Wildwood 50/20

50/20

Wildwood Trail

A 50/20 consists of walking 50 miles (80 km) in less than 20 hours.

We started at 9:00 p.m. and walked all that night and most of the next day.

It was an excruciating 19 hours, but we succeeded.

Upon returning home, we literally crawled into the house, where a wonderful wife and mother had prepared a lovely dinner, which we didn’t touch.

My younger son collapsed, totally exhausted, on the couch, while my older son crawled downstairs to his bedroom.

After some painful rest of my own, I went to my younger son to make sure he was still alive.

“Are you OK?” I asked.

“Dad, that was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I never want to do it again.”

I wasn’t about to tell him that I would never do it again either. Instead, I told him how proud I was that he had accomplished such a hard thing...

I then went downstairs to my oldest son. I lay by him—then touched him. “Son, are you alright?”

“Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and I will never, ever do it again.” His eyes closed—then opened—and he said, “Unless my son wants me to.”

APRIL 2015 LDS General Conference•Larry M. Gibson•Fatherhood-Our Eternal Destiny

Prepared

I do my running early.  There aren’t many conflicts at 5:00 in the morning so it’s just a battle between running and sleep.  And I’ve gotten pretty good at tipping the tide toward running.  I’ve completed a couple trail marathons, have run relay races, and obstacle course races.  I find my pace has been increasing as I age and rain has become an excuse to sleep in.  I’m good with it.  I’m hoping one of my kids talks me into another marathon one of these days but can’t think of much that would motivate me to do one other than that.

All that and I’d never heard of a 50/20.  I was excited to try it and even better Sarah was willing to give it a try with me.  Maybe we could get Arwen to go too.  We’d get a few training hikes in before hand, then just do it.  The distance wouldn’t be a problem, I’d run marathons, 26.2 vs 50 I know, but we’d be walking.  My calculator told me we’d need to hike at a 24 minute/mile pace to make fifty miles in twenty hours.  So we’d walk at a 20 minute/mile pace, allowing us a few breaks here and there and a little buffer time.  The lack of sleep wasn’t going to be that bad either.  I handle sleep deprivation pretty well during long distance relay races, and I still manage to function pretty well after an all night drive down to California.  What else was there?  Food and water.  We toyed with food drops along the route but figured we’d just throw what we needed into a backpack and avoid having support, or having to plan ahead to much for drops.  I mapped a few fifty mile there and back again routs from our front door, none of which felt that exciting.  I tried some 50 miles drop off a car routs at the end from our front door.  All in all there were too many stoplights, too much  cement, and not enough nature.  Time passed and our planning got more and more hypothetical. May. June.  Weekends were over scheduled, training hikes never happened, summer was coming to a close.  July. August. Perhaps next year.

September

The 50/20 is on!  We’re going to start on the northwest end of the Wildwood trail in Forest Park and hike 25 miles, there and back again.  It’ll be just Sarah and I this time.  We’ll get the kids on one when we all start hiking more.  We packed 100 oz water bladders, protein bars, nuts, fruit, and some nasty energy gummies Thursday night.  I skipped running Friday morning, went to work, forgot a lunch, came home, ate some burritos, I made a few extra for the hike, said goodbye to the kids and hopped in the truck with Sarah.

It was the 4th and this hike was my awesome birthday present.  There was only shoulder parking at the train head and I worried a little that the truck would get broken into.  Something that kept my mind off of hiking now and again for the next twenty hours.  We started walking at 6:00 that afternoon.

Sunset: 7:45 PM

We walked as long as we could without headlamps because we didn’t know how long our batteries would last and it was going to be a long night.  With no moon and the thickness of the forest we had our lights on around 9:00.  I used red light.  We talked, or we didn’t.  The weather was perfect, good company, and still too early to be tired.  We were in the thick of the adventure.  The night was dark but for the occasional glimpse of city lights off to the northeast.  We took a wrong turn about an hour before moonrise.  It was dark and we missed a sign and kept merrily walking along what we thought was the path.  The trail was unkempt compared to what we’d been on and after half a mile we decided to turn back.  We found the correct turn and continued on.  

Moon Rise 11:42 PM

Moon rise came without notice as far as I remember.  It should have been visible when ever we got a glimpse of the city.  On occasion we were close enough to hear city noises, distant voices.  Our packs began to weigh us down.  I was constantly adjusting straps and the waist belt trying to find some formula that would make the pack weightless.  So it passed the time.  The trail listed to the left and I began to feel it’s effects on my joints.  The night wasn’t half over.  At five miles till turn around Sarah had a brilliant idea.  Ditch the backpacks.  We swigged some water and stashed a few snacks in pockets.  Not that we’d seen a soul we nevertheless stashed the packs behind a tree buried in some ferns and hoped and dreaded we’d find them again.  We weren’t skipping, but ditching the backpack definitely lightened our spirits.  We began heading down hill.  So far we’d seen about 2300 feet of elevation change and we're starting our 700 foot descent to the old stone house.  It got colder and colder as we dropped in elevation and soon became uncomfortable.  I was shivering when we reached the old stone house.  On the way down we realized that our 25 mile turnaround point was going to take us up a 600 foot climb in a quarter of a mile.  The switchbacks from the stone house up to Cornell Road.  So I went over and over the math making sure we had it correct.  With the extra half mile detour that we wouldn’t repeat on the way back and the early hour it was hard to come to a conclusion.  In the end we decided on another quarter mile down and back along Lower Macleay trail would put us back on track.  It was really cold down by the stream.  I walked a little further than the quarter mile to be sure as my GPS was not all that accurate under the tree cover and in the canyon.  We rested at the old stone house for as long as we could before forcing ourselves to climb out of the canyon.  A few nice things about the climb, we were on our way back to the truck though it hurt thinking about the distance ahead of us still.  The immediate nice thing was that it noticeably warmed up as we climbed to the point that the cold no longer added to the many discomforts of the hour.  With only a few hours till sunrise I switched from red to white light.  I longed for the sun to rise, the darkness was weighing on me.  I figured we’d get back to our packs just before sunrise.  During one of our breaks Sarah laid down in the dirt and looked so comfortable, she could have slept for hours.  I also felt like I’d fall asleep mid blink.  It felt so good to close my eyelids.  My joints were sore, my muscles were sore, I was tired, I was sleepy, we were a long way from home.              

