The Hill
“Hey Alan, me and my dad are going to go biking, want to come?” Emory asked me.
“Sure,” I said, quickly going into the garage to grab my BMX bike.
Emory was a cool kid- he was two years older than me, his dad had a jeep and hunted deer with a bow and arrow, he had a huge collection of G.I. Joe’s, and he could do the biggest tire skids with his 15-speed mountain bike that had white wheels, a red frame, and hand brakes.
My bike was a small black and orange Huffy BMX bike. It had foam guards on the handlebars and frame tube. I really liked that it had foot brakes - meaning when you want to stop you stop pedaling and hold them with your feet. It was just simpler and easier to use than hand brakes. There was a fatal flaw to them however, that I would discover on this ride.
I always loved biking- the wind rushing by, the feeling of freedom as you propelled yourself wherever you wanted to go. The three of us set off with Emory’s dad in the front, then Emory, then myself. Naperville had very little traffic so we rode in the nicely paved streets through our quiet little suburb.
Our street led to a “T” intersection. Going right circled you around in our little subdivision and going left took you out of it. I had never gone very far left as it led to the main street. Not only that, to get there you had to pass a little valley that took you down a steep hill and then up another very steep hill to get back to level ground.
Emory’s dad stopped and we pulled up next to him.
“OK, Alan, make sure you keep up your speed so you don’t have to pedal so much up the other side,” Emory explained to me.
I was extremely nervous. I had never gone down that hill. It looked big.
Emory and his dad took off down the hill, pedaling to gain speed. I paused a moment to gather my courage, then took off after them.
I already felt very far behind them when I started so I pedaled hard to catch up. They were going up the incline already and I had barely started the hill.
As the hill got steeper my speed got faster, then faster, then even faster. The wind rapped through my hair and watered my eyes. My little legs were peddling so fast they were a blur of circular motion. I really wished I had hand brakes because at this point because my foot brakes would not allow me to slow down.
The pedals were moving so fast I was struggling to keep my legs moving so quick! In an instant my feet were thrown off the pedals! My bike swerved at the sudden change of weight.
Without my legs to provide resistance on the pedals I picked up even more speed. My legs hung uselessly to each side and my knuckles turned white gripping the handlebars as I struggled to maintain control.
My mind was racing, “Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap ohcrapohcrapohcrap!”
Then suddenly the handlebars twisted as my tire caught on something, wrenching it from my grip and propelling my body straight over the bars as my bike collapsed beneath me. Flying through the air like superman I saw the pavement accelerate towards my face.
I smashed into the road with my face, tearing a deep gash into my left eyebrow, then tumbled forward like a rag doll.
In a daze and in shock I turned myself onto my hands and knees to find blood gushing down my face, blocking the vision in my left eye and splattering the black pavement with rose red blood.
I panic. I let out a primal scream full of fear and despair.
“GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!! AHHHHHH!”
I crawled to the side of the road in the grass where I found a fast food paper cup and smushed it against my bleeding brow. I grabbed clumps of grass and added it to my attempt to stop the bleeding, still screaming.
Emory and his dad heard the screams and quickly came back down to help me. Emory’s dad quickly took off his white t-shirt and pressed it against my gushing wound. At this point my screaming turns into crying. Emory’s dad flags down a passing car and he takes us back to my house.
“My bike?” I managed to blubber out in my sobbing.
“Emory is bringing them back, don’t worry about it,” he said.
Reaching my house my mom, a nurse takes a look at it. She has no problem seeing others bleed profusely, but the sight of her own child that way makes her queasy beyond all belief. Not only the bleeding, but they said it was so deep they could see the white of my skull. We rush to the emergency room where it was cleaned up, and I got a painful shot in the forehead for anesthesia, then four quick stitches.
After moving from Naperville to Los Angeles I grew up, still scarred by the accident and unable to fully articulate my left eyebrow. Some years later I visited Naperville again with my family.
We drove down that same hill to get in and out of our subdivision as I peered through the window of our rental car, rubbing my fingers against the scar as I recalled the bicycle accident. It looked like such a drab and unimportant stretch of road.
With anxiety in my stomach I closed my eyes and sat back in my seat and tried to forget the whole thing.
Washington’s Column
The following is a excerpt of my climbing journal taken on 6/28/09 during our trip to Yosemite Valley:
“Pitch 3
I was up again for the final push to Dinner Ledge, our planned bivy spot for the night.
This pitch also went free at 5.8, but with the heavy gear I aided the harder sections. I placed two #2 Camalots, specifically I remembered wishing I had more.
