…in the same vein.
What is the absolutely craziest thing you’ve ever done that you survived?
Ours was probably undertaking a 4000 gallon pond dig (most of the back yard) with a Mantis tiller. But outside of that—probably deciding in my 6th decade and Jane’s 5th to take up ice skating. Hey, it was safer than downhill skiing. We not only decided on ice skating, we decided on figure skating, and it’s been the absolute best exercise in the world. Talk about fine motor control.
Mine, somewhat back, was running out of money in Athens, in company with a 65 year old traveling companion, with a week to go before our prepaid plane flight. We had to move out of the hotel we were in, we went to the Plaka district, and tried to get help from the American embassy, who were no help at all, and wouldn’t even listen to our situation. Then we set about a campaign of trying to get arrested so the American embassy would have to help us. But all the Greek people were so kind to us, one even cashing a personal check from America on her account, that we couldn’t cheat them. (Defrauding an innkeeper was our planned route to the pokey.)
Well, nothing worked. On one night, we went to the Greek theater, about a 50 cent ticket, and got lost, and hiked several miles into the warehouse district and back alleys. When we came out into a questionable neon-lit area, where there was at least life, we had to spend money on a taxi to get home, and directed the taxi driver the wrong way down a major boulevard to get there. But it was 3 am.
We finally decided Athens was too expensive, and we found a hotel in the village that Thebes now is, for much cheaper. So we caught a bus, which also contained a woman with a young goat, and headed for Thebes. A 10 cent taxi would take you from the bus station up to the top of the hill once you got there. And our hotel was, well, for 2.00 a night, you couldn’t complain. We had to be there for three days.
It was during the junta, so the presence of two strangers in town aroused the interest of the local military police, who were trying to find out who we were and what we were taking pictures of, and I understand enough modern Greek to know that, in the restaurant, the two uniformed guys were asking about us. I was really tempted to say, in Greek, “Hi, there. Can I help you?” but wisely kept my mouth shut. We’d just come from Athens, where I had to snatch Audrey out of the way of a careening truckload of soldiers in riot gear, who were bound for the neighboring university, where there was quite a fracas going on, and you could get arrested for expressing an opinion. It was literally illegal to talk politics even in your house.
So we had no good situation in Thebes, either. But we made the acquaintance of a couple of Brits who were the local teachers, and they knew a German guy who was running a spinning-mill in the village. And they knew where there were ancient ruins, and the German guy had a car. He proved interesting: he’d been on one side of WWII, in the German army on the Russian campaign, and had a circular dent in his forehead which had been put there by a mule which was hauling gear on that ill-fated advance. He hated mules, he said. The elder Brit had been in the RAF. Audrey’s students had been in the Italian campaign on the Allied side. So there we all sat, exchanging views on WWII, in a Theban cafe.
And then we set off with two absolute strangers to see the ruins, which were miles out in the country, an undeveloped site, in a farmer’s field, probably flattened when Alexander the Great had a snit with the Greeks—he is alleged to have destroyed the town, and left standing only one house, that of Pindar the poet, whom he admired, to show his control over his troops. (I’m sure Pindar wasn’t grateful.) And he ordered the release of a woman who’d attacked his soldiers while defending her home. He was funny like that.
At any rate, this place was flattened, right down to potsherds. We wandered about, mapping out buildings. And then we saw something coming. A pack of dogs.
Well, we knew we were trespassing. We ran for the car, the elder Brit and I helping Audrey, who didn’t run fast, and the younger Brit sprinting for dear life. It was twilight. The lead dog was a white shepherd type, so he was easy to see. There were about 10 others. The German guy got to the car, got in and slammed the door. The younger Brit opened the doors for us and got in. The elder Brit and I threw Audrey into the middle back seat. Then the elder Brit and I did an ‘after you, Alphonse,’ routine as the pack closed in. Finally he shoved me hard into the front seat, he dived into the back, we slammed the doors, and the white dog hit my window full-on. The whole pack was clawing at the car and the German guy started up and we got out of there.
The 2 archaeologists that had started to excavate had died: they drank the local water. Since that was an area of Greece I had once been very interested in going into, in archaeology, I considered that an omen.
And I read when we finally got back to Athens, that a dog pack near Thebes had put several people in the hospital, two in critical condition.
Yeah. I bet.
Not much chance I’d miss that documentary! ‘Way excellent! A lot of classic naval aviation in there, such as the very scene you describe, with all the guys who are safely on deck sitting in the Ready Rooms–with popcorn!–to watch the PLAT TV where those poor bastards in the air are having their turn in the barrel tonight (because ***everyone*** has his or her turn in the barrel, eventually). Best of all was where the young guys were making bets on how many passes at the deck the skipper would need to trap aboard, and he nails it in one.
Classic!
Jeff
I also enjoyed the redhead controller who would have reached up and hauled them in by their pants if she could have got hold of them. Impressive lady.
Hmmm…I’m late joining here. My scariest involved horses and near-cliffs in the Cascades. I was with a group, riding cleanup, and we were on the switchback leading up to the Crest Trail. The hillside wasn’t quite a sheer cliff, but it was definitely steeper than 45 degrees. Patty, (Pat’s Skippette) my first horse and my beloved Venus’ mama, was always a great trail horse, but nothing can protect you from the trail flatout collapsing beneath you. Fortunately, it was her hind end that started to go down, not her front. I’d be a smear at the bottom of the hillside if that were the case. Also fortunately, she was a quarter horse with a very powerful, compact body, and as sensible as they come.