Sunrise: 6:36 AM      

It was miraculous what a difference the light made.  The sun's slow rise gradually extended our view.  I was less and less likely to pass into slumber mid step with every blink of the eye.  Conversation started back up.  I was able to distract myself taking pictures and videos.  Though the light didn’t relieve the wear on my knees and hips.  We began to see people, running people, smiling people, people that had just woken up.  People that had no idea how miserable we were.  We said good morning, and Hi, and smiled back.    Our pace was slipping and we were at risk of not making it in twenty hours.  I needed to stop and stretch every quarter mile to keep going.  The quarter mile markers became my milestones.  A sip of water, a bite of food, and stretching as a reward every quarter mile.  When we’d averaged a pace that insured our failure for a few miles Sarah told me to go without her.  I resisted, this was our hike, we’d do it together.  But then we’d fail together and all Sarah wanted was for me to make it.  I wasn’t sure I could make it.  I needed to bump up my pace and I was having a hard time with the current pace.  Sarah told me to make it for her, so for her, I left her.  I increased my pace and soon Sarah was out of sight.  Quarter mile after quarter mile I continued toward the finish line.  My legs were swollen and stretching forced the fluid out of my joints for a little while.  Pressing on my shins would leave indentations like playing with silly putty.  I thought that perhaps jogging would use my joints and muscles differently and I theorized that maybe I could switch off walking and jogging.  I made it perhaps 3 footfalls before I gave up on that idea.   I was worried about Sarah.  I calculated her pace as I passed through the last trailhead.  I had five miles to go.  If Sarah kept at her pace by the time I got to the truck and drove around to the Germantown road trailhead she’d be around 10 to 15 minutes beyond it.  I didn’t know where she was and I prayed that she was okay.  It started to rain.  It felt good but I worried about it weighing me down.  I worried about Sarah.  It didn’t rain hard enough to soak me.  Blue diamond marker after marker painted on trees counted down the quarter miles.  I was on track.  I hadn’t figured out what to do yet.  Sarah might be waiting at the previous trailhead but we had no way of communicating.  I doubted I’ve have the strength to hike back and look for her once I finished.  There were too many possibilities.  I prayed that she’d get a ride, or know that I’d come to get her and the last trailhead.  She could be just an hour or so behind me.  I reached the mile 30 marker, the end, at 19 hours and 50 minutes.  I still needed to walk the tenth of a mile or so up to the truck.  Just as I started I ran into Sarah.  I was so happy to see her.  So relieved that she wasn’t struggling back on the trail or wondering if I’d come looking for her.  So happy to be done.  So happy to have done it with Sarah.  So happy she did it with me.  Definitely this was one of the best and most memorable Birthday presents I’ve ever received.                         

Black Diamond Mines

Black Diamond Mines

I grew up not too many miles from Black Diamond Mines in Contra Costa County in California.  We spent a lot of weekends exploring and hiking it’s many trails, caves, grave stones, mines, boulders, and cliffs.  

Somersville,

Rose Hill Cemetery,

Nortonville,

Jim’s Place,

Stewartville,

Prospect Mine,

The Audit,

Star Mine,

The Swallows Nests,

Carbondale,

Lark Trail,

Coal Canyon,

Cumberland Trail,

Black Diamond Trail,

Oil Canyon,

Ridge Trail,

Manhattan Canyon,

Eureka Mine,

and Chaparral Loop. 

One year around christmas time we climbed up into one of the great oaks and collecte mistletoe, tied a red ribbon around little bunches and sold them in front of Raley's Grocery store by Dad’s Dental Office.  We'd sat at those same sliding doors giving away kittens on a number of occasions.  There used to be a penny gumball machine in that store and we got caught once buying gum with indian and wheat pennies from Dad’s closet.

In the early days Black Diamond Mines was a little rougher, the cemetery run down, parking was free and you could squeeze into some of the mines through the bars.  Or perhaps that was just because I was a skinny little kid back then.  We’d started a little camp fire a few times at the cliffs by the swallow’s nests and roasted hot dogs.  Inspired to get something ready for the ward talent show one year I hiked in a rope and video camera with some of my friends.  We tied up the rope to a tree hanging over the top of the cliffs and swung out over the abyss.  When we were done and had enough good footage I took the VHS tape and recorded clips between two VCR’s and even recorded a song over the top, “I’m Still Alive” by Pearl Jam.  I didn't make it to the talent show that year but Jay Jackson showed it and it horrified a lot of parents.  

As you pass Eureka Mine on on Chaparral Loop the trail becomes sand stone and names are carved into it wherever you look.  One of my favorite things to see on that train were the old manzanita trees, gnarled and old with smooth red bark.  The greatest part of the hike was the sandstone hill that we’d lime to the top of.  Covered with manzanita we’d snake our way to the top, hand over hand, in between red and yellow sandstone boulders.  The view from the top was spectacular. You could see the cemetery, and all the way out to the where the San Joaquin and Sacramento rivers met, and Mount Diablo off in the west over the golden hills spotted with green oaks.  On top we’d hunt for the dragon carving that has been maintained by someone over the years.  And other carvings.  We’d find countless someone + someone’s carved into the soft stone.  I’m sure our names are up there somewhere but we were never all that patient when it came to carving when there was exploring to do.  We called the animal trails that criss crossed the area hobbit trails because they were too small for big folk.  The trail down the other side was narrow and had a lot of switchbacks which made you feel like you were moving faster than you were.  We’d fly down the hill singing “Nothing can stop the running trail” while trying not to fly off the trail at the tight corners.

There was an old tree out on the way to Jim’s Place on Coal Canyon or Black Diamond trail that we called Tree Beard because you could see a face in it from a certain angle.  Jim’s place was a cave where some guy named Jim used to live.  I don’t know much of the history but always wanted to live in a place like that.  He had a hole where a chimney pipe would poke out and a square skylight carved out of the sandstone and even shelves carved into the wall.  I can’t imagine a better place to live than out in the golden california hills in a nice warm cave hunting rabbits and deer for food.

Sometimes we’d hike through sunset and by the light of the moon.  Our weary feet and whining voices longed to be home in bed.  Wearing us out was probably one of the top reasons to go hiking anyway.  Sometimes we’d get separated the faster kids in the front pack with Dad and the slower kids in the rear with Mom.  Dad would leave us trail markers pointing which trail to take when we came to a fork.  Sometimes we’d run ahead just to leave trail markers knowing that Dad would find them and know which trail we took.  

I helped restore the old cemetery one year and secreted away a C&H brick in my backpack that was made in Pittsburgh and I’m sure is haunted by the ghost of whoever’s grave it was from.

I love climbing the black attle hills, debris from the Eureka mine.  

