Sundays had my mother let me.
I checked myself out again in the bathroom mirror and I had to admit that I looked pretty good; the stripes of the shirt went perfectly with the blues of the blanket which flowed behind me like a river of pure silk. Never had I experienced such a feeling of overwhelming power! I decided that my jeans were good enough for the flight as they were blue. I contemplated wearing my underwear on the outside of my jeans, but decided against it, they were white…not red like Superman’s. Besides, this would be much too embarrassing.
I strode out of the house with all the confidence of a kid who knew a terrific secret. All I needed now was the perfect place to make my flight. Where could it be? I thought of my episode with the tire swing the day before and decided against it. What I needed was a new place—a place without any previous attempts, after all, there was no sense in jinxing my real flight with memories of past failures. Maybe I could leap from a tree? It sounded like a good idea, but there were few in the open I could readily climb. The trees in the woods would have been a poor choice because the branches of the other nearby trees would have gotten in my way. Though I had to admit that it would have been fun to weave in and out of the branches when I was flying, I decided against it. I needed a clear spot of airspace for my first flight.
As I was contemplating where I should take to the sky, my eyes were drawn to the old barn which was situated behind our house. I hurried to the backyard and began to study the tall wooden fence around the pasture, as well as the barn itself. I saw that it was possible for me to climb to the top of the fence, and leap from there. However, after a minute, I decided that it wouldn’t be that wise after all, what if my cape caught on a nail or one of the wooden posts?
I considered using the cattle run, which was an elevated ramp, with side rails so horses or cows could be loaded into the back of trucks to be moved someplace else. I walked to the top of the ramp…it was a good three feet off the ground. I was sure that I could run up the ramp, and leap into the air from there.
I walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked around me, the air was suddenly still, the sound of birdsong was notably absent, and even the very wind (which usually blew through the branches of the nearby trees and grass) was motionless. The entire world was strangely silent, in anticipation of my flight. I blew out a deep breath, and began to run to the end of the ramp. Closer and closer it came, I put on more speed and when I reached the end of the ramp I leapt into the air with my arms in front of me. For a second it felt like it were going to work, but I felt the draw of gravity as I was pulled towards the ground and landed—somewhat clumsily—on my feet.
I stared in disbelief. What was wrong? I was wearing my lucky shirt, I had a cape, and was even wearing clean underwear under my jeans to ensure a perfect flight, yet here I was, unable to take to the air.
I sat down on the grass and thought. Something was wrong…what was it? As I looked around, my eyes fell on the old barn—more specifically, to the small window on the east side which was seven or eight feet off the ground. That was it! I wasn’t jumping from a distance that was high enough! I was sure of it! I felt elated at my new discovery and pulled open the huge swinging barn door. The barn was dirty and murky-looking inside, not having housed animals for many years.
I moved cautiously through the barn to the window on the east side. Sunlight was shining in, illuminating the dust in the air. I had often watched the dust particles floating in the sunbeams lancing through our house, and I’d often wondered if the dust was only in the sunbeams, or whether the dust was always in the air and we were always breathing it in. If that were really so, did we have huge balls of dust forming in our lungs? The thought was pretty cool.
I moved to the window and climbed on the workbench someone had built into the wall years before. I stood carefully, and walked the open window. As I looked out I was spellbound. I had never seen the woods and creek beyond the barnyard from this height before…it was beautiful. However, this was no time to admire the view, I had come to fly and fly was what I was going to do.
As I looked down at the ground below I suddenly felt a wave of pure and simple fear. The distance from outside the barn looking up to the window looked pretty high, but from up here looking down the distance seemed to be miles. I may as well have jumped off the roof!
I was thinking that maybe I didn’t want to fly quite so badly when I saw my dad coming out to the barn. This could be it, I decided. My big moment, and my dad would be there to see it…I knew that he hadn’t been impressed with the fight with Doug because Shawna had had to save my life. In the next few seconds, I made one of the biggest decisions in my life.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Look at me!”
