Saint Christopher

A little over a year ago I spun you a tale about the perversity of the universe.

Well, really, more than one. But this one in particular, where that perversity was applied to my experience at the tender age of sixteen, I kind of left hanging.

Despite the colossal lack of clamoring, here, in second-person to help you live it, is the next 90 minutes in the life of Ananke's Well-Aimed Rock.

October 23rd, 1983

N 49° 44’ 43” W 114° 53’ 18” 

You know the water is freezing; it’s late October, for one, and the river is cold at best in the summertime. Glaciers feed the Elk up in Elk Lakes Provincial Park, seventy kilometers to the north.

You also know that the boy is standing on a shelf about an inch wide, and that rock face extends at roughly the same eighty-five degree angle another twenty feet under the water. There is very little keeping him from sliding all the way in from the weight of his clothing and boots.

All of this, and the realisation that he needs Help Right Now flashes through your mind in a nanosecond, just after you've already started running, and whole seconds before his friend looks up from his futile attempt at pulling the larger boy out, and asks from a hundred yards away in a voice tinted with desperation “Can you help us?”

Time stops for you. You're a machine.

You hear the drum of the sound of your footfalls on the seventy-year-old deck timbers on the trestle bridge.

You look up, and you’re already there, task one complete, task two queued up; time to descend the treacherous three-meter (10 feet) of cliff face to the river's edge without kicking rocks or debris on the boys, or falling in yourself.

You've detached. You hear your own voice barking orders to the boy who is still dry. Get his dad, you say. Tell him to bring his truck.

In your mind, this makes perfect sense - everyone in the Sticks has a Dad. Every Dad has a truck. It’s the natural order of a mining town. The wet boy will need somewhere warm to sit when you get him out.

There is no if.

You strip off your coat and leave it at the top of the cliff - to keep it dry so the kid has something to wear. Good thing you attached the sleeves.

You pull off your belt too, maybe you can loop it around… oh, to hell with that, you think, and toss it aside. You don't have time to waste on finesse.

You move down the cliff face like a shadow might on a sunnier day, ending up in place just over the boy's head.

You ask his name, as you know you should so that you may more readily set him at ease. He gives it to you. You tell him to take your hand. He holds up something that feels rather like a brick of cheese just taken out of the fridge… and you note that it has about the same grip. He confirms this by saying he can’t hold on.

Okay, you tell yourself through the adrenaline burn, time to rock and roll. Squatting on your right heel, you stretch your left foot down to just touching the water's edge, simultaneously grabbing a handful of something stable on the granite face over your head.

Good thing you're tall - you cover about eight and a half feet of the cliffside extended like this.

You take the boy by the jacket, center chest, just below his armpit line with your left hand and make as hard a fist as possible, holding his coat.

You know you only get one shot at this or you’re both going swimming – and with everything you have, you stand on your right foot, catapulting the waterlogged 12 year old, scrambling, out of the water, and up to the safety of the ledge overlooking the cliff.

You follow him, noting that whatever you’d used as a handhold is still in your right hand.

Evidently it wasn't that stable.

At the top of the hill the boy sums up his experience, telling you “Shit, Thanks,” as you strip his jacket off of him, replacing it with your own - advising him that his fishing career is probably over once his parents show up.

The adrenaline is bleeding off now, used up in a rush.

You consider getting him out of his sopping jeans and boots, but decide of the side of propriety, and you send him up to the bridge to sit on the concrete piling on the sunny side – it’s also out of the breeze - and wait for his ride to show up, while you put your discarded belt back on.

Scant moments later as you are collecting scattered fishing gear, you hear the pounding footfalls of someone running on the bridge deck, followed by a hysterical woman screaming, “Where is he!” over and over.

You realize that they cannot see their son sitting where you placed him, so you shout back that he’s on the bridge. You climb the short path to the bridge deck and note with a little irritation that his father brought a rope, not a truck.

Introductions are perfunctory and hasty. The man gives the same name the boy did… which makes the boy Junior.

You think you know the name, but don’t recall why, and you decide it’s not important.

Your jacket is returned to you because mom, even in her panic, thought at least far enough ahead to bring a blanket. The man offers to pay for dry cleaning – which you laugh off, stating that it's a wash and wear jacket, but thanks anyway.