I remember one Christmas Day playing chestnut baseball up near Lark trail.

I’d always find a walking stick that I needed to bring home, along with sandstone blocks that I’d carve into shapes by rubbing them against cement.  I’d collect the different colored sand from the stones in bags and layer them in canning jars or discarded beer bottles.

We've found snakes, seen deer, imagined bears and dragons, and had wonderful times at Black Diamond Mines.                  

Firecrackers

Firecrackers

     As children we would often wander the streets, the wharves, the forts, the parks, and the beaches of San Francisco on family outings. Dad would take us to all the best places and always find the best free parking spots. Finding a spot was like finding treasure and the tighter the fit the better. I remember examining the inches between bumpers with pride as we piled out of the van. One winter day we were circling the blocks of Chinatown unable to get in line for the underground parking garage, the one exception to the free parking rule. On the third time around the block we were startled by a man knocking on Dad’s window. He rolled down the window and the man handed Dad a piece of paper. Dad looked it over, ask a few questions, then put the car in park, said a few more things, handed the paper back, rolled up the window, and started around the block one more time. I don’t remember understanding what was going on during the strange window conversation in the middle of the street but it was different and anything different was exciting. When we had come back to the same spot the man was there again with a big box of firecrackers. There were bundles of the little black cat fireworks, and boxes of M80’s and M100’s. We eventually got a spot in the parking garage below the park and then walked up to Kam Lok’s to eat. Being located underground with only the door visible up on the main street level made it feel like the place was a secret that only a few people knew about. A little side note on Kam Lok’s. I’m not sure if it was just our unsophisticated palates or that the food has gone down hill, but last time I took Sarah and the kids there it was pretty bad. In all fairness I did order giant undercooked frog legs which may have biased us to the rest of the meal. So in recent years Kam Lok’s has been replaced by a nice bread bowl of clam chowder on the wharf or a San Francisco Fire at Osaka Sushi in the Castro District.

     I peered down and what Dad was doing. He had a empty soup can and bored a hole in the side toward the bottom just big enough to jam a black cat firecracker into. Then a potato was then jammed into the mouth of the soup can. Dad lit the fuse and we watched the sparks make their way into the firecracker. There was a muted crack and the potato went flying into the air. The smell of gunpowder filled the air and we ran to fetch the potato for another launching. With each potato explosion the lure of the M100s would leach a little more excitement out of the black cats. The once fearsome firecrackers became mear small potato smashers. Dad must have felt the tug of the M100s as well because just as I was about to burst he went and got one. He waved his hands and shooed us back onto the front porch. The fused didn’t seem long enough. Dad had warned us about “quick fuses” that would go up all at once instead of crawling their way to the payload. He struck a match and lit the end of the fuse. The moment it took he flung it arching onto the front lawn. I held my breath and covered my ears. There was a flash and the loudest boom I’d ever heard outside of the Fourth of July. The billow of smoke drifted to reveal a crater in the front lawn. By the look on my Dad’s face I could tell it was louder than he’d expected. The boom shook garage doors and echoed up and down the block, and probably would have set off car alarms, but thankfully we didn’t have such things in the olden days. Doors opened, and curtains parted up and down the street but for ours. We quickly escaped into our entry.

     The black cats were the first to run out being set off in the backyard or on New Year’s Eve and the 4th of July. The M80s and M100s lasted for years sitting in the lower section of the gun cabinet with all the ammo.

     I was most of the way through 8th grade at Park Junior High School (K7-9). I had a few school friends and a best friend Jimmy Harrington, we’d gone to school together at Sutter Elementary School, but I had no classes with him at Park Junior High. I rode my bike to school cutting off of Lone Tree Way at the top of the hill and one street over onto a dirt trail that lead to the upper track and then down to the school. This was the stoner hangout, I knew most of them but not well. Either I kept to myself or they did, or both. I had friends but never felt like I belonged in any of the groups so I kind of floated around in between them hanging out with anyone. I imagine this left me feeling a bit of an outsider sometimes. One of these days I found myself on the edge of a conversation about firecrackers. Kids bragging about the sticks of dynamite their uncles used to hunt wolverines and stuff like that. I had to come up with something to get into an awesome conversation like this so I blurted out that I had a bunch of M100s and M80s at home. No one believed me. I insisted. Then to prove it I said I’d sell one to one of the kids for a dollar. I was going to be pretty cool when everyone found out that I really did have boxes of M100s and M80s at home. The next morning I met the kid up on the trail on the hill above the track and made the transaction. I had my dollar and the kid had the M80. I think I felt a little cooler than I had been the day before but it was hard to tell. The hours passed by and the day proceeded as normal. I went to my classes and the teachers did something or other while the kids whispered and passed notes. I doodled and counted the pencils stuck in the ceiling, which I’m sure make me think of what a bad pencil fighter I was. My pencil fights ended with either me breaking my pencil by pulling back to hard, or getting my pencil snapped on the first round by holding it overly tight in my hands. Then it was lunch. I found out that the M80 had changed hands about a dozen times and half the school it seemed had seen it. “Hey look what I have”, type thing. I was enjoying this. Then the blast went off in the lunchroom. Kids were running out holding ringing ears. Some kids were scared, but mostly startled. A lot of the kids, I guess, were expecting this but I hadn’t been part of the plans. It was an exciting lunch and most of the kids enjoyed it I think after the initial scare and the smoke had cleared. Then it was class as normal except for the announcement asking for someone to come forward and rat out the kid that lit the firecracker. I didn’t even know who it was so I was in the clear. Then in the middle of my favorite class, science, my name was called over the intercom. I was to report to the office immediately. As I walked in I remember seeing Sasha sitting there looking guilty. I didn’t think it was him that’d lit the M80 but there he was. It turns out he was the rat. I saw the kids that lit the M80, I didn’t know him. I confessed to the principal that I’d sold the M80 to someone before school and figured I’d be sent back to class. But the interrogation continued with questions about where I’d gotten the M80. I could tell that they were making a big deal about this and so I said I’d bought the M80 as well from some stoners up above the track but didn’t know their names. Mom and Dad had to come and pick me up from school. I’m not sure what was said but eventually I was expelled from school with the kid that set the thing off. I finished off the year in Antioch Junior High School. I didn’t know anyone save a kid from church. I mostly kept to myself, it was a miserable way to end the year. But it didn’t last all that long, our home in Brentwood would be finished over the summer and I’d be attending the 9th grade at Liberty High School.