I reached the top to find 2 guys, (a party we saw on the approach at pitch 5) to be bailing from the climb. They told me they ran out of water and forgot dinner, so they were beat. It was their first wall. One of them apologized for the smell of their poop tube, but I didn’t notice it at the time.
So I set up the anchor and hauled the pig, getting it up most the way without too much help until a bulge. We finished pitch 3 at seven P.M.
We set up a line to shuttle to the main part of the ledge. I layed down as soon as possible, completely exhausted- more exhausted than I have felt for a long long time.
We relaxed and made dinner. We hauled Tom’s Jetboil so we could eat it hot, but we neglected to bring a lighter (I thought I packed out at home in the bag.)
We both had ravioli. Cold. It was the best ravioli ever. It was so awesome I barely noticed it was cold. Tom finished with some canned fruit where I ate half of each of my Hostess Fruit Pies. They were smashed and leaking on and over everything. Also my tuna pouch was punctured by our utensils and leaked tuna oil which seeped through the food stuff sack and onto Tom’s fleece. A comedy of errors we were that day.
We made our bivy spots and got ready for bed. We made phone calls (five bars!) then settled into bed around 9:30-10:30 P.M. We both forgot ear plugs so we stuffed TP in our ears. We also pissed over the ledge and smelled piss the whole night.
Due to the exhaustion I was wary about being untethered so I used my daises and made a tether to our main line and went to sleep. At 3 A.M. I was awoken to tearing noises. I thought it might have been the mice we saw during dinner so I threw a rock. I head it again a couple minutes later and got my headlamp. Shining it on our bag I see a small mammal with a big bushy ring tail big ears and glowing eyes. I woke up Tom, and told him a racoon was breaking into our haul bag. I got up and it was gone- to where I have no idea since we were 500 feet above the valley floor. It tore into our toiletries bag, but nothing was taken. I went back to uneasy sleep.
Day 3 - Failure
We awoke at 6:30 A.M., feeling completely gone. We forced ourselves to eat a breakfast of Nutella and smashed bagels. Tom could barely force it down. I had a can of peaches also.
Oh, before this we also took our first big wall dumps. Tom went to the far end and I stayed near our bivy, to shit at the same time.
It is a very awkward and interesting experience to shit in a plastic bag (I used the bags that that SPA tests came in.) Finishing up we shove the bags into my ghetto poop tube (a dry bag w/ trash bag liners.)
Pitch 4
The Kor Roof is supposed to be the crux of the route, cleaning it being harder than to lead. Tom had talked about wanting to lead the roof many times before this day, but when it came down to it he asked me to lead it. I had no problem with Tom previously wanting to lead it because I figured that I could deal with the cleaning trickery better, as I had read about cleaning roofs and traverses. But mentally leading is always harder. So I accept the lead. I was not exactly feeling up to it, but I knew we had to get moving if we wanted to get 8 pitches up to the top.
At 8:00 A.M I am geared up and ready to go. The pitch is 150 feet long. The first 50 feet are an easy 5.8 ramp to the roof that I mixed of free and aided. I tried not to leave too many pieces, but I used up a lot of the cams and slings, probably half of the slings. So I get to the roof and begin to aid it. It is four bolts over a severely overhung, blank section of rock. I tried to think of it like our bolt ladder practice climb in Malibu- a 5.11d over-bolted climb called Kim Chi.
It was not too hard and the bolts are always nice and reassuring. The hard part came in pulling over the roof. A small finger crack was above the roof, slanting up and right. I couldn’t see the crack so I had to feel it out with my fingers. Finding slots with my finders I placed fingertip pieces, awkwardly getting into and up the aiders and they still hung into the air below the roof. For 40-50 feet the finger crack went, enlarging to a hand crack that I did some free moves on. I reached an intermediate anchor and clipped in to take a rest. I still had 50 feet to go, had zero slings left, and only about ten cams.
Mentally and physically I was starting to get weak. I had to really push myself mentally not to give up that those intermediate anchors and just rap down. But I knew I had to stay mentally tough and stick to it. I set off on the last 50 feet.
Climbing up a flared out finger crack I was running low on cams. I clipped a couple fixed pieces. I clipped into a rusted and cracked piton, and tried to make a nut placement above. I slotted a purple BD nut into a suspect placement. I bounce tested it and figured it was good enough for aid. I stepped onto it, unhooking my aider from the piton, not clipping into it since I had no more slings. (Actually, I did have one, but I was saving it for another fixed piton in a roof above.)