You can almost see an inclusive bubble close around the three at this point, and you decide that your presence is really no longer required. You walk away without another word, not wishing to interrupt, or, really, call further attention to yourself.

You will later find that no one saw you leave – by all accounts, you vanished.

It's 50 meters to the crest of the incline with the bridge at the bottom; that crest is your target as it also holds the trailhead you want to take to get you to the CP Rail line and bridge to get home.

Upon reaching that crest moments later, you turn back to look once more at the reunited family unit, only to see another member crossing the bridge.

This one you recognise; she's the new girl in your grade 11 class.

Okay – that must be why the name is familiar. You put it out of your mind.

Completely.

Your walk home is the usual forty-five minutes and is entirely uneventful.

You walk in the front door of your home just as Dad hangs up the phone in the front room and stands up to face you as you step out of your shoes.

“I know what you’ve been up to,” he states, wearing his usual sardonically inscrutable look – a half smile you’ll recognize in the mirror in years to come.

Your mind flashes panic as you know that the CP Rail lines are technically trespassing, and the train bridge you crossed is inherently dangerous.

You brace for trouble, and it probably shows on your face.

He takes your hand to shake it. “That Phone call was from the new Staff Sergeant in command of the RCMP detachment. He said he’s called every Johnson in the phone book trying to find the parents of the boy who just rescued his son.”

Right, you think. That’s where you've heard that name before.

Wingin' It

"When have any of our plans ever actually worked? We plan, we get there, all hell breaks loose!"
~ Harry Potter to Hermione Granger, upon her insisting they needed to plan...

Right with ya, there, Harry. Somewhere between Befuddlement and being Somebody Else's Rock, I gave up planning a long time ago.

It wasn't always that way, of course. My jaded acceptance of the Universe as a force for adaptive chaos took a little time to build up.

Dad taught me to drive.

The interesting thing is that professional Driving Instructors will roll their eyes at this as it is commonly stated that this is a sure method of passing bad driving habits from one generation to another.

Not so. I have completely different bad driving habits than Dad did.

Specifically, Dad had a tendency to be more interested on what was on the sides (and, occasionally, behind us) of the road than where he was headed - coupled with an alarming proclivity for steering in the direction he was looking.

Now picture that on a dirt road tacked to a mountainside, with a thousand-foot-drop on one side, and you see why learning to drive was fairly important to my survival development.

I have subsequently taught at least three different people how to drive. Two of them reversed into an obstacle while I was in the car with them... But I digress.

One day, the summer I finally passed my own driver's exam...

Yes, Finally. It turns out that all my practice driving before the first attempt had been on highways or dirt - and then they test your ability to navigate a town. Oops. Try parallel parking a 74 Chev Blazer. There's a LOT of hood in the way.

My second attempt went after several weeks practice within the limits of the District of The Sticks - and while my examiner passed along one or two great truths, his only substantive comment was that I drive a bit too fast because I know what I'm doing.

I'm fairly certain my Lovely Wife won't believe that - but I have, as is my wont, digressed.

One Day, Uncle Joker and Auntie Chef came to visit. Dad took them, and Mom, on a guided tour of Line Creek.

Now, My Aunt an Uncle were - and still are, by most accounts - reasonably sensible folk. They had traveled halfway around the Universe in a little 4-sleeper MotorHome forever - in fact I'm pretty sure they still have the same one. Uncle Joker was a Millwright in his day, and a pretty good one; He'd been know to thoroughly disassemble his children's vehicles and re-machine the pistons. Stuff like that. Auntie Chef is Dad's younger sister.

I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that.

So I'm not exactly sure what the intent of that tour around the mining roads waaaay north of the Sticks was about - but I suspect fishing may have had a hand in it. That's the only reason Dad and I ever went up Line Creek.

There is a spot you have to ford the river. Now that's not as big a deal as it sounds like, It's only about fifty feet across at the ford, because it shallows out quite a bit - say fifty centimeters - that's about 20 inches deep for our American friends.

Uncle Joker was driving - It was his truck, after all. He had a mid 70's Chev Blazer alot like Dad's - the one I drove  - with a couple of seriously distinct differences.