     The M100s and M80s remained in their boxes in the gun cabinet next to the ammo. I don’t know how many weeks or months or more passed before I had a great idea that required an M100. I put a couple in my pocket with some matches or a lighter and jumped on my bike. I pedaled down Orchard Lane then right onto Marsh Creek Road to the corner where there was a trail down to the creek. I was hidden from the road down there by the bank and trees, up the opposite bank was an irrigation canal that has since been removed. The mud was soft but not overly wet. I dug a goodly sized hole in a flat spot and hauled over a big rock that would fit snugly over it’s mouth. I figured it’d be able to throw the heavy rock quite a ways so I did a dry run of dropping the rock on the hole and running to my place of cover where I’d watch the M100 blast the rock into the air. I positioned the rock, lit the M100 and tossed it on the hole. Then tipped the rock over onto the hole and was halfway to shelter when I noticed that the rock had not made a good seal. There was a little gap. All this took a split second including the decision to turn back and give the rock a good stomp to seal it. The instant my full weight pressed down on the rock it blew. Everything went black, I was blind and disoriented. My ears were ringing, I tried to stand but could not put any pressure on my ankle and fell back to the ground. I crawled around and and up what I hoped was the opposite bank searching for the water in the irrigation canal to wash the dirt out of my eyes. It seemed like miles with the stinging pain in my eyes and throbbing in my ankle. I tried to remember if the fence between me and the water was barbed or not but figured it didn’t matter. I felt hot sun on the back of my neck as I cleared the shade of the trees and knew I was close to either the road or the canal. I found the fence thankfully not barbed and crawled under. I wasn’t sure how deep the canal was and kept hitting air as I reached for water. I awkwardly inched down and eventually hit water. I stuck my head in and forced my eyes open shaking my head back and forth. It stung really bad. I tested my sight. I could feel the grit from the mud sanding away my eyes when I looked around. But I was glad I could see as I went back to the water for some more rinsing. Eventually I concluded that all I had left was scratches that would heal in time. I rolled onto my back and lay there with my eyes closed resting. After some time I crawled my way back down into the gully and spent a little time surveying the aftermath through the crack of one eye. The rock was sunk in mud a few feet away from the hole that was quite a bit wider than it was. I’d crawled over the area enough that I couldn’t tell where I’d landed but it was probably pretty unspectacular. I took my bearing closed my eye and crawled up toward my bike cracking my eye on occasion to verify my trajectory. I single pedaled it all the way back home then limped into the kitchen where mom ask what happened. I imagine I looked pretty bad. I muttered something about crashing on my bike and wandered up to bed where my mind wandered in day dreams. There I was wide eyed and excited on the front lawn at Marble Drive. The memory tinted late evening blue. I felt the aggregate of the front walk on my ever bare feet, it was cool and Dad was saying something about dangerous quick fuses.

Toppling Boulders

Above the tree line there’s granite sun warmed and gray, granite and blue pools of ice water, granite melting glacier, granite peaks and ridges white against the blue sky. Granite is everywhere. 

We crested the ridge and caught a glimpse of the lake down below. It was probably Upper McCabe or Roosevelt or the Conness Lakes or some other lake that felt as far away. We had our poles and some tackle and and hope of finding some native trout that might be swimming around in the high remote lakes. Trailless we wandered using Conness and Northpeak to navigate. From boulder to boulder, searching for my next purchase only after leaping, I flew. I landed and stopped looking back for Dad and felt the boulder totter back into place. When Dad caught up we teetered and tottered on the massive piece of granite. We looked around, alone in the high Sierra Nevada mountains with nothing but the granite, the glaciers, the lakes, and the itch of mischief in our minds.

One...two...three...huurumph! It rose, slowed, and almost stopped whilst crossing it’s apex. We held our breath, time slowed, muscles tense, connected by will to the stone that had rolled out of reach. Eyes wide we watched what we had set in motion. It fell toward the steep slope and crashed down on the rocks below it, it’s momentum lifting the other end high into the air and over. End over end it accelerated down the ridge pulling lesser boulders in it’s path. The faint brimstone and gunpowder smell of crushed granite swirled around us. Booms and cracks and and their echoes and the echoes of echoes filled the air. The loss of silence was crippling. We were deaf to the whispers of the mountains and felt the vulnerability and the unseen eyes on the back of our necks. Then it was over, the last few pebbles finding rest, the dust settled, and all was again still and quiet. When the last echo died and the last dust wisp settled there was nothing to give evidence to the passage of the stone. All the power and noise absorbed back into the endless piles of boulders and into us. It infused us with strength. We exhaled. That was awesome! Excitedly we looked for another candidate for more bolder crushing mayhem.

Banging and crashing and crunching the next boulder careened down the ridge toward the valley below. Our eyes followed it’s trajectory, our hearts sank. There was a vivid splash of green and brown against the gray. A tree, knotted and gnarled, weather-beaten and old, alone. The boulder crashed left and right fine tuning it’s path toward the tree. To grow in such a barren place, to survive. Out of nowhere, it was lost, it didn’t belong, but it fit. With every ricochet we willed the boulder away from the tree. But our Kung fu was no match for that of the boulder. The cracking and splitting of wood stabbed unmistakably through the roar of rumbling rock.  The boulder settled. The silence was lonely and thick and blanketed the gray landscape.

~Aaron~

Tossing Cat

Tossing Cat

Click, the fan catches and turns toward my feet.  Beads of sweat flourish in the resulting stagnation.  The alarm clock glows,  just after one in the morning.  I reach for the bottle of warm water and give the trigger a few squeezes.  The mist mingles with sweat awaiting the return of the fan.  Torpid thoughts attempt to decide if this is doing any good.  Should I just keep the fan pointing at my head?  But I’d have to get up.  I bear the decision made back in lucidity.  The fan turns back toward legs and feet languishing in dead air.  It's hot...really hot.  

Not soon enough, but eventually consciousness fades away into heavy blackness.  Chest gently rising and falling in the stillness...rising and falling...inhaling and exhaling...  I can’t breath in, I panic, my heart races, reflexively I reach toward my face and find a fist full of fur.  I rip it away and hear a thump against the wall.  What’s happening?  My hand goes back to my face sticky with sweat and covered with what? What is this? Cat fur?  I get some in my mouth and try to spit it out.  It’s just after two.  I reach for the spray bottle again, wipe my face on a sheet and close my eyes.   My heart slows, my muscles relax, and my breathing becomes even...in...out...in...out.  I take a deep breath and think, breathing is good. Then a faint thought, floating below the others; I hope TC isn’t hurt.

