05/18/2023

I recently came across this piece I wrote on Father’s Day way back in the last century. It was an interesting time. My work was particularly busy, but more notably, this was one month after the Thurston High School shooting which had shaken up our community. I had coworkers who had children at the school (one whose nephew was killed) and they were dealing with the aftermath. I don’t usually hold stress much, but looking back I remember how this day was the balm I needed to help me stop, reset and just…breathe.

Sunday, June 21st, 1998

Today…

Awakened FAR too early by Isabel, my 19-month-old daughter. Seems that she was just too full of vim & vigor to stay asleep, and didn’t see why anybody else would want to stay asleep on this beautiful Sunday morning..even at 6:15 AM.

Well..might as well get up since SHE’S not looking like she’ll be taking a nap for at least 4 or 5 hours…

First things first – Check the leg.

I eased my legs over the side of the bed and gingerly put weight on my left leg to see if, and/or when, I’d feel any pain in it.

I had strained/pulled something in it during my co-ed softball team’s game on Friday night. I had just hit a bee-you-tee-ful line drive to the right field that had gone past the right fielder. As I was about half way to first I saw the fielder miss the ball and was just about to kick it into gear to make for second (and who knows, maybe third…) when a little voice came to me from the upper back area of my left leg as my left foot was digging into the dirt :

“Excuse me.”
{a weird wobbly feeling in my leg}
Keeping stride I now stepped down on my right leg.

“Wha-?” I thought to that little voice.

Now I put down my left leg again

“Fuck you.”
It said, accompanied by a twinge of pain.

Putting right leg down…
“What did you just sa-?”
“FUCK YOU!!!”
Intense pain shooting up the left leg!

I’ve pulled something, hamstring, perhaps. MAN that hurts! At this point, the leg refuses to perform its appointed task and thus I nearly do what I’m sure would have looked like a very bad and totally unnecessary attempt at a headfirst slide into the dirt about ten feet shy of first base. Luckily my powers of persuasion convinced my left leg to take at least a half step towards the base and I stutter-step-limp in a way, not unlike a speeded-up version of Marty Feldman in Young Frankenstein and basically hobble the rest of the way to first base.

Running was definitely out for the rest of the game, but because the team was shorthanded that night I ended up staying in for the whole game (and even hopping out a double in the 4th inning, which was probably poor sportsmanship in retrospect since we were ahead by 15 runs at that point – “Look, even the team’s disabled guy can get a double..!”), which we won by a final score of 35 to 13.

So now, here I am on this way-too-early Sunday morning testing the leg to make sure it hadn’t tightened up too much overnight.

Nope. Not too bad.

I get up and make a trip to the bathroom, then head for the computer to check my email. You never know what might have been sent to me overnight. A few messages about whether or not it is feasible and/or advisable to create sandbags out of the Playa dirt at Burning Man, and that’s about it.

So…
I head back towards the bed, only to find that Sofia, my 5-1/2-year-old has somehow managed to wake up enough to walk to our bedroom and crawl into my side of the bed.

Okay, more sleep is not likely so I figure I’ll just get a headstart on the day.

The plan is for me, Jen, Sofie, and Isabel to meet up with our friends Jill & Ray and their 10-month-old Zane, and head up to Fall Creek which is about 1 hour from Eugene. There we will hike (okay, I’ll limp) down the trail a short way to this special spot that we call “The Crack”. It’s a place where the creek flows through a three-foot crack running through what looks to be a single boulder that runs the width of the creek (about 50 feet at this point) and along the creek for about 80-90 feet. Usually from this time of the year on through the summer, the water level is about 1/2 foot below the top of the boulder and the crack is between 5 & 6 feet deep. We usually pack a picnic lunch and lay out on the flat of the boulder with our feet dangling in the cold, cold water.

To get to the crack, you have to park your car at one of the unmarked innocuous campground turnoffs that line the road running parallel to the creek, then walk down a trail about 50 feet until you come to The Log.

The Log was once one of the bigger trees that you’d find in this area that fell in a particularly fortuitous spot for people like me who want to visit the crack. The log is about 4-1/2 feet in diameter and lies directly across the creek, about 15 feet over the creekbed. It has been there for as long as my Wife Jen has been going to the crack, which is now over 20 years. Since it is difficult to get down to the creek on this side and there is a well-maintained trail on the OTHER side, the usual course of action is to cross the log. Now this log is the personification of every unimaginably high rope bridge in every action/adventure film ever shown. It’s big enough around and strong enough still, to be generally safe, but high enough over the rocky creekbed to make you immediately envision the unceremonious breaking of your neck if you happened to fall off of it for some reason.