One was that it was, comparatively, immaculate. Mind you, that's not saying much; anyone who saw the Rusted Hulk I was driving in my seventeenth year was likely astounded by my evident bravery, the fact that I had not yet gone deaf, and that actual parts were not actively falling off the thing.

The other seriously critical difference was that Uncle Joker's CB Radio handle was Two-by-Four... because his Blazer was a low-slung Two-wheel Drive.

I had had no idea you could have a truck without ground clearance.

I mean seriously. What's the point in that?

And off they went. I stayed home and hung out with my cousin, Mr. Melancholy. Yes, he kinda was even then.

Early that afternoon, the phone rang. It was someone calling from Elkford, relaying a message they received via CB Radio that 2X4 was stranded up Line Creek, in the ford.

Heh. A Chevy stuck in a Ford. Heh. Never thought of that before.

I dunno how many links were in the chain that got that message to me, but given 1984 technology, it was pretty impressive. I leaped into action.

I put our tow chain in the truck, and asked Cousin Mel if he was up for a rescue. He decided, why not, the paint he'd been watching had all dried anyway, so we jump in my battered warrior of a 4 Wheel Drive, and roll out.

"Uh oh," I said.
"What?" answers Mel; perhaps mildly alarmed at the possibility of actually seeing the road through the floorboards at some point - which of course would be an improvement, given the opacity of the cracks in the windshield.
"You happen to have any cash on you?"
"No, Why?"
"Uh... Nothing. We'll wing it." I decided, eying the fuel gauge and doing some math.

I had learned a couple weeks prior that, when you are driving, passengers are best not to have all the information you have - and that an easily understood, workable falsehood is better than a complex, incomprehensible truth.

And that's definitely a story for another time.

I had Cousin Mel running the portable brick CB Radio Dad had picked up for group travel - especially with Uncle Crazy Legs. They liked channel 37, so I had Mel set it to that.

The ford at line creek was about 60 km up the Valley from the Sticks. The last third of that is on dirt, so it takes a while. I knew we wouldn't be able to raise them on the radio until the last 10 km or so, so I'd told the guy on the phone I was on my way, and trusted the chain to get the message back.

To be honest, I was half expecting to meet them coming out, having already been rescued by passers by.

No such luck. Worse, I wasn't 100% on how to get there and took a left on a dirt road where I should have gone right. By that time, we had radio contact.

"Blue RustBucket, this is 2X4, come back"

I thought it was fairly uncharitable for Dad to be slighting his rescue vehicle in such a manner, but I kept it to myself.

After a short discussion about my current suspected location versus theirs - and my almost hearing Dad roll his eyes over the Radio - we were turned around and headed right when I decided I'd let him in on the other little situation I had.

You know; 20 miles from anywhere, needle somewhat below E, lost in the bush...

That time I couldn't hear his eyes rolling over the stream of commentary into the CB airwaves. That was Okay, as Cousin Mel did it himself so that I wouldn't miss out. I did remind Dad about FCC regulations about broadcast language, although my timing probably wasn't great.

Interestingly enough, we found them still perched halfway through Line Creek. I prudently shut down the truck until absolutely necessary, and we assessed and chained up the 2X4.

Mom and Auntie Chef had been stuck in the back seat of the 2X4 watching the carpet soak beneath their feet for about three hours, and were pretty glad when my old Wreck fired up and pulled the other truck handily out of the drink, in spite of Dad calling it Dirty Names.

Dad handed me a credit card as we looked over to see a Cutthroat trout flopping around on the shore - It had nestled into the wheel well of the 2X4, certain it was going to be a permanent fixture in the ford.

"Go fill up. We'll follow you - just in case," he said, flipping the fish back into the creek.

I kinda felt like consequences had suspended themselves in my favour in order for me to complete the mission. What a SuperPower that was!

Maybe, I decided it was a worthwhile exercise to manage on wits and observations alone. keeps you sharp. I even stopped wearing a watch about 25 years ago.

I swear, smart phones and GPS units are gonna make us all dumb.

Dad, of course, was much more impressed with the truck catching a fish.

Since then things have proven to just work themselves out their own way anyway, no matter what I plan. So usually, I don't.

Well, that's not exactly accurate. I do plan - but I only plan for the unexpected. At the very least I have Maps and a half tank of gas.

And a Credit Card.

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.