A Well-Aimed Rock

Gramma Jay gave me a St. Christopher medallion near the end of 1983. It's hung from the rear-view mirror of every vehicle I've commonly driven since.

I'm not one given to idolatry, but she gave it to me for a specific reason. It serves as my reminder to look around when everything appears to be going sideways on me.

It is probably coincidence that every vehicle save one it's hung in has managed to avoid accidents - and that one exception should have been much, much worse, but there we are.

Dad and I were out hunting.

My audience will note that, very commonly, my discussion of bizarre turns of events in my formative years usually start with "Dad and I were out hunting."

It was nearing the end of October in the Sticks, and the weather started out its usual autumn-in-the-mountains craptastic; it had dusted snow overnight and turned to rain in the morning. Pretty good for the Moose Dad wanted to fill his tag for. We were somewhere down the Corbin road at first light, and took an extended walk through the gathering slush in a good place he had scouted.

Not unusually, the local Moose population had other ideas, and left an enormous number of tracks to taunt us - immediately around Dad's old K5 Blazer.

It was mid morning, and we mounted up and headed home, keeping an eye to the treeline on either side of the road. Any game we saw would still be fair, but Dad knew I had a prior commitment I wanted to keep if I could - the remote possibility of dressing out a large animal notwithstanding.

There was a truck some distance behind us. Suddenly it peeled off the dirt road, and disgorged its hunters to the west side.

Dad looked over at me and said few choice words about luck when we heard the shots. Neither of us had seen a thing when we went by. "Wasn't to be, today, I guess," he said, shrugging it off. "Let's get you to your game."

By 11 am, at home, I had showered and was ready to make the 45 minute hike up to the Heights. "I can give you a ride if you want," Dad offered.

This was unusual. I mean, if it was on the way to somewhere he needed to be, sure, but commonly I would just walk. It occurred to me he just wanted to go for the drive. "Sure," I said. "It'll make me pretty early, but that's fine. Thanks! Let's go."

At the time, I had a winter coat with the cool new feature of zip-off sleeves - which I most commonly wore sleeveless. I'd checked the weather and it was improving pleasantly; I'd be fine in the vest. To this day I don't know why I put the sleeves back on the thing. For a car ride, no less.

And off we went.

They were still building the Highway 43 bypass, so to drive to the Heights - the new subdivision in the Sticks - was a twenty minute tour through the old townsite, past a couple trailer courts, and over the ancient one-lane trestle.

It was always a nice drive, later I would tour around there in Dad's car in summer evenings - unbeknownst to him, of course, just for the pleasure of it.. But I digress.

People were out. There were a couple of kids fishing under the trestle bridge, a girl sitting on the north slope with a couple dogs overlooking Matevic Road; just enjoying an afternoon where the weather had settled down. Dad turned up Matevic Road.

That led to a more established set of acreages up in the hills - and was not where I was intending to go. I surmised he thought I going to a different friend's place; his parents had bought a house up there a few years earlier. That was fine, as I still had more than enough time before my appointment. I had Dad drop me at a cut line that led from the road up to the subdivision - an easy walk.

And I arrived to find my appointment canceled. The guy was a couple houses up the street, working for a neighbor. He'd called - but missed me by about five minutes. He invited me to stay - but I declined; I didn't care to interfere with his job for the day. He said I should call for a ride - I said it was fine; the walk would be quite comfortable since I put the sleeves on my coat.

I headed back down that cut, and decided to drop in on that friend a half-klick up the road.

I stood there on his doorstep and looked at the doorbell for maybe five minutes, debating whether I should press it. I finally decided not to, mostly on the grounds that I just didn't want to impose without calling ahead.

I gave the whole day to that point up as a bad job, and decided to at least enjoy the walk home over the CPR tracks... which technically was illegal and moderately unsafe due to the train bridge, and trespassing to boot - but also not something I hadn't already done a hundred or so times. Me and every other Kid in the Sticks.

I headed back to the ancient one-lane trestle. It came majestically into view as I cleared the trees by the freezing-cold Elk River on Matevic Road.