Well the first few times I visited the crack, I fairly galloped across the log. No sweat. But shortly thereafter we had first Sofie and now Isabel, and that makes us approach the log with just a tad more trepidation.

And one of the responsibilities that apparently comes with Fatherhood that I was previously unaware of, is that I am the one who usually gets to carry our little ones over the log (not to mention all of the heavier backpacks & coolers that we might bring with us).

Swell.

Not that I would do it if I thought that it really WAS dangerous (or at least more dangerous than, say, going to school is these days), but what I found about the log is that most of the threat of the thing is mental.

It tries to psyche you out.

It sits there and says, “Look at me. What an easy thing to cross! I have a flat spot on top, from all of the people before you who have crossed me with ease! C’mon, what are you waiting for? Are ya CHICKEN?” And the more you look at it, and then down to the rocks below, the more the doubt that this is a good idea slips into your mind.

But…

You snap out of it, and make your crossing – try not to look down, watch your step, and try not to look at the picture in your head of you losing your footing and taking a header over the side, and falling toward those rocks below. Then, the next thing you know you’re on the other side and you look back and all of that menace and threat seems to be gone and you’re just ready to head down the trail and soak your feet in that cold water.

So, after our extended log crossing (Pat over with cooler and fishing poles. Pat back across. Pat over with Sofia on his back. Ray over. Jill over with Zane in her backpack – walking excruciatingly slowly…which just makes the rest of us cringe with each step she takes…. Ray bites off all of his fingernails while she is crossing. Jen over with Isabel in the backpack. Pat back across for the rest of the stuff. Pat back with the last of the stuff. – Whew!), we head on down the trail.

When we get to the crack we find that due to the “El Niño”-affected late rains we’ve had, the water is still flowing over the whole boulder. It’s about 4 inches deep across the creek except where the crack is. So, we find a little dry spot on our side of the creek and set up for lunch. We let the little ones out of their backpacks and circle the rest of our stuff in such a way as to keep them from having too easy access to the water without going through one of us (if you have ever seen how quickly a 2-year-old can move when they see something they want, you know what I’m talking about). Pulled out our sandwiches and the two beers the wives brought along as a little Father’s Day gift (only one for each of us Dads, mind you – we have to cross back over that Log to get back to the cars). We sit back eating our food, sippin’ our beer, and looking down this beautiful creek which seems to go on for miles and then blends into the forested hills in the distance. It’s one of those spots and one of those moments where ya feel like saying “It just doesn’t get any better than this” but you’re worried that if the Swedish Bikini team parachuted out of the sky like they do in that beer commercial every time someone says that phrase, it would somehow just ruin the moment.

After eating half of my sandwich, I set up Sofie’s “Lucky Lion Jr.” fishing pole, get mine hooked up and we walk over to The Crack to try our luck. After standing in the cold 4-inch deep water for about 2 minutes she declares her feet are too cold and goes back to sit with the moms. Ray comes over and uses Sofie’s pole and we start seeing if we can’t catch something.

And so the day goes.
Every now and then a bite or two. Three trout hooked, but only one landed. One or two spills into the water. Lots of sun. Lots of the kids checking out all of the stuff they can find along the creek’s bank. Lots of kickin’ back and smiling.

As it’s getting toward the time to leave I’ve walked up creek a ways from the rest of the group, checking out what looked to be a pretty good fishing spot. The first two times I tossed my lure in I saw what looked to be a 16″ rainbow flash right up to it, but he either had me figured out or just wasn’t all that hungry. As I turned to head back to the group I looked down the creek and stopped.

The sun was shining down from lower in the sky than when we arrived and was giving the trees and the creek and the people that kind of sepia-toned quality that usually you get when you are remembering something from long ago. I looked down at the scene: to the Moms playing with the kids, to Ray staring intently at the place where he had just lost a trout off of his line but with a smile on his face nonetheless…and I realize that for this entire day, I have completely forgotten that impending deadline at work, all of the crappy emotional stuff that has been hovering like a dark cloud over just about everything for the last few weeks, the friends and colleagues who have passed suddenly, those senseless school shootings. That stuff has been nowhere in sight for all of this beautiful day…and I have been just having the greatest time.

Cool.

Happy Father’s Day!

-Juke / Pat / Whatever.