Stepping up into the aiders I was eying my next pieces when the aiders and nut shifted, popping out of the crack, sending me down. I banged into the rock with my left leg and my right foot, tweaking/ straining a tendon. 15 feet down I was really having mental doubts about finishing the pitch, so I take a little break and start up again.
Clipping the pin, this time placing a cam in the crack, and moving past my last nut, it was still attached to my aider. I struggle to the top running out of all but 6 cams: 1 black + 2 blue aliens, a green c3, a yellow and red c4.
I fixed the line for Tom and tried to recuperate in the shade of the next pitch’s roof.
Tom hits the wall
Tom began the pitch fine, but the same can’t be said about the Kor Roof and last 80 feet of the climb.
Hitting the roof, Tom ells up that he cant get the pieces unweighted and can’t clean them. So 90 feet up and completely out of sight I talk Tom through the process of cleaning a roof - tightening up the Grigri, passing both jugs over the piece, letting out the Grigri, then cleaning the piece once hanging on the ropes.
A long time has passed. Finally I see Tom’s had peak out over the roof. The fun has not ended yet. Getting the ascenders over the lip was a struggle. Cleaning the traversing pitch was a struggle. Tom just about gave up after 10-20 minutes with about two feet of progress.
I tell Tom to try the “Frog Method” and ditch one of the ascenders. The clusterfuck at his harness has him moving the top ascender about 2 inches a step. Numerous times he tells me he has had it. He dry heaves.
The frog system at least gets him making progress- maybe 6 inches at a time, but he is doing it wrong- basically just pulling up with all arms and no legs, but at least he is moving. Nearly 2 hours has gone by since he started cleaning.
Finally he reaches the intermediate anchor and takes a break. He wants to give up right there. I could see we weren’t going to get much further, but I convince him to get up to my anchors so we can at least be at the same anchors to decide the next steps. He agrees and spends the next 30 minutes cleaning the last 50 feet.
At the anchor Tom is done. Finished. he asks me what do I want to do. I clearly know what he wants to do, but I ask him to take a 10-15 minute break and see if he recovers at all. By this time it is 11:30 or 12, Three point five hours combined for the pitch. The temperative had also rose to the high 90s. Tom takes his rest and he is still shattered. We decide to bail and get back down.
At this point it is clear the dream has been denied, but as the day would play out I believe I made the best choices I could have given the situation. I have regrets, but also a lot to feel accomplished about. But back to the narrative…
…
After some time we pack up and get ready to go… Tom took the rack and poop tube, which by now was reeking to holy hell. In exchange I rapped with the pig, setting up a doubled sling extending the rap- as Tom had never done this (neither have I, but like I mentioned before I am better at improvising and applying in practice what I had read about.) So with much grunting I managed to get the pig down to pitch 1, where we run into 2 more guys going up to dinner ledge. They had minimal gear and seemed questionable if they would make it. Finally we get down around four or five o’clock. The temperative was blazing and the winds were raging with gusts at 40 mph.
We sit at the base a long time. Drinking water, eating a bunch of food (tuna + del taco hot sauce = awesome.) We pack up, and I find out a strap on the haul bag is missing, so again I improvise, snagging a nylon cord from another pack and create a makeshift strap.
The hike back to camp was just as bad, if not worse than the approach. Ragged and exhausted, Tom strapped the pig to be the pack mule again and I took the rack, with the added bonus of carrying the poop tube. Good lord it was rank. Almost made me gag. I would smell it bad after every 2-5 minutes.
My shoulders ached. My legs were tired. The climbers trail was a nightmare. The hiking trail was flat but by then the weight was so painful on my shoulders I was wincing every other step with pain. Stumbling back to camp I threw my gear down haphazardly and promptly plopped down in the dirt, laying down. It was over.”
The Watermelon Thief
My earliest memory takes me back to our apartment in Hyde Park, on the south side of Chicago. I can remember our apartment was up on the back side of a 3rd floor of a brick and concrete building in the middle of many such complexes.
Outside our door was an open air walkway with a banister on the left, leading to stairs in the middle of the building. From the walkway we could look down over the small area behind the building like a courtyard that was enclosed on all sides by more apartments. I remember never being down there, but watching curiously as people set up a makeshift volleyball court with poles stuck in gallon drums of cement.
On this walkway, outside our door, my parents and my grandma had set up some orange clay pots to grow some plants from seeds. I remember being excited at the prospect of something being created from next to nothing. Even more exciting was the choice of plant - watermelon.
To create something so huge from such a small seed was a wondrous idea. I eagerly checked their progress with anticipation of what was to come.