The girl with the dogs had left - but the two kids were still under the bridge. They weren't fishing any more; one had slid up to his waist into the river. The other was trying very hard - with no success - to pull his hypothermic friend out.

Could have rung a doorbell.
Could have stuck around for a while.
Could have been dropped at the right door - and then got a ride home.
Could have got a phonecall.
Could have left the sleeves off the coat.
Could have passed up the ride.
Could have been dressing out a deer by the road.
Could have waited in the Blazer.

I learned in that instant to never begrudge a manifestation of Infinite Improbability - just Roll With It.

Next time you find yourself somewhere you - by rights - should never have ended up, and you're cursing your rotten luck - have a look around.

Maybe there's something you're supposed to do.

Maybe - this time - Ananke's Well-Aimed Rock is you.

Lessons

I taught myself to ski when I was 17 years old.

You tell people that you grew up in the mountains in British Columbia, and they make assumptions. Truth is, I've been skiing maybe a half-dozen times in my life, and I'm not very good at it.

All my contemporaries growing up in the Sticks skied, or played hockey, or whatever. I never did. I always presumed it was because the gear was too expensive. For one reason or another, we grew up poor-middle-class, but that's a story for another time.

We could actually skate on the street most days in winter. The snow was usually compacted to the point of ice, and the plows didn't scrape it down so as not to rip up the gravel shoulders of the streets. The Municipality installed gutters on the streets in the early 80s, and that signaled the End of That.

At the time, not skiing and not skating didn't really bother me. Well, that's not true; the not skating kind of did. I had Dad's old hand-me-down skates and they obviously fit me horrendously badly. I tried going skating on my own a handful of times in the Sticks... but those stupid skates had nothing for ankle support, and were more a detriment than anything else.

At least I always thought they were Dad's; they may have been my brother's once - that would certainly make sense. Suffice to say they were very old, and a little too big.

I suspect that a good skate swap for kids - like we have practically everywhere now in North America - would have really done well for me. It's one thing to build a bike out of spare parts... but there isn't much you can do for skating.

Looking back, I know for a fact that if I really wanted skates, I would have got them. But, as stated - I didn't care enough.

We've been taking the little kids out to Brimacombe for skiing lessons on Saturdays.

This is something I'd never did as a kid - organized lessons in a sport - except for swimming lessons at the wading pool at Kin park when I was five. I rather like the fact that we are able to provide things for our children that I never had... but then I think about it.

I spent winter weekends icefishing. And snowshoeing. And hunting. Snowmobiling. Sledding. Shooting. We played shinny on frozen ponds with rough-cut hockey equipment that dad made on the fly. Meals involving roasting home-made elk sausage on willow sticks over the open fire (yes, lit with One Match). Winter drives to explore. Camping occasionally.

Whatever my childhood lacked in financing sporting lessons - my Dad more than made up for in time and effort. Nobody could ever complain about that.

The result of that breadth of experience, courtesy of Dad, is that I've done - and am comfortable doing - things that make some of my Contemporaries go all bulgy-eyed. Butchering an elk on the kitchen table and making sausage comes immediately to mind - but I digress.

So I taught myself to skate on rollerblades at 27. I bought good ones. I still have them. Funny thing - the difference between Ice Skating and Rollerblading is Hills. I believe I still have the scars...

But when I was 17, I went on a school skiing trip to Fernie. As I indicated, it was my very first crack at skiing. It turns out they teach kids what they called "snowplowing" - nowadays they tell kids it's a pizza.

I never did that. Couldn't for some (knees) reason. I went straight to the proper turning method by watching people who knew what they were doing - and mimicking them.

Of course the down side is when you're a novice, they set your bindings to come off the boot really easily so you don't hurt yourself - even if you are roughly gorilla-shaped. They don't expect you to turn properly. I sheared my skis right off my feet a couple times before I figured that out.

I'm hoping that in a year or two my eight-year-old will be a better skier than me. It's not much of a stretch.

Maybe he'll teach me how to ski backward. In the mean time, the Saturdays out have been excellent.