Those were famous last words, I have come to decide. I wish that the blanket I was wearing had come with a warning labeled on it saying something like, “Wearing this blanket as a cape does not guarantee the ability to fly. If you try to fly with this, you are a complete idiot.” But the blanket didn’t come with such a warning, and I jumped. I wish I could tell you that I took off over the trees, and explored new vistas with my dad smiling proudly on saying, “That’s my boy!”
I didn’t.
Instead being caught by the wind and flying up, I went plummeting to the ground, which seemed to come rushing towards me at an alarming rate. I think I screamed, after all, it’s hard to be sure when you are watching your death come to greet you and your entire life is flashing in front of your eyes. That’s a lot for a seven year-old to process all at once.
In what was probably the shortest flight in the history of the world, I crash-landed in a clump of tall grass below the window. I felt like I had just been in another fight with Doug, and wanted nothing more than to lie there and die. How could I have been so stupid? There was no way that I could ever fly, I started to cry. Partly from feeling hurt, and partially from the embarrassment of it all. I felt strong hands lifting me up from the ground and my dad asking if I were okay. I wiped at my tear-streaked eyes and felt angry. How could I have though that I could fly? I had been so dumb. As I made to tear the cape off and stomp on it, my dad said, “Wow, you looked just like Superman.”
I stopped crying and looked at my dad. He was smiling down at me; I wiped away the tears.
“Really?”
Dad nodded and said, “Really, I thought you were going to fly away for a minute there.”
I had done it, I had actually been flying! The possibilities were endless. With a little practice I would soon be able to fly anywhere. I just needed more practice!
As if seeing the cogs turning this over in my brain, and wanting to stop me before I’d actually succeeded in killing myself, my dad said, “Jason, you know, I’d really miss you if you flew away and couldn’t get back.” He paused and considered his next words, “Promise me that you won’t ever fly again.”
What? Never fly again? He couldn’t possibly be serious, could he? As I looked up at my dad, I had a sudden realization. That realization was how Mom would feel if I had flown away and couldn’t get back home. I knew how much I'd miss her, and probably how much she'd miss me too. It was then that I made one of the toughest decisions of my life. I promised him that I would never fly again.
To this day, I have kept that promise.
I have always been intrigued by superheroes. It has been in awe that I have watched reruns of Wonder Woman, the Bionic Man, and Batman & Robin. Before we’d moved to Summit Valley we had had much better T.V. reception in our hometown of Rockford, Washington. We were fortunate enough to watch all of these shows, plus many others.I always admired Wonder Woman. Not only did I think she was beautiful, but I often wondered what it would be like to have her bracelets which could deflect bullets, her headband that could be used as a boomerang, and her invisible jet that was…well—invisible. However, there was something about that invisible jet that really bothered me. I just couldn’t understand how was it that she could still be seen, while her jet was invisible. After all, she must have looked simply ridiculous to people standing on the ground who saw her flying around in a sitting position. I also wondered…if her jet were really invisible, just how did she find it again after she got out?
Despite this shortcoming, it didn’t stop my siblings and me from making our own superhero utilities and weapons; yet no matter how vigilantly I cut the paper, colored the stars on the bracelets, or how carefully I taped them to my wrists, they simply wouldn’t deflect the Legos and tinker toys my sister threw at me.
One of my other favorite shows was the reruns of the Bionic Man. The show as about this normal guy, just like anyone else, until the day he was in a horrible accident. He was going to die. The government decided that the only way he could be saved was to mechanically rebuild him using parts of machines. After his surgeries, Lee Majors could run amazingly fast, see for miles with a bionic eye, and even bend solid steel bars! I remember trying to run with bionics, but just couldn’t seem to go fast enough…or slow enough rather. Whenever he ran in slow motion, he always got to places quickly, whenever I tried to run in slow motion, it took me a lot longer to get to wherever it was I was going. I remember at one point that I had thought about getting myself into an accident so that the government would outfit me with bionic limbs, but when I thought about getting my arms or legs torn off, I decided that this wasn’t really wasn’t worth it...no matter how cool bionics were.