The first of the two plants barely sprouted a sickly limp tendril which never seemed to get bigger. The second plant however really took root and sprouted a healthy green vine. As it got bigger we tied it to a wooden chopstick stuck in the soil to give it some support. I remember it being quite big, at least in proportion to my three year old self.
It was fascinating to see a couple melons start to grow. At first they were just little green buds about the size of a pea, and they slowly grew to look like little dark green grapes.
Coming home one day we reached the walkway to find a squirrel at our plants. As we approached he quickly dashed off with something green in his mouth. He stole a watermelon!
“That jerk!” I thought to myself, feeling blustered by the whole thing. I resolved to keep a look out and make sure the other watermelon would survive.
And it did survive, growing to be the size of an egg. Not only that, it started to get some of the characteristic zebra stripes that full grown melons have. It was so big to me I thought it would rip itself off the vine with its own weight. Pretty soon, I thought, we would have a ripe and juicy full grown watermelon.
Until one day, the watermelon thief returned.
I was not there to see it happen, but I felt the devastation. As we were leaving the apartment I checked our plants only to find the watermelon gone. Vanished. A glaring void in a space that was once filled. I stood there in disbelief. I checked all around the plant hoping it was just hidden by some leaves. I could not find it.
I knew it was the same squirrel, returning to complete his total and utter theft of what was once mine.
I was hurt. I was wronged. Damn you squirrel, damn you. I want my watermelon back.
Mister Two
Whenever I went somewhere with Phil and he drove I would watch him pretend to declutch and shift into neutral as we came to a stop light. Pretend, because his silver colored automatic Volkswagen Golf was mechanically incapable of doing so.
“Dude you need to get a stick,” I told him.
“Yeah. Heh heh,” he replied with his trademark chuckle- signaling his acceptance of the fact with the resignation that nothing would ever be done about it.
“We’re going to find a car for you,” I proclaimed, not willing to accept that it would never happen.
And so the search began. Ebay, LAtimes classifieds, and Craig’s List were our primary search targets. Anything would do as long as it was stick, cheap, rear-wheel drive, and somewhat cool. Nissan 240z’s were a prime target, being popular with the car tuner crowd as cheap drift cars. There was always an eye looking for the rare AE86 Toyota Trueno of InitialD fame. While there were always a few scattered finds all proved to be too expensive. We were looking to spend $500. Maximum.
After weeks of patiently searching we finally came across a couple ads that piqued our interest. The first one we saw was an early model Mazda Rx-7 from the late 70s or early 80s, of which we passed on for the age factor and amount of maintenance Wankel engines needed.
Next up was a 89 Toyota MR2. These cars shared the same engine as the AE86, and what made them even cooler was they were mid-engined, just like Ferraris and Lamborghinis. The top it all off, the ad listed it for $400.
We arranged a meeting with the seller, another student from UCLA, and drove my Protege5 to his apartment in Westwood.
As the owner drove it out of his garage the car shone out in laser blue metallic glory- covered in dirt, rusted wheel wells, cracked muffler, messy interior, belching gasoline soaked exhaust through a cracked muffler.
Needless to say we bought it, with cash.
The bill of sale was written in Phil’s name, and we took the MR-2 home that day. Dubbed “Mister Two” we had a blast cleaning it up. Giving it a good wash and wax, tearing out the interior and cleaning that baby up. Changed out the fluids, including a radiator flush where we drained out what seemed like 10 gallons of putrid brown anti-freeze.
Smelling the gas that permeated the air whenever we drove it we knew we had to fix it up a bit. So we got new spark plugs, checked the timing, and even drove down to San Diego to pick up a new exhaust from some MR-2 club tuner guys to fix the cracked one we had.
Phil had always wanted to try out the restaurant Sombrero ever since hearing it in a Blink182 song. So since we were in San Diego we tried it, and it was delicious.
The highlight of the car saga came as we used the car to teach Phil how to drive stick. Puttering around town Phil was competent enough. Yet this was a sports car, and it needed to be driven like one.
As co-pilot and instructor I guided Phil to head up Sepuveda Boulevard towards the valley, a route which contained some nice turns to test his canyon driving skills.
Driving up the hill everything was going well, Phil was having a great time and so was I. The windows were down to keep the gas smell out and to enjoy the natural sound of the car’s engine revving as we barreled through the curves.
As we passed the Sepulveda tunnel the road changes from an uphill climb to a downhill two lane raceway. Feeling confident and wanting to test his mettle, Phil charged through the curves, increasing his speed, testing the limits of the car. Reaching a sweeping right hand turn Phil gunned the throttle.