Sputtering and gasping for air I look up, red eyed at the cat dangling in my clenched fist.  Heart racing I toss the cat savagely toward the far wall.  No satisfying hiss or yowl accompanies  the thwack.  What’s wrong with that cat?  Is it dead?  Do I care?  Well maybe just a little.  My thoughts drift from anger and suffocation slowly toward stillness.  Breathing...I’m still breathing...that’s good...sleep is good...

Arrrghh! I awake screaming.  Whack, the cat slides down the wall.  Again!  I get up and go for the grab expecting it to run.  It doesn’t.  it just walks toward me with a meow. I pick it up by the back of its neck and walk quickly over to the open window and chuck it.  Head, tail, head, tail it flies though the night from the third floor game-room where I’m staying this summer.  I don’t bother to watch if it ever pulls out of the spin.  I don’t listen for the splat.  I don’t let myself wonder if that was a good idea.  I’m already in bed.  It’s not as hot.  It’s after three.  I half-pull a sheet over myself.  The fan clicks and whirs.  Wind blows across my face.  I fall asleep.

In memory of TC (Tossing Cat)

Aaron 2010

For history’s sake I’ll mention, in footnote, that this was not the demise of TC.  By lucky coincidence of proximity, the window that TC was thrown from was above Mom and Dad’s deck.  TC probably pulled out of the spin and landed only one story down.  I don’t even think that was the last time I tossed TC that night.  I remember still being awake when next TC jumped up on the bed, and vaguely remember reluctantly closing the windows to get, at least, a few hours of sleep.

Round Here Things Die...If They Don't Git Killed First

Round Here Things Die
If They Don't Git Killed First

Many and sundry creatures have embarked on their journey to the other side within the care of the Nielsen home.  Some noteworthy instances I will present in abridged form merely in appreciation of having heard them as I did not experience them first hand.

I chuckle at the image of a rigor mortis pony bouncing behind a tractor leaving "little bit" bits and pieces along the way to front of the property to be made into glue or jello or whatever useful things they do with dead ponies.  Way to pitch in, Little Bit.

I wonder at the stealth of skelator kitty quietly decomposing under a bed and leaving nothing but a pile of bones, not even a scent apparently.

I smile at the sentimentality of melting bunny left out in the eucalyptus trees,and visited on occasion, as it melted into a puddle of goo.

I cognate on the metaphysical complexity of Nevada's possession of a puppy's mind (how this was accomplished I don't conjecture here, if through mind control, inherited instincts, or some heretofore unthought means, the outcome was the same). Now little Nevada bounding to and fro with weightless ease, chasing down a gopher snack as he was wont to do in his own overweight, arthritic, and decaying body and swallowing it whole to the discomfort and eventual demise of the puppy.

No, I can not dig further into the aforementioned stories and if there is more detail yet to be shared, and I'm sure there is, it will have to be done by others.  Though I can and will proceed to share a few of my own experiences with things dead, decaying and dying.

Chirp It Up Fuzzball
The windows were open in an attempt to catch a bit of fickle breeze on a hot summer day.  Dad sick in bed with the flu listened fitfully to the metronomic chirping of a ground squirrel off in the distance. All of a sudden he got up and zombied into the hall and down toward the kitchen. I followed anticipating the coming excitement.  He found his way to the library and upon entering pushed around in the bottom of the gun cabinet until he located a single .22 bullet.  He then selected a rifle and started back up to his room.  Now this was getting exciting, I could hardly contain myself, but I didn't say a word following suit as I followed dad back up stairs.  He loaded and cocked the gun with a satisfying click, took aim resting it on the window sill, and fired.  Mid chirp that squirrel was blown off it's stump.  The echo died away leaving a still silence.  Lying the gun down against the wall dad walked back over to bed and went to sleep.

The High Jumping High Flying Rabbit
The front 10 was overgrown with the golden weeds of California summer.  Seeing the opportunity to help out a bit I took some rope and a piece of plywood with corrugated steel nailed onto the bottom and made a dirt ski.  The wood was attached with a rope to the old 250 and looped back to be held by the skier for stabilization.  I'm sure we took it slow at first but as we got braver we went faster.  Soon enough we were zipping all over the front 10 knocking down the weeds making jumps* and at one point clobbering a jackrabbit.  We turned around wondering if we really hit it and sure enough there was this jackrabbit jumping five feet in the air on one good leg and smashing back down having gone nowhere.  Feeling sorry for it I decided to put it out of it's misery...but having no other weapon than the 250 I decided grinding it to death under the back wheel would work just fine.  I parked the back tire on it, revved the engine and holding the front break popped the clutch.  The effect was spectacular though unanticipated...the rabbit was hurled off into the distance, out of this life and into the next with a 250 hours power salute.  Watching in awe, mouths agape, the carcass disappeared out of sight.  We scanned the horizon for any movement.  Nothing.  Good.  So back we went to mowing the weeds feeling satisfied by the success of the funeral service we'd rendered.

* It turns out it was Pepper's grave mound.

Good Aim Bad Shot
Joseph and I wandered around the yard pellet gun in hand shooting at various objects.  The metal ones gave a satisfying plink, the wooden ones a satisfying thud leaving a satisfying hole.   But after a while we grew bored of plinks and thuds.  Somehow our attention was turned to a cat off in the distance.  Hunting, what better application for our finely honed skills?  One pump of the gun would throw a pellet hard enough to leave a welt but not much more.  I loaded, pumped, took aim, fired, and was rewarded with a satisfying screeching meow as the cat ran off to a new spot some distance further and on a fence post.  It was Joseph's turn now but not being sure if a single pump would reach the cat and after some consultation I'm sure we decided on two.  He aimed and fired and like any little brother I was quick to poke fun at his failed attempt.  The cat didn't even flinch.  It just sat there on the post.  I reached for the gun to show my superior skills and then the cat slumped to the side and plopped on the ground without a satisfying sound.  And out of nowhere there was one of the little girls asking "what happened to kitty?"  We felt horible and with "Nothing, Nothings" Joseph ushered the little sister into the house and I was left to grab a shovel for the non-satisfying task.  I walked out to the cat to find that it was still alive having been shot though the stomach.  I dug a quick hole and put the cat in and put the shovel square on the neck of the kitty and jumped hard as I could fully expecting the head to pop right off putting the thing out of it's misery.  The head stayed attached through a few more failed attempts but by then cat was gone anyways.  I filled the hole and walked away.  Some time later I shot Joseph in the back*.

*It may have actually been before this incidence that I shot Joseph in the back...ether way I figure we're even.

