“You want me to do what?” I asked.
“Let go of your hand-hold,” our rock-climbing instructor said.
Yeah, right. Thirty minutes before, I stood with my brother-in-law, Bill, and his daughter Glenda, staring at the precipice looming over us. Our guide for this adventure was a young woman not much older than my high school students back in Kansas.
I was petrified. I tried to back out gracefully, but Mister “Where’s your sense of adventure?” and Little Miss “You’ll be my favorite uncle,” coaxed me into my first actual rock-climbing experience. This was Glenda’s way to celebrate her thirteenth birthday.
Before we could start our vertical expedition, we had to sign a medical release form assuring the proprietors of Insane Adventures that we weren’t about to give birth, have a seizure, faint from low blood pressure or suddenly die from a heart attack. They did not ask, “Do you have a perfectly justified fear of heights?” After signing our lives away on the dotted line, we were outfitted with vests, slings, safety ropes, hardhats, gloves, and more carabiners than I bothered to count.
“Trust your safety equipment. Let yourself dangle.” Her words snapped me back to my present reality – clinging to a steep cliff, a hundred feet above the canyon floor.
“You mean like this?” my niece asked as she let herself swing. “Wheeee.”
I couldn’t let her show me up, so I released my death grip on the rock and swung out into midair like a real live piñata.
“See,” our guide said, “I won’t let you fall.”
“That’s what you say,” I countered, “but Sir Isaac Newton said otherwise.”
After my climbing partners stopped laughing, we continued our ascent. I was starting to get the hang of rock-climbing; by not hanging. Instead, I scrambled up the toe-holds and hand-holds conveniently hammered into the stone. An hour and eternity later, huffing and puffing, I pulled myself onto the top of the rock.
“Way to go, Uncle Charlie.”
“I knew you could do it,” Bill said, slapping me on the back and almost knocking me over the edge.
While I caught my balance, and breath, I enjoyed the magnificent vista from our perch in the sky. I looked down into a deep canyon covered with towering pines.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to a pair of cables spanning the chasm between our rock and a tower several hundred yards away. A man on the tower waved at us.
“You don’t know?” our guide asked. “That’s our zip line. More fun than the stairs.”
“A zip line? I’m supposed to pretend I’m a bird and jump off this perfectly solid rock? No way, Jose.”
“Where’s your sense of…”
“Bill, my sense of adventure is in Kansas, where I belong. If you’re so brave, you lead the way.”
“No, I insist you go first. You’re our guest.”
Click. I looked over to see the guide attach Glenda’s harness to the zip line.
“Watch me, Uncle Charlie.” With that, she pushed off from the cliff and zipped away, laughing and hanging upside down.
As we full grown macho men watched, Bill’s little girl flew over the forest to the next landing. Remarkably, the color fled from the face of my brother-in-law.
“Admit it,” I said, “You’re scared too.”
“Tell me about it. You were supposed to chicken us out.”
After our guide attached my poor helpless body to the zip line, I faced my fears and ran for the edge.
“Thanks for the birthday present, Daddy. Uncle Charlie, you rock. Next year, I want to go skydiving.”
In a previous life, Mike Price was a nuclear power plant operator and technical writer. Today, he spends his time volunteering with his church and community, going on adventures with his wife, and writing comical tales. Mike is a member of SLO NightWriters, for writers at all levels in all genres; find them online at slonightwriters.org.
By Mike Price