While most of the heroes I admired as a young boy had shortcomings and weaknesses, there was one which had none of these. This hero needed no machine parts attached to his body to make him strong, no bracelets were required to deflect bullets, and he needed no special toys or gadgets to make him the hero he was. You got it, I’m talking about Superman.
Superman was, by far, the greatest hero that I had ever heard of, and I wanted to be just like him. Now, it wasn’t his ability at catching bullets in the palms of his hands, the way he could pick cars up over his head, or even his x-ray vision which made me want to be like him. It was something altogether much more amazing…it was his ability to fly. Superman was the only hero who was able to become airborne without balloons, helicopters, or airplanes. It was this power which made me so envious of him. Superman, with his blue tights, red cape, and curl of black hair down his forehead was the ultimate hero.
When I was seven years old, I imagined myself having Superman’s powers. I got myself completely wound up as I thought about flying over the trees and fields of Summit Valley, looping all the way up to the clouds. Oh, I could just see the looks of jealousy on the faces of my second-grade friends. Even the big fifth and sixth graders would have been impressed as I leapt super-high to make an out during our recess kickball games. I would be a hero myself, protector of little kids (when I wasn’t flying around having fun that is), and I would incinerate any bully who tried to push me around with lasers from my eyes. It would be soooo cool.
Since my mom would never let my siblings or I have any candy, getting it was a rare treat. I thought of how I could fly to Blue Creek, the nearest town, and get all the candy I could possibly eat….it would be fantastic. Best of all, I could fly back home again and my mom would never even realize that I’d gone.
However, imagining that one can fly is not nearly as amazing as actually doing it, or so I’d convinced myself, and I decided that learning to fly is what I needed to do. Now, I started out simply enough with my flying lessons…my first few attempts consisted of running across the lawn as quickly as I could, and then leaping into the air with all my might. Unfortunately, I usually only ended up knocking the wind out of myself, and getting a lot of grass stains on my clothes.
I realized that the problem must have been velocity. I was sure of it. I wasn’t traveling nearly fast enough. I looked around the yard until I spotted what I’d been looking for. The tire swing! I walked over to the weeping willow, and swung the tire swing out as hard as I could. I watched it as it arced out, nearly two feet over my head. It was perfect!
I was at once ready to try my first flight, but then I thought wiser of it…I realized that I should probably head to the kitchen first, and get a snack for my journey. After all, maybe I’d feel like flying around all day. I thought of how nice it would be to have something which I could eat on the trip. Mom was busy someplace, and nobody else was in sight; so I helped myself to three or four plums from the kitchen counter. I carefully put them into my pockets so that they wouldn’t fall out, and set out again for the weeping willow.
Now, I was ready! I climbed aboard the tire, and began to sway my body back and forth, back and forth. It didn’t take long before I’d built up quite a bit of momentum; I moved from side to side like pendulum of a clock. Soon I was traveling pretty quickly, the air rushing in my face. As I watched the ground racing by, I began to feel just the teensiest bit nervous. Okay, I was petrified. However, I blew out a deep breath, closed my eyes, and on the next arc of the tire, flung myself out into space.
I left the tire swing like a rock from a slingshot. I felt myself flying through the air, I’d really done it! I was flying. However, as suddenly as I felt this incredible feeling of air travel, I felt myself being drawn to the earth like a sack of rocks someone had thought were pretty once, but then decided to get rid of. I hit the ground, pretty hard, and felt something wet shoot all over my legs.
