loumercerwordsofwisdom.blogspot.com

Friday, June 16, 2017

The morning after.

Before bed last night I soaked in a tub of hot water with some Epsom salts added.  I just wanted my poor body to stop hurting.  It took me maybe 6 minutes to fall asleep and then I must have woke up 4 or 5 times to the vision of the last 400 feet that I could not make.  Ever see a log jam?  Ever see a log jam that consisted of railroad ties?  That was what the last leg had been.  As I visited with Karen today I told her that when I looked up the incline to the top it looked like everyone was crawling over the ties.  She told me it looked like that because that is what they were doing.  Praise God I had sense enough to quit when I did!

I am still sore.  I have chunks of skin missing with no explanation of where it went.  My left hip is still not completely back in the socket and my right knee will probably never bend again.  Most of my hearing has returned and my vision is almost back to normal.  I am beginning to think rationally about whether or not to try this again.  And would I recommend it to my friends?  Let me be very clear. No.  Not only no, but hell no!  And not just hell no, but HELL NO!!! I would rather be put on a Chinese water torture table and have my fingernails pulled out slowly by a drunk Chimpanzee.

Now that I have cleared that up for you, I am going to my garden and see if I can remember where I planted those damn beets.  Then I will come in and rip the rest of the carpet off the stairs.  Just nice clean therapeutic work to clear my mind and prepare my body for bed where I will sleep with no dreams of stairs that climb straight up to a log jam  4 feet from Heaven.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

Gonna just shoot up that Manitou Incline and be home before 1:00!

Oh, the day started out beautifully.  I picked Karen up at 8:00 and we headed North to Manitou Springs.  I had done my research and I knew the Garmin was ready with the address in and go punched.    Now something you should know about Manitou Springs and that is there are 6, 000 streets all a block long that go straight up hill or straight down hill and they are all one way going the wrong way.  Not to be deterred we finally found the place with free parking and a free shuttle to the base of the Incline.

I had carefully packed plenty of water and toilet paper just in case.  My debit card was in my back pack along with my identification and my insurance card, just in case.  I also had rain gear, just in case.  Even took a pair of socks, just in case.  The shuttle was a little full, but free and he knew where he was going.

So off we went full of confidence that the next stop would be the top.  Just hop from one board to the next.  Yep, a piece of cake.  Well, it would have been nice had that been what happened, but sadly, the steps were not all the same size, nor were the of the same height.  Started out real good, but then the got further apart and taller.  It was hot.  The sun was bright.  The flies found me most tasty.

Karen cheered me on with "We got this!"  "You can do it!"  You know how optimistic a preacher can be.  I think the whole trip up was 2,000 steps.  After 300 I told her to just go ahead and I would plug along until I got tired and meet her later.  So off she went with her bouncy little air and I began plugging onward and upward.  Soon I had lost sight of her so I took a break.  Then onward and upward with the steps getting further apart and taller.  Damn!  This was not going well at all.  Several times my life flashed before my eyes.

I met a couple girls from the Philippines.  They were very sweet and this was their first trip up.  I told them this was my first trip and also my last!  They offered me words of encouragement and told me how proud they were that I had come this far.  I was, however, well past the point of being cheered on to go higher.  I was now putting one foot in front of the other because I could think of nothing else to do. 

Finally after about an hour or so of crawling up steps, fighting off flies, drinking lots of hot water, a very nice man pointed up the hill and said, "See that boulder in the middle of the path?  If you can make it that far it is the "bail out point for the Barr Trail."  Yes!  There was a God!   There was hope that I could make it that far and then get off this God forsaken piece of hell and start the downward descent.  Now I do a lot of walking so that is no problem.  This was different.  I walked bent forward with my knuckles dragging and counted 10 steps.  Then 5.  Breathe.  Then 7.  Breathe.

The phone rang and Karen was on top!  She was coming back down.  Great!  Meet you at the exit to the trail down.  And then there she was.  Damn!  That was fast!  I still had about 30 steps and the the little steps and there I was! 

Well, not quite saved yet.  We still had a 2.6 mile hike down the hill.  It twisted and turned and before I began to hallucinate, we reached the parking lot.  I would have fallen down and kissed the earth, but I would not have been able to get back up.  I ached in every muscle I had.  My head was throbbing.  I was sunburnt and I just wanted my mommy!

The Manitou Incline is not for the faint or weak of heart.  It will rip you to shreds.  There were times I was crawling to get over a series of tall steps and God had long since ate me up  and spit me out.  I regret that I was not there to take a picture of Karen Howe at the finish line.  I regret that she could not take a picture of me, but I learned a very valuable lesson today. 