Sweet The Sound of Bird Song.
It was spring, the day's were cool, the sun was warm, and everything was in bloom.  A mama and her baby birds were nesting in the rafters just out side the boys room.  I made a big deal about how cool it was that they had birds singing them to sleep at night.  They agreed.  Then the heat wave came, the birds flew away, and an illusive stench began to develop in the boy's room.  We first noticed it at night when checking on the kids before going to bed.  It wasn't Joshua's diaper, but that didn't mean it wasn't the boys.  I left the door open to vent out the room and went to bed.  The next morning things hadn't improved.  We sniffed high and low but could not locate the odor.  I suspected Noah's heat baked pee mattress. I eventually took it out of the room as the scent got stronger, it was not the mattress.  As the day drew on Sarah suspected dead mouse as the scent brought back fond childhood memories.  Scouring the room reveled nothing so she quarantined the room locking it and placing a towel under the door to keep the foul stench from further contaminating the rest of the house.  Then it dawned on me...the birds.  I took a flashlight outside and shined it up at the rafters.  Mama bird was strangely immobile, head stuck into a hole in the wire attic vent, legs and body dangling.  A sickening dread of things to come made for a fitful sleep that night.  It was hotter the next day as I crawled up into the attic space.  It took super human control not to add the scent of bile to the putrid potpourri of death that permeated the attic.  Birds frozen in their final throes of death were everywhere.  Already beads of sweat were dripping down my face and stinging my eyes.  I hunted for dead birds in the insulation fluff for two hours praying I'd found all of them.  I was drenched and woozy when I finally had all the birds and tainted insulation stuffed into garbage bags.  In the end I'm left to exclaim "sweeter than bird song is a cool clean shower."

~Aaron 2009

Conness

Conness

11:30 PM (Camping at Saddlebag in the Summer of  2007): Joshua is sick with a fever and can’t get to sleep.

1:00 AM: Joshua’s crying…I feel around for the pacifier then feel around for Joshua’s mouth…then silence but for the soft metronomic sucking of a pacifier.

1:30 AM: Sarah’s turn.

3:30 AM: I extinguish the beeping of my watch alarm and go out into the darkness of the moonless morning. The headlamp was illuminating white clouds of breath making it almost easier to feel my way around than to try to look through it. I kissed Sarah and snuck quietly out of the tent. Being mostly packed I collected the last few items that the sleepless night reminded me that I’d forgotten.

4:00 AM: Guiltily I walked away from camp leaving pregnant Sarah and the three little ones behind as we begin our climb. Joshua’s cry pierced the quiet as we walked down the hill toward the dam. We crossed and left the trail that circumvented the lake to start the arduous shale assent. The world painted itself gray in our rings of lamp light and fell again into darkness as it tumbled and shattered down the mountain behind us.


Sunrise: I wiped sweat from my forehead and began to shiver as pink spilled over from the east. With each step my energy slipped and skidded away behind me and came to a quiet rest in a cloud of dust.

Flashback to 1988 (my first time climbing Conness): As I packed some trail food into a backpack early one morning I received a reminder that I was not to climb Conness. Conness is a deadly looking mountain of jagged peeks and ominous cliffs near Tioga pass. I’m sure I’d mentioned something about wanting to climb it, and it was obvious that if any mountain was to be my destination that day Conness was it. To my fourteen year old self it was the only mountain around worth climbing, I wasn’t climbing for the exercise but for adventure. Anyway I was armed with semantic justification that one could not really call a mountain “climbed” unless he stood on the summit. It would be easy enough not to do that, so I started toward the glacier crusted peek of Conness. I remember the solitude that I felt on that hike. I was alone for as far as I could see in any direction. I wondered if it was possible that no one had ever set foot where I was walking. Though logically it didn’t seem likely it sure felt possible being up there. I’d brought a little Gideon New Testament with me and read as I walked. Shortly, or so it seemed, I found myself within easy reach of the summit. I turned around and started back for camp. I arrived late that afternoon and began to organize an expedition for the next day. Returning alive from the near summit was probably the most persuasive of my arguments that convinced Dad and a few others to join me. On the way up we stumbled upon an old wrecked plane in the bottom of a crystal clear glacial lake from which we filled our canteens. The last leg to the summit took us up a narrow path with thousand foot cliffs on either side. It’s always looked to me like we were walking up an elephants trunk towards it’s head. We sat there on the peak for a long time. The clear and beautiful view of white granite mountains, little blue lakes, and scatterings of trees fell away in the distance with the curve of the earth.

6:00 AM: The cold air pressed painfully against my throbbing head. I laid down on the rocky ground to rest or die. There on the ground the gray of the wilderness focused into a beautiful rainbow of tiny plants and flowers. The freezing burn in my throat subsided as my breath slowed down. I stood, the flora blurring back into grayness, swallowed some aspirin and numbly set off toward the summit.

8:00 AM: How old was I now? I never keep track and was having a hard time doing the math…thirty something. I was hiking with my little brother Michael and couldn’t admit that I just wanted to give up and turn around. The “I can’t make it” was on the tip of my tongue but just wouldn’t spill out. I kept on hiking, knowing that every miserable step towards the top would mean an increasing miserable step on the way down. I told my self it was the lack of sleep or even wondered if I was sick. But that little voice in my head would reply “No, you’re just being a wimp”, so I kept on moving.

10:00 AM: I wanted to enjoy the beauty of the morning above the tree line, the sound of wind and water flowing across the rocks. I wanted to, but it was so much to just keep moving while trying to act like I wasn’t a complete wimp. We climbed up over the last ridge and were blasted with a bitter cold wind. I couldn’t stop shivering. We paused for a few pictures and climbed to the summit, signed the log book, ate some lunch, and started for camp.

  
The Decent: On the way down I found a strangely human looking bone, put it in my pocket and some time later noticed it was gone. We told Sarah and Heidi to expect us back at camp by 3:00. We slipped and slid off of the shale and onto the last leg of trail around 2:55 (I was at least able to take some pride in my timing) but that slight hill up to our campsite now loomed larger than the mountain itself. We’d be late because of me. I stepped onto the road, dreading the climb, then out of nowhere Sarah and the car came around the corner.  In my mind, lacking the actual energy, I ran up gave Sarah a big hug and a kiss as I spun her around. She’d come to save me. Thank you Sara! We waved them down and with difficulty I pulled myself up into the passengers seat.

