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See Part
1: The Father's Tales
You might never know how closely death has passed
you by. Some of us survive catastrophic events:
disasters, bombings, car crashes.
I'm talking about being oblivious to an event that
would have had a negative outcome, except for chance.
Each day many possible events could kill or maim
each of us. It is the probable events that stun
us at how lucky we have escaped, when the odds tumble
against us.
There are coincidences and there are choices we
make that change probability. For instance, my daughter,
Lauren, and I had spent the day at the Paris Zoo.
Mommy, Gale, was due home from a day of research
at the B.N., the National Library, at a certain
time. We wanted to speed back to the apartment to
meet her, so we took the R.E.R. instead of the Metro.
Our stop would have been Notre Dame/St. Michael,
but as the train pulled into Les Halles, we decided
to hop off and walk past the fountain at the Pompidou
Center. This wasn't a short cut. It was actually
longer, but worth the extra steps.
As we neared the apartment, Lauren and I noticed
helicopters in the air. We wondered what it was
all about. Gale was waiting for us, all excited.
She'd come home early and turned on the television,
as usual. The normal broadcast was interrupted by
live coverage of some sort of disaster. She couldn't
tell what or where this event was taking place.
Every time she tried to listen the audio of the
broadcast was drowned out by another helicopter
buzzing past the balcony. When she saw victims being
put onto stretchers and loaded into helicopters
she put two and two together.
When Lauren and I walked through the door to the
apartment, Gale was relieved. What had happened
was not immediately clear, but a bomb had been placed
under a seat on the R.E.R., and detonated in the
Notre Dame/St. Michael stop. Had Lauren and I taken
the Metro and a similar event occurred, we could
not have been certain if it was our Metro train.
The Metro runs more frequently than the R.E.R.
IT WAS OUR TRAIN. Chance put us out of harm's way.
Others were not so lucky. Passengers died and many
were injured. A last moment change of plan ultimately
lead to recognition of how close a brush can be.
Sometimes chance plays a benign role in a very
bad decision. I am not a mountain climber. Mountains
hold no attraction for me, except from afar, winter
or summer. Steve McMath and I were visiting our
friend, Norie Sato, in Seattle. Either Steve or
Norie suggested we walk up Mount Rainier. I went
along. The day was perfect in every way. Why not
climb a mountain and enjoy the view?
As massive as the mountain looked when we started
driving toward it from Seattle, I thought we'd reach
it in no time. But it took a very long time until
we reached a place on the mountainside where we
parked the car to walk up. There was never an intention
to climb the peak to the tip top, so I had no reason
to be concerned about my apparel and footgear. We
were in the sun. A nylon raincoat over my T-shirt
was comfortable. My leather-soled shoes had no treads
or heels; more like bowling shoes than anything
else. As we made our way up the fields of snow I
discovered that shoes with treads or cleats would
have been of benefit on this outing. My feet slipped
in the snow, the smooth wet leather made it two
steps forward and one step back. Steve and Norie
slowed down so I could keep up. I made better progress
doing a duck walk, biting into the snow with the
insides of my feet.
We had set a simple goal of a thousand feet. That
was vertical feet. There are five thousand two hundred
and eighty feet in a mile. In high school I ran
the mile and half-mile. During college I ran cross
country. So, what was a thousand feet to me? Nothing.
On flat ground I'd be there and back in about three
minutes. Walking up a mountain through a snowfield
wasn't all that big a deal, but it certainly took
more time than I anticipated.
At a certain point Steve and Norie stopped while
I caught up. They had been watching the sun and
their watches and decided, goal or no goal, it was
time to turn back. As we headed down toward the
car I asked Steve if there was a proper term for
sliding down a snow field. "Yes," he said,
"it's called 'glissading' but it's not a good
idea........" His voice trailed off as I left
him behind on my rapid descent.
During Ann Arbor winters we'd spent hours on the
snow-covered hills of the Arboretum. Most Michigan
students "liberated" cafeteria trays to
use as sleds. Steve and I lived off campus so we
had no access to cafeteria trays. Instead we snow
surfed, standing without sleds or trays. We slid
downhill on the packed powder in our boots, trusting
our balance to keep us upright. Those hours in Ann
Arbor at the park prepared me for the ultimate,
boardless, snow surfing experience of my life. The
exhilaration, the speed as I descended a vast snow
field on the face of Mount Rainier was like flying!
This was a thrill I couldn't have imagined, had
I even contemplated sliding down the side of the
mountain.
I completely lost contact with Steve and Norie,
but understand from what they told me later they
were screaming "Stop, Sandy!" I never
heard them. The sound of snow under my wet shoes
and rushing wind filled my ears. I was having the
time of my life, until I looked ahead and saw there
was no more snow, just a very large portion of sky.
I was about to fly off a cliff! How fast does a
person sail down a mountain on skis?
How does a skier stop? My mind reran old highlights
from the "Wide World of Sports," looking
for clues. It kept repeating the ski jumper who
illustrates "and the agony of defeat."
After reviewing all the video tapes, in what must
have been no more than one one-hundredth of a second,
I eliminated the cartwheel technique in favor of
the fall-on-my-ass-and-start-grabbing-the-snow style.
How fast was I traveling? How much more room did
I have before I became truly airborne? All I can
say is I'm truly glad that the summer sun warms
granite sufficient to melt snow along the edge of
a precipice.
Sitting down with my heels and hands acting as
inefficient brakes, I continued to slide closer
and closer to the edge. I estimate I had slowed
to the speed of a good brisk walk by the time I
hit the granite apron on the rim of the cliff. To
my surprise, I kept sliding toward the edge, despite
all my efforts to stop. Granite is awfully hard,
abrasive material. Just ask my bleeding knuckles
if you don't believe me.
I was grabbing the mountain any way I could to
hold on. My fingers were raw and blood spattered
when I came to a full halt with one foot dangling
over the edge. I crawled in reverse toward the edge
of the snow and fell backward, safe, exhausted,
my heart still pounding.
Norie and Steve caught up with me and didn't say
anything. They knew better than I what had just
happened. They really thought they'd be identifying
my body at the bottom of the cliff.
My father told me of many things he did as a kid,
I have to smile. Sure, Dad, you did some stupid
things; but you're still here despite them. I don't
want to tell him my dumbest brush with fate on the
mountain, at least until he's too old to go try
it himself.
Survival sometimes is just by coincidence.
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