When I opened my eyes I was winded, after all, it had hurt. Had I been in any sort of condition to speak, I probably would have used a few of those words I’d used when Doug had been over several weeks before. However, bad words were the last thing on my mind. When I looked down at my legs, I saw that they were covered with a reddish liquid and this pulpy stuff was hanging in chunks out of my pockets.
I had exploded! Some of my insides were now on my outside! I think I screamed, but I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t know if any part of the pulp was part of my lungs! In fact, I couldn’t breathe…it must have been my lungs.
I was going to die!
I must have sat there for a minute, too scared to move, afraid that I would squash some of my insides, and then they wouldn’t work anymore. I carefully felt my sides and stomach, I didn’t feel any gaping holes or any areas that had been torn wide open. Upon careful inspection, I realized that the pulpy stuff was actually the plums I’d stuffed into my pockets. I stood carefully, not totally convinced that the fleshy tissue hadn’t actually come from me. However, a moment later I breathed out a sigh of relief. None of it was from me after all.
That night when I went to bed I was depressed, I was no closer to flying than I had been at the beginning. As I lay in bed staring up at the shadows dancing on the ceiling, I put my bright little mind to work on why Superman could fly and I could not. As I dropped off to sleep nothing came to me.
I remember at some time in my life somebody had told me that if you ever have a problem, and couldn’t figure out what to do, you should think about the problem just before you went to sleep, and when you woke up in the morning, your brain would have it all figured out. Had I known this when I was younger, I would have been doing this all the time. However, this little bit of advice worked like a charm, even though I had yet to hear about it….when I awoke in the morning the answer was in my brain, just like magic.
The answer was so simple, and I don’t know why I hadn’t been able to figure it out before. Superman would always fly as Superman and never as Clark Kent. Of course! How could I have been so stupid? All I needed in order to fly was a cape. It was only with this vital accessory that flight could finally be achieved. I immediately set out to find the perfect cape because, after all, it had to be really special for it to really work. One of Mom’s bath towels wouldn’t work properly, and neither would the sheet from my bed...it had to be a special piece of fabric; one that was certain to be magical.
It was after much deliberation that I finally decided to use my favorite blanket as my cape. I had had it for as long as I could remember. For all I knew, it had been left to me by a genii or wizard one night as a cape with miraculous powers, and I had never realized it. There it had sat on by bed for years and years without me ever knowing its ultimate potential.
I used a safety pin to attach the two corners of the blanket securely under my chin. I poked my fingers a few times, but finally at last attached my cape. I walked to the bathroom and studied myself in the mirror…definitely super-heroish. As looked in the mirror, I still felt that I was lacking something. Superman had a really cool costume and even though I didn’t think I needed one to fly, I still wanted to look as much like him as I possibly could. From what I could remember, most of his costume was blue…that is, with the exception of the red underwear he wore outside his tights.
I began to dig through all my clothes, and finally decided to wear my favorite shirt—the one with red and blue stripes. It had been my favorite shirt, and one I was sure would undoubtedly help me to soar among the heavens. After all, I probably wore this shirt five days a week. It was with me whenever I went exploring or hiking; it only seemed fitting that it should accompany me on my grandest achievement of all.
I carefully removed my cape and changed my shirt; it felt better, so much more special and magical with all its familiar smells and memories. I don’t know why I loved this shirt the way I did, but I did. I would have never taken it off had my mother not forced me to do so…to me it was more than simply a piece of clothing; I felt that it was almost a part of me, an extension of myself. I would have worn it to church on Sundays had my mother let me.
I checked myself out again in the bathroom mirror and I had to admit that I looked pretty good; the stripes of the shirt went perfectly with the blues of the blanket which flowed behind me like a river of pure silk. Never had I experienced such a feeling of overwhelming power! I decided that my jeans were good enough for the flight as they were blue. I contemplated wearing my underwear on the outside of my jeans, but decided against it, they were white…not red like Superman’s. Besides, this would be much too embarrassing.