I don’t remember a lot except dust billowing up around us and the most powerful action I’ve ever felt a horse take, before or since…not even our racing stallion breaking out of the starting gate matched it. All I could do was pull every strand of leather in reach and hang on for dear life while poor Pat did all the work. She got us back up on the trail and then just stood there, shaking, drenched in sweat. I crawled down, pretty weak-kneed myself and just held her while she blew. Then, I walked the rest of the way up to the crest. I wasn’t about to ask her to carry me.
After that, we finished a glorious day’s ride…and came down a different access trail. That access was closed soon after.
Wow, if it’s enough to scare a quadruped . . .
mmm, when the rear half of your feet are going off into thin air and the other two are slipping…you better be a horse in real good condition. Quarterhorses are bred for that powerful rear end surge, and since Jane has ridden a race horse on a flat track, I do believe old Pat put in one heck of a save-our-collective-bacon effort.
There are airheaded horses who would have freaked, flailed and gone down. When you find yourself a smart and levelheaded horse of whatever breed, it’s not just transport, it’s priceless, and you always recall that horse.
It also helps the horse having a rider who doesn’t flail, scream, and freak.
I have done many, many crazy and stupid things. One of the dumbest was attempting to open the plastic packaging on an MP3 player with a really sharp knife. The packaging was really hard so I used both hands on the handle of the knife trying to cut into the package by digging into the packaging angled toward me. Of course the knife skidded along the packaging and I stabbed myself in the stomach. Fortunately it was only a flesh wound – no organs, just meat involved. But I knew at that moment that I would probably be the author of my own demise through sheer stupidity.
Ow!
Somebody at our girls’ camp, aged 12, pulled that stunt out in the woods—stabbed herself in the thigh and freaked and ran. She reached the open field and what should have been help—another girl, who saw that pocket knife up to the hilt in her leg and helpfully pulled it out.
Wrong move.
Fortunately she HAD paid attention to the part of the first aid lecture about tourniquets.
The girl was fine after some stitches and bed rest. She missed half the camp session, however.
I hate those plastic packages. It’s not the cutting implement that gets me, it’s the razor sharp edge that the cut plastic gets. Apparently there are gizmos designed to do nothing but cut those packages open. Can’t say that I have used them, but I have learned that if you ask at certain stores (computer stores, mainly) the cashier will cut the package open for you before you leave.
You missed coffee cans with finger-slicing edges. I loved to open them for my mum, but no few times I got all my fingers sliced at once.
Nowadays they’d have lawsuits over it. Then, heck, you were expected to get smarter.
And drink tea? 😉
A colleague of mine stabbed himself in the fleshy part of his hand below his thumb while trying to cut some frozen hamburger. He cut tendons and arteries and had to have surgery to put it to rights. He later said he should have just waited for the meat to thaw!
One of my younger brothers was cutting tree limbs with a bow saw and ran it across his off hand. He did some pretty nasty damage, and we weren’t sure if he’d destroyed the use of that hand or not. He’s okay, even though he’s an engineer, but then, about a year later, his wife was cutting up fabric with a rotary cutter and ran it up over her off hand. Not sure whose was worse, but both of them are able to use their hands. She’s now a nurse-practitioner, considering going for her Ph.D.
Ow!
Working with my dad was a hoot. He decided we needed to top the two cedar trees that flanked my house, to prevent them dwarfing the house, I suppose. So he got his favorite rickety ladder, ca 1940, which he had literally had ever since I was 7 or so, which had missing bits of the treads, and emphatically didn’t meet OSHA codes—fired up the chainsaw and climbed up to top the trees, which of course means delving into the tree to find the tip of the trunk.
He was so wobbly on that damned wooden ladder, I ran up to steady the thing. Too late. The ladder tipped, and me Da did the sensible thing and flung the chain saw, which was still going, it happened so fast—at me. I was up against his car in the drive. I teleported backward, Dad landed and rolled, unhurt, and I’m standing there by the rear bumper of my car looking at that chainsaw as if it was a rattlesnake.
I did tend to bring that up when we talked about crazy accidents. Not many people can say their father threw a chainsaw at them.
Deep-cut fingers like that, if you want to keep function, you LISTEN to the therapist after the surgeon has done his thing.
My brother, who’s a fairly serious amateur cellist, cut his left hand with a router or table saw or some such thing – just one of those split second of inattention deals. It was deep, and included a chip into the knuckle joint of the middle finger – the hand that does the fingering.
As soon as it began to heal, he started the exercises to keep the fingers flexible and strong. For months, every single hour, he would stop whatever he was doing and do these finger-gymnastics. Looked silly, of course. Like when you crook your fingers back and forth and say, “Exercise! Exercise! We must do our exercise!” But it worked, and he still plays.
My stupidest stunt? Probably in ’67, as a clueless small-town 16-year-old, in NYC with my family on the way home from the Montreal World’s Fair. I’d been on my own most of the time at the fair, walked a lot. In New York, for some reason I don’t now remember, I needed to get from Central Park West to 5th Ave up at the north end of the park, so I just traipsed across by myself on 110th. Absolutely nothing happened except that a lot of guys made remarks that I’d never heard before …
If you have a finger mobility problem, playing a fingered instrument is one of the best things. It doesn’t take much to play a guitar badly: I do, started with a 12-string, because it’s easier on the fingertips. And when my father was getting to the point he couldn’t flex his fingers properly—a lifetime of a carpentry hobby and several saw accidents—I got him a guitar. It improved his range of motion immensely. You get caught up in the music, and don’t think of exercise. You just want that chord to be in tune, so you’re constantly stretching and working the tendons. Piano can do the same, but guitars don’t take up as much room and don’t have as steep a learning curve, unless you’re determined to learn picking.