I have spent the last month telling everyone that would listen that I was going to hike up the Manitou incline.  No doubt about it.  It was a sure thing.  A done deed.  Today I learned that I am not invinceable, and there are things I can not do.  This is sure as hell one of them!  I have learned that I best be for remembering how old I am. The Manitou Incline is a cold, unforgiving, hot dry, piece of Colorado landscape that I am going to keep my feet off of for the time being.  There was a time that I would have gone back again and again until I conquered it, but for now I just want to conquer this glass of ice water and think how proud I am to go to a church where the minister can march up into the clouds and not look back.

Congratulations Karen Howe, minister at First Congregational United Church of Christ, Pueblo Colorado

Sunday, June 11, 2017

It used to be a very long ways from her house to mine.

Back when I was in third or fourth grade, I had a best friend.  Her name was Barbara.  Her house was in the center of town very close to the school.  Mine was on the edge of town on the other side of the school.  Mother cleaned house for her mother so we were connected by that, I guess.  Arrangements would be made that I went home with Barbara on occasion.  Usually we just played and some times I would spend the night.  That was the best.  There were sheets on her bed and the bathroom was inside the house.  Now that was not a deal breaker, but it was really nice and I could always hope that some day I would live in a house so fine.

I don't remember what we played, but I am sure it entailed dolls and stuff like that.  Maybe we colored. I think we played hide and seek sometimes.  I liked hiding at her house because she had a garage and a car port.  I think,  I just don't remember. I do remember that her dad would sometimes make us an ice cream sundae and he always put a cherry on the top.  That was to die for and to this day when I see a squirt of whipped cream with a cherry on it, I revert back to my childhood and my friend Barbara.

I do remember that when it was time for me to go home I dreaded that long walk.  The streets in Nickerson were not paved.  Well, Main Street was.  It was paved from the school to the highway.  Then the highway ran off to Hutchinson or Sterling depending on which way you turned.

Sometimes Barbara would let me borrow her roller skates because it was so far to my house.  As I calculate it in my mind now it was probably about 1/2 - 3/4 of a mile.  The roller skates were really of little use because I only had 4 blocks of sidewalk then I had to take them off and carry them because anyone knows you can not skate on dirt.  I was careful to take very good care of the skates so I could use them again.  In all fairness, I spent a lot of time falling down and getting back up.  I could have been home a lot sooner had I just hoofed it.

Barbara never came to my house.  I always went to hers.  I guess that had something to do with her house being more modern that ours.  I sometimes wonder what became of her.  I saw her mother after I was married and learned a little about the years between.  Seems her mom and dad were divorced.  Barbara had moved to Kansas City and had a very good job and a very rich fiance.  I let it drop there, because I had no reason to pursue it.  Still I wonder.

I wonder about a lot of people back there in Nickerson, Kansas.  Sherry Stires who lived up by the high school in a big two story house.  She invited me to spend the night once, but she showed me a spider web on the outside of her house with a giant spider in it.  Scared the living pee wadding right out of me!  No way could I have stayed in her house.  I think I never went back there again.   Sometimes at night when I can't sleep I try to remember the names of my classmates.  Seems like there were about 23 or 24 of them.  I think I will try that now.  Let me know if any of these ring a bell.

Gay Withrow, Joan Moore, Barbara Hawk, Irene Reinke, Martha Knoblock, Nancy Cuthbertson, Sherry Stires, Beth McGonigle, Gary Battey, Loren McQueen, Larry Collee, Earl Kelley, Barbara Massey, Eleanor Kirkpatrick, Joyce Pedersen, Ronnie Beck, David Sjoberg,  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Saturday, June 3, 2017

Starting the month off right!

 The first thing I did on Monday morning was to get on the Wii and see how old I am.  45.  That is pretty good.
Posada had fallen heir to a bunch of bananas so I made them some Banana Nut bread.  9 loaves to be exact.  Pretty good stuff if I do say so myself.
 I finished up the wax I had accumulated and they now have 4 1/2 dozen candles which they probably will not need until next winter, but they are there now.
I checked the strawberry bed and found several little blossoms, but I can not eat blossoms.

 I was very happy to see that there were several little green strawberries and I am most happy to announce that since these pictures were taken I have had 2 nice red strawberries and like the little red hen and her loaf of bread, I ate them!
I am most happy to report that I have gotten most of my broken limbs out back and burnt some of them.  Just have to finish up the Red Bud Tree.  The green beans are up as well as the zucchini.  Also up is either the watermelons or the cucumbers.  Not sure which one I planted.  I am going to have the sprinklers worked on and when that is done I should be pretty well set until winter when I will no doubt freeze my ass off, but for now...life is good.
Or it would be had I not seen the fox out by the goose pen early this morning.  No doubt she has babies and is looking for something to feed them.  Damn!

Another year down the tubes!

Counting today, there are only 5 days left in this year.    Momma nailed it when she said "When you are over the hill you pick up speed...