I strode out of the house with all the confidence of a kid who knew a terrific secret. All I needed now was the perfect place to make my flight. Where could it be? I thought of my episode with the tire swing the day before and decided against it. What I needed was a new place—a place without any previous attempts, after all, there was no sense in jinxing my real flight with memories of past failures. Maybe I could leap from a tree? It sounded like a good idea, but there were few in the open I could readily climb. The trees in the woods would have been a poor choice because the branches of the other nearby trees would have gotten in my way. Though I had to admit that it would have been fun to weave in and out of the branches when I was flying, I decided against it. I needed a clear spot of airspace for my first flight.
As I was contemplating where I should take to the sky, my eyes were drawn to the old barn which was situated behind our house. I hurried to the backyard and began to study the tall wooden fence around the pasture, as well as the barn itself. I saw that it was possible for me to climb to the top of the fence, and leap from there. However, after a minute, I decided that it wouldn’t be that wise after all, what if my cape caught on a nail or one of the wooden posts?
I considered using the cattle run, which was an elevated ramp, with side rails so horses or cows could be loaded into the back of trucks to be moved someplace else. I walked to the top of the ramp…it was a good three feet off the ground. I was sure that I could run up the ramp, and leap into the air from there.
I walked to the bottom of the ramp and looked around me, the air was suddenly still, the sound of birdsong was notably absent, and even the very wind (which usually blew through the branches of the nearby trees and grass) was motionless. The entire world was strangely silent, in anticipation of my flight. I blew out a deep breath, and began to run to the end of the ramp. Closer and closer it came, I put on more speed and when I reached the end of the ramp I leapt into the air with my arms in front of me. For a second it felt like it were going to work, but I felt the draw of gravity as I was pulled towards the ground and landed—somewhat clumsily—on my feet.
I stared in disbelief. What was wrong? I was wearing my lucky shirt, I had a cape, and was even wearing clean underwear under my jeans to ensure a perfect flight, yet here I was, unable to take to the air.
I sat down on the grass and thought. Something was wrong…what was it? As I looked around, my eyes fell on the old barn—more specifically, to the small window on the east side which was seven or eight feet off the ground. That was it! I wasn’t jumping from a distance that was high enough! I was sure of it! I felt elated at my new discovery and pulled open the huge swinging barn door. The barn was dirty and murky-looking inside, not having housed animals for many years.
I moved cautiously through the barn to the window on the east side. Sunlight was shining in, illuminating the dust in the air. I had often watched the dust particles floating in the sunbeams lancing through our house, and I’d often wondered if the dust was only in the sunbeams, or whether the dust was always in the air and we were always breathing it in. If that were really so, did we have huge balls of dust forming in our lungs? The thought was pretty cool.
I moved to the window and climbed on the workbench someone had built into the wall years before. I stood carefully, and walked the open window. As I looked out I was spellbound. I had never seen the woods and creek beyond the barnyard from this height before…it was beautiful. However, this was no time to admire the view, I had come to fly and fly was what I was going to do.
As I looked down at the ground below I suddenly felt a wave of pure and simple fear. The distance from outside the barn looking up to the window looked pretty high, but from up here looking down the distance seemed to be miles. I may as well have jumped off the roof!
I was thinking that maybe I didn’t want to fly quite so badly when I saw my dad coming out to the barn. This could be it, I decided. My big moment, and my dad would be there to see it…I knew that he hadn’t been impressed with the fight with Doug because Shawna had had to save my life. In the next few seconds, I made one of the biggest decisions in my life.
“Dad!” I yelled. “Look at me!”
Those were famous last words, I have come to decide. I wish that the blanket I was wearing had come with a warning labeled on it saying something like, “Wearing this blanket as a cape does not guarantee the ability to fly. If you try to fly with this, you are a complete idiot.” But the blanket didn’t come with such a warning, and I jumped. I wish I could tell you that I took off over the trees, and explored new vistas with my dad smiling proudly on saying, “That’s my boy!”