Not Going Home: We let the kids splash around a little in a stream near Tioga pass. Then headed off to soak in some hot springs on the way home. It didn’t help, but the kids had fun. I told Sarah I wouldn’t be able to help drive that night as planned so we got a Motel room, which was also a blast for the kids. Perhaps the best part of my day, or what made it better, was when we checked my temperature and it was 104º.   103º latter in the motel.  Thank goodness for an excuse.

~Aaron 2008

The Rope Swing

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The

Rope Swing

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Dreaming
I was going on 14 in 1988 when the construction of our new home out in Brentwood was starting.  We'd go there on the weekends to see the progress that had been made since our last visit.  We would water trees, one at a time, siphoning from the old gas tanks that would slowly fill from our well.  We would wander through the unfinished house as it slowly took shape.  And we'd explore.  In short order, I found the sand mines smelling of dead cow and littered with beer bottles and trash, they were great for exploring and adventuring.  Eventually they were blasted and bulldozed into oblivion.  There was a creek near our house from which we'd catch and eat crawdads with pieces of cheese on strings or a wire mesh trap if the water was deep enough.  Later we heard that marsh creak supposedly contained higher than normal levels of mercury.  But the creeks potential wasn't just in supplying poison crawdads, it also had massive oaks lining its banks, oaks with rope swing potential.  There had been one rope swing back in Antioch a mile or so away from our old house on Marble Drive.  It was quite popular until someone (so the story goes) went flying off into the bushes and came walking out with a stick poking through his eye and into his brain.  He walked home, went to the hospital and had the thing removed with no permanent damage (so the story goes).  I never knew the kid, or his name, but like many of the us that frequented the rope swing I grew to dislike him, whoever he was.  Dislike because Stick-Brain-Boy was used as proof that the rope swing was dangerous, it was cut down and monitored by police for a while to be sure it didn't get put back up.  As far as I know it never did.  There were other rope swings here and there but nothing special, nothing with the potential that the creek oaks near our new home had.

Finding
There are a few essential things you need for a good rope swing; a steep slope, a good tall tree with far reaching branches on it, and most importantly, a rope.  And if you are lucky enough to find all of those you'll need two more things; someone than can be conned into climbing out onto the limb to tie the rope and someone else duped into testing out his knot.  When we found the tree it was clear that there had never been a tree better suited for a rope swing than this one.  It clung to the side of the steep creek bank, and the area below was cleared due to a gravel road that came down into the creek and followed it for a few hundred feet before climbing up the other side.  The limbs stretched out in all directions, one being perfectly situated over the center of the clearing. Now we needed a very long rope.  Just before the start of my freshman year of high school we moved into the new house.  Time enough had gone by that I was no longer actively looking for a rope; I just kept it in the back of my mind.  Weeks or months later I was on my bike riding down Marsh Creek road toward the John Marsh home on some adventure or another and there was the rope.  I veered toward it, as the sun burst through the clouds, and the birds started to sing.  I hit the brakes too hard, everything slowed down, dust and gravel hung in the air, the bike balanced oddly on its front tire, and I drifted slowly through the air toward the rope.  I grabbed it as I rolled never taking my eyes off of it.  I came out of the roll with a length of the rope in my hands resting on my haunches, dust settling all around me.  Amazed at my luck I lifted an end of the rope to covet it.  The rope was more than an inch think, very long and very heavy.  I began looking around, a ravenous beast protecting my scrap of meet.  I coiled the rope again and again around my neck and shoulders and struggled over to my bike but was unable to ride with it on.  I briefly considered stashing it, but feared that portal to some parallel universe from which the rope had obviously come, would open in my absence and greedy little hands of some parallel self would snatch it back into oblivion.  No, that was a risk I could not take.  Somehow I managed to lug it home.

Building
The tree was tall, very tall.  Death being on the line I had to climb up and tie the rope myself.  There were a few rotten boards nailed into the tree from some primitive child's attempt to explore the heights of the tree.  When I reached the end of the ancient rungs I was merely to broken arm or leg height, with still a long way to go.  From there I had to use the rope itself to climb, the limbs being too far apart from one another.  I'd throw the rope up over a high branch and use it to pull myself up.  Eventually I was standing on the limb that I would tie the rope to.  I leaned against the trunk to catch my breath and tend to a few wounds.  The branch was wide enough just to walk out on, but that presented a problem in wrapping the rope around it.  My arms wouldn't fit around to hand one end to the other.  I figured I'd just swing the rope with one hand and try to catch it with the other.  While reaching out to catch the rope I lost my balance and nearly fell out of the tree.  Unable to think of any other way to get the rope around at the moment, and being impatient, I kept swinging the rope around the limb with eventual success.  The knot was tied.  But would it hold?  "Michael" I yelled, "its ready give it a try".  It held.

Flying
At first we just jumped from the bank beside the tree trunk, feeling brave with our twists and backwards jumps.  We inched our way higher and higher on the bank but soon tired of that launching spot and sought for another.  We found a unlikely and scrawny oak tree that was in the proper location, branches so small that they would snap off if we were not careful to place our weight near the trunk.  Though any pity we may have felt for the little tree could not spare it as it proved to be an exponentially exhilarating launch spot.  It was taller, more dangerous and we didn't have to worry about crashing back into the trunk of the giant oak on our return trip.  The greatest feat of daring that was ever performed from the second launch spot was that of Carl Pantel.  Carl, being large in stature, was not well suited to launch spot two.  I don't remember anyone coaxing him, but all of a sudden there he was clambering up the scrawny little oak tree.  I watched, shocked, speechless and at the same time morbidly curious of how the baleful disaster would unfold.  I couldn't help but think of Horton up in his tree oblivious to the fact that he didn't belong there.  We cringed at each broken branch and the trees awkward tilt as he climbed.  Incredibly he reached his precarious perch and called for the rope, now a mere thread that would snap with the slightest pull.  Someone needed to stop this madness.  My finger lifted as my mouth began to open... as time slowed and he took flight.  He was out of the tree twisting and tumbling toward the hard rocky slope below when with a groan and a stretch the rope caught his weight and shot him skimming across the creek and rising high into the air on the other side.  There was a whoop of delight from Carl and the echoing of exhales from everyone else as breathing resumed. As far as I remember he never jumped again.  Launch spot two lead to the discovery of the great and final launch spot.  If it were possible to get enough speed from the small oak tree our trajectory would have placed us height up in the fork of a much taller tree on the other side of the creek.  The fork was nearly the height of the branch that held the rope itself.  We found a way to climb up and a means of getting the rope up to the jumper.  Their was a slight problem in the math that equated to not being able to straddle the cross board prior to launch as was done from the other spots.  The rope wasn't quite long enough and you had to lean out to get one hand on the rope the other anchoring you to the tree.  To launch you'd jump out toward the rope, position the cross board between your legs with your free hand while floating in the air, and grab hold of the rope before free fall ended.  The rope would catch your weight and fling you across the creek, eyes watering, cheeks pulling back, tongue flapping in the wind, and hurl you high into the air above the skinny oak.  There a weightless silence enveloped you as you rolled back toward the earth to begin the decent.  In the beginning we'd slow down naturally swinging back and forth and back and forth as we bask in the exhilaration of it all.  Eventually we'd dig our heals into the gravel as soon as we could not being satisfied with anything but the initial circuit.

