Thoughts 2022-04-11: Down in a Hole

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Take a look at the image above and ask yourself, what does this animal find so funny? It is a worthwhile question, I mean look at the look on my face; Whatever I am laughing about seems quite fucking funny. In hindsight it was not that funny. Looking back as responsible adult it is actually quite horrifying. If this was my kid I would be very disappointed. Sorry Mom.

What is so funny you ask? Well, that is an easy question to answer. The story here is that we, clever hairless monkeys that we were, had decided to take an after dark stroll alongside a rather pretty and picturesque waterfall. Great idea, I am sure you would agree. Rather than do this the old fashioned way, however, we decided to first imbibe copious quantities of alcohol. Makes sense right?

This image was taken shortly after my friends, who I will give the courtesy of not naming, had realized they no longer knew where I was. “Where is Todd?” they asked, which was answered by some muffled screams far behind them. You see, I had been climbing over a rock and jumped down onto the trail, however, I was pretty drunk and staggered backward and dropped into a chasm under the rock behind me. Yep you read that right….

For centuries Hummingbird Creek has been molding the rocks around Hummingbird Creek Falls, just upstream from where the creek joins forces with the beautiful South Ram River. There are smooth sinks and tubs, carved into the stones, there are giant rocks that have been smoothed out into lounge chairs above the falls. The canyon is beautiful, absolutely majestic, hence the campground. Anyway, for what may have been thousands of years the water has been carving the stone in this area. One such spot was the hole I found myself in.

You might ask yourself: “Why would falling down a hole, precariously positioned above a quick moving creek, meters from the edge of a 10 foot waterfall onto a pile of rocks, be something to laugh about.” A valid question. Why indeed? Well, as it turns out I have an answer for that Question that should clear it up: You see, in spite of the fall and the subsequent lodging of my body in a crevice, I did not spill my go-mug drink of too much Crown Royal and not nearly enough coke. What a gas. :\

All these details came back to me over the following day. In the morning I had no idea why I was laying in my tent, correction, I was half in my tent, my bare legs did not make it into the tent when I went to bed, or had they? Where were my pants and why was I covered in deep painful scratches on my legs? Bear? Maybe—who knows—maybe another drink will help unravel the mystery.

In time I remembered what had caused the scrapes on my legs, you see I became wedged in the hole, not because it was too tight for my to slide all the way down, no, no, I wedged my legs against the walls of the hole, just a few feet above a ten foot or so drop into a particularly fast section of creek below. Pretty smart huh? No, no, not smart—lucky.

I have said many times since my diagnosis that I used up all my luck early in life. Sure, I got lucky in love, finding a great wife. I was lucky to have many really good friends to help me along life’s journey. I have somehow tricked every boss I have ever had into promoting me for jobs I am not qualified to hold. I have been very lucky. It is not, however, simply a matter of that. You see, I was reckless and dumb in my youth. My youth being 10 to about 35 or forty.

As a child (young adult), me and my friends would spend hours in ravines walking over culverts, sneaking into storm sewers, climbing on church roofs, and just generally doing dumb shit. One such adventure on the roof of St Augustine’s Anglican Church, led to a pretty serious injury for a friend. You see we had discovered that the rubber roof on the church had a fun tendency to get pretty slick after a rain, or with some dew on its surface. This led to some great shenanigans.

One such night, four of us went out and decided to ride the roof, so to speak. On one side there was two feet of flat roof with gravel. There was no reason to assume that was not the case on the other side. We had discovered that you got much more speed following someone else’s tracks. This will be more important in a minute. In search of a longer ride we went to the other side of the roof and sent one intrepid adventurer to investigate. Once reaching the edge said adventurer called off the excursion.

Much to the dismay of our friend, we were not the trusting kind and decided to see for ourselves. Turns out there was no ledge on the other other side, just a straight drop into some trees. We were all well on our way when we found this out. One friend was in the tracks of the first friend. He flew by me at twice my speed and promptly kicked the first friend off the roof and followed behind. Hearing the breaking tree branches, me and the other friend both jumped once reaching the edge. I landed stiff legged and bounced a few feet before hitting the ground. The first two had landed on top of one another, specifically, intrepid explorer was landed on by the over eager genius who followed him. On his head to be specific, but he never broke his smoke. See a trend there. Legend of the fall.

Back then we were made of rubber. We would have been 10 to 12 and sneaking out of our houses when this happened. Luckily nobody was seriously injured, but that just prompted us to go back a few nights later and try again. Not content to keep this marvel to ourselves, we decided to bring more friends.

We used a tree to climb onto the roof. Two branches about 5 feet apart. One we walked on, the other we held onto. The next night we went out, we brought a new friend. Three of us were staying at his house, and we may have met some others at location. This time we were not so lucky in our shenanigans.

Each of us headed onto the the roof, but the new friend, chose the wrong branch to walk on, he chose the one meant for his hands, which was smaller than the other one. That branch broke and he fell to the concrete below. Broken pelvis on impact. Fuck. We scooped him up and tried to carry him home. He was in mountains of pain and could not walk. We were lucky that a van rolled up. There were two women in the van who asked us what was going on. My friend said “I broke my fucking pelvis.” They replied, “You broke your fucking pelvis!?!” And he was off to his house. The two of us sleeping over ran to the house hoping to somehow try to not get caught for sneaking out. It never worked.

In the end, our friend was right: He had broken his pelvis. A nasty injury, full leg cast, holed up for months. He became the master of Nintendo, but spent the summer on the couch. Still lucky, the fall was substantial and there were many hazards nearby. He could have died, could have broken his back, or broke his skull.

As kids, me and my friends did dumb shit like this all the time. All the way, well into my thirties I was walking culverts 30 feet above rocks below. Stupid stuff, too dumb to live, too lucky to die. When things went sideways, I always learned something always benefited somehow, I called it my bad luck good luck streak. I am hoping this is another one of those bad luck good luck things and I am going to come out of this on the other side the luckiest bastard ever. Keep fingers and toes crossed, let’s see what miracles the fates can throw my way down in this hole.