I didn’t.
Instead being caught by the wind and flying up, I went plummeting to the ground, which seemed to come rushing towards me at an alarming rate. I think I screamed, after all, it’s hard to be sure when you are watching your death come to greet you and your entire life is flashing in front of your eyes. That’s a lot for a seven year-old to process all at once.
In what was probably the shortest flight in the history of the world, I crash-landed in a clump of tall grass below the window. I felt like I had just been in another fight with Doug, and wanted nothing more than to lie there and die. How could I have been so stupid? There was no way that I could ever fly, I started to cry. Partly from feeling hurt, and partially from the embarrassment of it all. I felt strong hands lifting me up from the ground and my dad asking if I were okay. I wiped at my tear-streaked eyes and felt angry. How could I have though that I could fly? I had been so dumb. As I made to tear the cape off and stomp on it, my dad said, “Wow, you looked just like Superman.”
I stopped crying and looked at my dad. He was smiling down at me; I wiped away the tears.
“Really?”
Dad nodded and said, “Really, I thought you were going to fly away for a minute there.”
I had done it, I had actually been flying! The possibilities were endless. With a little practice I would soon be able to fly anywhere. I just needed more practice!
As if seeing the cogs turning this over in my brain, and wanting to stop me before I’d actually succeeded in killing myself, my dad said, “Jason, you know, I’d really miss you if you flew away and couldn’t get back.” He paused and considered his next words, “Promise me that you won’t ever fly again.”
What? Never fly again? He couldn’t possibly be serious, could he? As I looked up at my dad, I had a sudden realization. That realization was how Mom would feel if I had flown away and couldn’t get back home. I knew how much I'd miss her, and probably how much she'd miss me too. It was then that I made one of the toughest decisions of my life. I promised him that I would never fly again.
To this day, I have kept that promise.
Labels:
childhood,
flying,
memoir,
Summit Memoir,
Summit Valley,
superhero,
Superman
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Summit Memoir 3 - Vitamins do NOT make you stronger
Pin It
It was like a miracle had occurred in our house. The beating incident stopped Doug’s bullying and bragging, in fact, he started to avoid me altogether. He was probably afraid that I’d tell dad about something he’d done and get him into trouble. I did have fun playing it up for the next two days though. I would walk slowly whenever I was around him, and sit down very carefully. It also helped if I sucked in my breath, utter a sound like, wuuuuuuuhhh, and clinch my eyelids shut, like it really hurt.
I had the hardest time trying to keep myself from laughing.
Even though Doug had stopped picking on me, we didn’t become friends that summer. I was grateful, at Mom’s insistence, that it was time for Doug and Tracy to go back home. I can’t describe the feeling of peace I felt watching Aunt Joan drive away with Doug and Tracy. It had been a long, hard month having them stay with us, and I was grateful for my life to return to normal.
Not long after my cousins had left my mom had told us something that I’ll never forget…she told us that vitamins made you strong and therefore, you should take them every day. I did a little figuring with my 7 year-old brain and came to the conclusion that if one vitamin a day would make you strong, then a whole handful of vitamins would make you even stronger!
My sister and I snuck into the kitchen when Mom was reading a book in the living room. We carefully opened the cupboard and took out the Multivitamin and Vitamin C tablets. My sister ate a few of the Vitamin Cs, but didn’t want any of the others. My siblings and I called them “horse pills.” This was mostly because they were huge tablets that could have choked a horse and they tasted terrible! I spread about a dozen tablets over the counter and got a glass of water from the sink. I popped the first multivitamin into my mouth and instantly was greeted with a bitter taste that made me wince. I grabbed the glass of water and forced it down.
Shawna looked at my face and shook her head. “The Vitamin C tastes better.”
I looked at her; did she think I was stupid? Of course I knew that the Vitamin C tasted better…they almost tasted like candy, but the Multivitamins tasted more like the grain we fed to our goats.