Losing
We were always careful to put the rope up after each use; we'd climb the end of it high into the tree to insure that it wasn't easily accessible to anyone that might leave it dangling.  We never had a run in with cars as they seldom traversed the creek.  We were careful not to give anyone a reason to remove it.  Then one day I made the trek down to the creek and the rope swing had been destroyed.  It had been cut in half about the height of someone standing on top of a truck.  Not wanting to believe this was the end of the rope swing, believing there would be some way to repair it I went on a mission of reclamation.  My hands shaking, fighting back tears of outrage, I stormed over to a near by house where I though I'd likely find the guilty party. Unable to hide the accusation from my voice I demanded to know what they did with my rope.  They didn't know anything about it.  I don't imagine that they even knew the swing existed.  I wanted to believe they were at fault and lying about cutting rope but I couldn't.  I didn't have the strength or courage after the initial confrontation to go down the road accusing other neighbors of destroying our rope swing.  I didn't want to know of anyone else's innocence, the whole world was guilty at that moment.  The frayed length of rope still dangles from the tree.  Perhaps in some future it will inspire a boy or girl to turn off the TV or drop the video game controller and begin the quest for the perfect rope.

Aarastas

Employee of the Summer

Employee of the Summer

    I jerked my head up as the door chime sounded, with effort forced my eyes open, and wiped some congealed sweat from my forehead.  I looked at the time-stamp clock wondering how long I'd been asleep, 1:30 AM.  Leaning back on my chair, head flopping backwards and mouth open, I looked out into the store.  Not seeing anyone, I got up.  As I arose, a dirty little kid scrolled into view from behind the counter.  He sat a 10¢ piece of candy down near the cash register and held out a $20 food stamp without saying a word.  "Just take it," I said.  Frowning, he shuffled out into the parking lot and around to the drivers side window.  The car was parked askew, expecting a quick transaction, lights off but still running.  Lifting up the candy in his open palm and slightly raising the fist with the food stamp he said something then shrugged his shoulders in reply to something else. An arm jutted out of the window pointing back toward the store gesturing angrily to make some point.  The kid looked down at his feet, turned and shuffled back in and over to the fridge.  There he grabbed a soda and brought it up to the counter holding out the same $20 food stamp.  I rung him up and his face fell as I handed him his change in food stamps and coins.  I watched him as he walked out, opened the passenger side door and got in.  Almost before his door closed the car tore out of the parking lot, kicking up loose gravel.  Now out of view I heard the screech of breaks at the stop light, the ambient light turned from red to green.   The engine roared, tires squeaked, and in my mind I followed the car with its fading sounds for quite a while.  Then all was quiet again, and the car drove off in the early morning, no doubt trying to make it to the next all night store before 2:00 in the morning. 

     5:00 in the morning, the rush of coffee guzzling commuters not yet begun, the late night weirdos gone home, and the beginnings of day was just showing through the various advertisements stuck to the windows.  A truck pulls up and out gets a large middle aged man, tired and unshaven.  I recognize him as the old gym teacher I never got along with from high school.  On recognizing me he quickly sucked in his gut, and stuck out his chest.  Convincing himself that I didn't notice, he vainly swaggered over to the cash register.  He looked at me with that smug and condescending expression on his face.  That same expression he assumed at school to prove he was the physical role model to his students.  "So, Nielsen, this is what's become of you?" he said suppressing delight in my lack of aspiration.  "It's a job," I replied, raising my eye brows and shrugging my shoulders.  He pulled out three twenties and slapped them down on the counter like I'd probably never seen so much money before.  He named a few lotto scratch it games and headed back out to his truck, where he sat scratching off the sliver film with his thumb nail.  I felt bad for him as he drove off, probably embarrassed to redeem his $12 bounty from the $60's in tickets.  On my way home I was pulled over for expired plates.  

   It was already getting hot when I got home around 8:30 and headed out into the orchard to join my dad and brothers in thinning apples.  Apple after apple, thousands of them, the job was monotonous, only bearable for the conversations and company.  Sweat poring down our faces we turned in till the evening when we'd start up again.  Everyone went their ways and I headed up to the game room, where my bed was for the summer.  You could feel the temperature rise with each step.  Exhausted and sleep deprived, I cranked the fan up to high, kicked off my shoes and tried to catch a few hours of sleep.  I thinned apples in my dreams, apple after apple, pulled from their bunches and tossed to the ground, leaving one or two behind.  Even when conscious, I lie there working out the correct apples to thin, like some puzzle that I couldn't pull my mind away from.  After moderate success at sleep, I went swimming, the only thing the heat would allow, trying to force apple thinning out of my head.  After dinner we all went back out to the orchard until the light was too dim to work.  A few hours later and I was on my way back to the quickie-mart.   
   

    It was still hot, and work was slow, so I took refuge in the most comfortable spot in the store, the cold drink refrigerator.  I spent a lot of time that summer, peering out into the store through the soda bottles, watching for someone to enter.   The fan, with its lulling noise, sent a cool breeze through the fridge.  I got comfy and shivered as the last bits of sweat dried off my face.  I indulged in a long blink of my eyes, mentally keeping track of the time, not bad, still awake, a little longer this time...  I was startled awake by someone opening the refrigerator door and grabbing for a bottle.  Looking out into the store there was 4 or more people where there had been none last time I closed my eyes.  One of them was a police officer, they all were looking around confused, waiting for someone to ring them up.  I walked out of the fridge trying to pretend I'd been busy, probably not making a good show of it as I was trying to remember what time it was when I went in.  I rung them all up, and the store was quiet again, and still hot.  I wandered back into the fridge after starting the thousand or so pots of coffee.

      At the end of the summer, last pay check in hand, and walking out the door, the owner stopped me.  He said it was nice to have an honest employee working the night shift, shook my hand, and said the job'd be waiting for me if I ever needed it again.  Thank goodness I never did.