Suddenly, the tires started to screech and the back of the car swung out left and we were thrown violently around in a 180 spin. With a jarring grunt and cloud of white tire smoke the car simultaneously stalled and came to a halt. As the toxic smelling white smoke cleared we were left staring up the wrong way of the street to see the front of an old Mercedes with a man looking right at us with a mixture of shock, annoyance, and concern.
“Heh heh, oops,” Phil chucked to himself.
“Uhh, we should turn around and get out of the way of traffic,” I said.
Phil started up the car again, and we quickly righted our direction, sticking our hands out the window in sheepish apology to the Mercedes driver. Phil took the MR-2 into to a residential street and I took over for the drive home.
Not too long after we took it to get smogged and found that its hydrocarbon emissions were something like three hundred times what was allowable. Not wanting to put in the time to fix it we sold it to one of Phil’s friends who tried to fix it, failed, and sold it in Mexico.
So long Mister Two, it was fun while it lasted.
Crunchy Snow
Looking out the window I could see the crisp white snow blanketing the yard and the park just across the street. My eyes squinted as the sun reflected off an unusual gloss across the scene. There was something odd about it, and I knew I would have to investigate.
The doorbell rang and I flew down the stairs, for I knew my friend Michael was coming to play for the day. As I opened the door the cold air rushed at my face and I let Michael and his mom in. I quickly closed the door to keep out the cold. Michael removed his winter gear and we sped off to the basement as my Mom and Michael’s Mom talked briefly. She soon left and Michael and I were left to our own devices.
The basement was the kid’s play spot in our house and it kept all of our toys - Contrux, Legos, Lincoln Logs, and more. After an hour or two of building and destroying whatever we imagined I decided it was time to go back outside to play in the snow and investigate the unusual glimmer on the snow.
We went back up stairs and got suited up- snow pants, jacket, beanie, mittens, and squishy snow boots that velcroed closed. Stepping outside into the cold air the neighborhood was silent and still. Living right across from the park I could look out on a vast field as well as the playground close to us and see the white powder muting the normally vibrant primary colors of a children’s playground. Still, there was that uncommon glimmer to everything. We walked down the shoveled driveway to the street, looked both ways and crossed it.
Stepping off the shoveled sidewalk onto the snow covered grass I nearly fell over with my first step as I broke through a layer of ice covering the snow. This was the odd gloss on the snow that had caught my eye earlier that morning. My foot was like the spoon cracking through the suger shell of a creme brulee made of ice and snow. I looked at Michael and laughed. My face gleamed with the excitement of this new discovery.
We walked all over the grass reveling in crunchy sound as our boots broke through the shiny crust. We walked like Godzilla through the streets of Japan leaving rubble in our wake.
Our slow progress brought us to the park which was surrounded with a sandpit. The level of the ground changed, and so did the deepness of the snow. What had been 4-5 inches of snow changed to 8-10 inches, and it was much harder to walk through.
Always liking a challenge I high stepped my way through the deep crunchy snow to the slides. Standing on the platform I noticed Michael falling behind. I watched him make unsteady high steps through the snow, nearly loosing his balance.
“Come on! You can do it!,” I said.
Getting closer, Michael began to take a step when the toe of his back foot caught against the underside of the crust of ice. He pulled on his back foot furiously, yanking it free, propelling his momentum forward.
With his front foot firmly planted in the deep snow he could not adjust it to catch himself. I watched anxiously as he teetered forward and fell face first into the icy snow.
“WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!,” he cried as he turned to his side exposing streaks of pink in the crater formed by his face in the snow. The icy crust had cut his skin as if he had gone through a plate glass window.
With a sinking feeling in my stomach I made my way over to help him, slowly crunching through the snow. I anxiously approached, hoping everything wouldn’t be as bad as it looked. Reaching Michael I helped him sit up, but I didn’t say anything. I looked at his face and saw a mixture of ice and blood coating his pale skin. As he continued to cry I wiped his face with my mitten covered hand. Fortunately it didn’t look as bad as I feared, as there were only a few minor cuts.
We both got up and I helped him to start the walk back to my house. He cried the whole time. I felt sick to my stomach.
Coming back into the house my mom was alerted by the cries and rushed to see what was wrong. She got a towel and cleaned up Michael as I watched in silence. The cries turned into infrequent sad sobs. My mom called Michael’s mom and she would be right over.
Michael and I sat in silence for what felt like too long until Michael’s mom arrived to pick him up.
Michael left, and we never played together again.