“I know that,” I said. “But these are better for you; they’ll make you stronger faster.”
She shook her head and watched wide-eyed as I downed another nine or ten tablets. I was starting to feel a little sick, but I realized that I needed to eat even more of those tablets if I wanted to be really strong. I took another four or five tablets, thinking that I’d probably had enough to make me as strong as I’d like to be. In fact, I felt stronger already! It was like my muscles were growing larger as I stood there. I flexed a bicep and grinned, surely it was bigger now than it had been only a minute ago.
I grinned at my sister and strode from the kitchen into the living room. Mom was still reading her book. I cleared my throat. “Mom,” I said as I flexed my muscles. “Do I look strong?” I was a little worried that when I flexed I would rip out of my shirt, but luckily I didn’t.
Mom glanced up from her book, and looked at me with a confused expression. “No, why?”
I was shocked. Maybe she hadn’t been paying close enough attention. I leaned forward and flexed again, like the guys on the covers of muscle magazines. Surely she would be able to see it now. “Don’t I look strong, Mom?”
She put her book down and shook her head. “No. Why would you look stronger?”
I stopped flexing and looked at my biceps, actually, they didn’t look any bigger than they had been a few minutes before. “Well, you said if we took our vitamins they would make us strong.”
Mom nodded. “Yes.”
My shoulders drooped, “Well, I just took a whole bunch of them, and I don’t feel any stronger.”
Mom’s eyebrows shot up like window blinds. “You did what!” she yelled, leaping out of the chair.
“I ate a bunch of vitamins.”
Mom bounded across the room like one of those lions that attacks their prey in the nature specials. She scared me as she grabbed my shoulders. “How many did you eat?”
“I don’t know...twelve?”
Mom looked like she was ready to faint. “Twelve vitamins?”
“Well,” I admitted, “Maybe twenty?”
“Twenty!” Mom was near hysterics. She ushered me to the bathroom and made me stand over the toilet. “Throw them up right now!”
I looked at the toilet and wondered just how I was supposed to throw them up. After all, you don’t just think to yourself, “I feel like throwing up” and do it. I stood there stupidly, not knowing what to do. Mom tried several things to get me to throw up, but none of them worked.
We had a neighbor during this time, Larry. He’s been my dad’s best friend ever since middle school, and he was currently staying in a little travel-trailer parked by our weeping willow tree. Mom ran out and asked him to give us a ride to the hospital in Chewelah, and in a matter of minutes we were flying down the road in Larry’s Honda, the countryside flashing past the windows more quickly then I’d ever seen it go before. Even though the ride to Chewelah should have taken us nearly half an hour, we made it in only fifteen or twenty minutes.
Mom left Shawna and Larry in the car and bustled me to the emergency room. A nurse listened to my mom, who was near hysterics, telling her that I’d swallowed half a bottle of vitamins. The nurse led us to a room where I was told so sit quietly on the examination table, while another nurse started asking questions. How long ago had I taken the vitamins? Did my mom bring the bottle with her? How many vitamins had I actually swallowed? The questions went on, and my head started spinning. I started to feel confused. The nurse started taking over my head to Mom.
As they talked, I looked around the room at all the strange instruments. I wondered what they were for, and who had been in this room before me. Had that person come in this room because they had swallowed too many vitamins as well? I wondered if the hospital had a special room for every kind of sickness, and when you came in you were automatically taken to that room.
I was studying the packages of gauze and bandages by the sink when I heard the nurse say something about pumping my stomach. I listened as she told my mom that a tube would be forced down my throat—one attached to a vacuum cleaner that would suck all the stuff out of my stomach. I started to cry and grabbed my mom; they were going to stick a vacuum cleaner down my throat!
I was near hysterics when the nurse suggested that we just might try something else. “If we try this and it doesn’t work, we’ll have to pump your stomach.” The nurse said seriously. “Hopefully, this will help induce vomiting.”
I nodded vigorously and wiped the tears from my eyes; if something could save me from getting my insides sucked out, I was willing to try it.
The nurse got a tray with several paper cups and a pitcher of water. She poured me a glass of water and told me to drink it. I was eager to do everything she said so they wouldn’t do anything else to me. I drank the water, even though it was warm. When I finished the cup she handed me another glass, and instructed me to drink it as well. I did. Boy, this was easy, just drink water? How easy could this get?
After my fifth glass I decided that I didn’t want anymore water. My eyes were floating in their sockets, and my stomach was starting to get full. The nurse handed me another cup and told me to drink it too. I tried, but I just couldn’t. I was so full I felt like I was going to explode. I started to cry, “I can’t drink any more!” I wailed.
“Well, then we’re going to have to pump your stomach.” The nurse said. I started to hate this woman, her job was to make people better, not torture them!
She forced another cup into my hands, “Drink it!” She ordered. I raised the cup to my lips, and as the water started to go down, the other water I already drank began to come up. I dropped the cup and began to throw up. The nurse must have known that this was going to happen because she was ready with a pink plastic bowl which she shoved in my face. I threw up for a few seconds, and I felt instantly worse. I started to cry harder and the nurse handed me another glass of warm water.
“Drink it.” She instructed.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to!”
I looked to Mom for help, but she shook her head. “Drink it, Jason.”
I couldn’t believe this, they were in this together! They both wanted to torture me. I shook my head again. “I can’t.”
“Then we’re going to put the pipe down your throat and suck it all out.” The nurse warned.
I knew I sure didn’t want that pipe down my throat. I closed my eyes and forced myself to down another three full glasses of water. I started to throw up again. I was crying pretty hard by now, and this became our established pattern. I would cry, the nurse would threaten, I would drink, throw up, and then we would do it all over again.
After what seemed like eternity, and it felt like my stomach had turned itself inside out, the nurse announced that I had gotten everything out of my stomach and would be all right. I wiped my face with a towel, and felt sicker than ever. How could this have happened? I felt awful! I just wanted to take a nap, I was so tired…but I didn’t want to take one here, I wanted to get out of here as quickly as I could.
While Mom filled out some papers, the nurse helped to clean me up. When she was done she handed me a sucker. I’m sure this was a bribe so that I wouldn’t tell anyone how mean she’d been—after all, what sort of adult gets their kicks seeing a little boy throw up until she nearly kills him? She then asked if I had any brothers or sisters. I told her I had a sister out in the car—I was hoping that maybe she wanted to torture Shawna too, but she didn’t seem to want to, instead she handed me another sucker. What luck! I got two suckers from her! I staggered dizzily out of the room with my mom, when we got outside to the car I was feeling pretty good about myself. I had gotten two suckers!
“Where did you get those?” Shawna asked, eyeing the suckers in my hand.
“From the nurse.” I said. “All I had to do was throw up a million times.”
As the car pulled away from the hospital parking lot, Shawna looked on enviously. I waved the other sucker in front of her face. I had two suckers and she didn’t have any…I, at least, was going to enjoy this!
“Jason, give Shawna one of the suckers.” Mom instructed from the front seat
What? Give one to Shawna? Why would I do that? She hadn’t done anything…I was the one who had his stomach turned inside out. Mom took one of my suckers and handed it to my sister, who greedily began to eat it. I folded my arms and sat back on the seat. It just wasn’t fair! I thought, I go through the torture and Shawna gets rewarded for it?
I sulked all the way home, and felt a general anger directed toward everyone in the world at this point. However, I did learn several important lessons that day: First of all, don’t believe your mom when she tells you that vitamins make you strong. Second, nurses always lie. And third, if you ever have to go to the hospital and you get two suckers, hide them both so you don’t have to share.
Labels:
memoir,
stupidity,
Summit Memoir,
Summit Valley
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
