The Horse in My Garage and Other Stories (7 page)

“Wow!” you say to your canoe partner. “Look at that sunset!”

“Duh!”

But I have no one to blame but myself. I had failed to run a risk assessment on my potential canoe partner. He was a college professor. That in itself should have set off alarm bells, but I failed to detect any. A proper risk assessment can save you endless difficulties in the selection of companions for hunting, fishing, camping, and canoeing.

Often, though, we will do a risk assessment and then fail to apply it to the appropriate situation. A friend of mine recently told me about a fellow with whom he and some of his other pals hunted. On three separate hunting trips, my friend told me, this fellow's rifle went off accidentally, once in the car, once as he was getting out of the car, and once in the hunting cabin. As a result of my interest in risk assessment, I started to ask my friend a question.

“Stop!” he cried, raising his hands. “I know! I know! I know what you're going to ask. After the first accidental discharge, why did we continue hunting with the guy?”

“It seems to call for a risk assessment.”

“He owned the hunting cabin!”

“Oh, right! A hunting cabin is well worth the risk. Excuse me for even questioning your motive.”

Obviously, my friend in this instance had made an assessment and concluded a hunting cabin was well worth the risk. That is my point exactly. Risks are often highly rewarding, particularly if you survive. But make sure you weigh them carefully beforehand. Risks are not Brussels sprouts after all. Actually, Brussels sprouts are not without risk, but I don't want to go into that.

Here's a perfect example of what can happen if you don't weigh risks before undertaking a venture. Kenny, Norm, Vern, and I, my hunting, fishing, and camping companions, were returning from a camping trip high in the mountains. We were all about sixteen. Having been out for a week, and having climbed five mountain peaks that demanded climbing, we were all exhausted. We decided to take a shortcut on our way out of the mountains. The shortcut had hardly started when we came to a high mountain blocking our way—Beehive. The mountain had overlapping layers of rock that resembled the sides of a wild beehive.

We now had two choices. We could climb up over the top of Beehive in relative safety, or we could drop down through thick woods and brush to the river far below and go around it. And I discovered a third choice. I noticed a narrow rock ledge running around the steep side of the mountain right on our level. It was directly ahead of us. If we worked our way around Beehive on the ledge, we wouldn't have to climb either up or down. Brilliant! But what if, as we worked our way around Beehive, the ledge started to peter out and eventually disappeared altogether! This was the risk I failed to assess. Halfway around, the ledge began to narrow. Before long, we were leaning into the rock, our boots turned sideways on the ledge and overlapping its outer edge by inches. For some reason I've forgotten, we could not turn around and go back. I think it had something to do with having to hop in the air, turn our feet around, and hope we landed back on the narrow ledge when we came down. There was also the problem that each of us carried a heavy pack, which seemed to be pulling us out into empty space. Far down below, we could see the tops of tall pines, the tips of which seemed to be beckoning to us with long green fingers. At this point the group's confidence in me as a leader seemed to diminish. And then, suddenly, as I inched forward, the ledge widened. A miracle! Saved!

I turned and assured my fellow campers that ledges like this usually widened at the far end. “Oh, look! This is where the widening starts. I bet you guys were getting pretty worried! Ha!”

That was the last time I got to lead, which was too bad, because after the ledge I never went anywhere without first assessing the risk. It takes an expert at evaluating risk to even recognize risk in the first place. Take birch trees, for example. Just looking at a slender, graceful birch tree, the average person would never realize it was loaded with risk.

When Vern and I were about twelve, we discovered that a birch tree could give you a decent ride. In those days, we rode everything that was available: horses, cows, pigs, bicycles, wagons, sleds, rafts, and homemade boats. Each contained its own particular kind of treachery, but none measured up to birch trees.

Vern and I would select a birch we thought would give us a decent ride. Then we would climb it until the birch began to bend. Then we would inch up farther and it would bend more. Once we had achieved the right amount of bend, we would let go with our legs and swing out away from the trunk, holding on with our hands. Somewhere I have a poem by Robert Frost titled “A Swinger of Birches.” That is what Vern and I were—swingers of birches. Once we had swung out, the tree would begin a graceful bend, lowering us toward the ground. Once we had assessed the risk involved, we would let go simultaneously and drop. Well, actually, we had no other choice at that point.

We swung from so many birches that one day Vern heard his dad say to his mother, “I think our birch trees have some kind of disease. They're all bent over.”

Vern didn't say anything. He was an expert at assessing risk.

One day, a new kid moved into our neighborhood and, to make him feel welcome, Vern and I invited him out to swing on birches. I'll call the kid “Hap.” I don't remember his real name because he didn't stay long in our neighborhood.

As it turned out, Hap had never swung on birches, and we had to teach him the basics, except for one, which we assumed every kid knows.

Now that there were three of us to swing on birches, we selected a stouter and taller tree than usual. We let Hap go up first, because he claimed to be an excellent tree climber and could teach us some tricks. I was happy to let him lead. Even though I had swung on dozens of birches, this one made me a little uneasy because it was so tall. At last we could feel it begin to bend with the three of us. It bent and bent and bent until we were dangling side by side from beneath the bent portion. We were perhaps eight feet off the ground at that point. Vern, who had assumed command of the operation, said, “OK I'm gonna count out loud, and on the count of three we all let go and drop to the ground. Everybody got it?” Hap and I both answered yes. Vern started counting. “One—two—” at which point he and I let go and dropped to the ground. The birch then snapped up straight and whipped over in the opposite direction!

That's when Hap left the neighborhood. We never saw him again. I think his folks may have thought Idaho was simply too wild a state in which to raise a boy. Vern and I felt bad about Hap. He simply didn't know how to assess the risk of a situation. Any kid should know that when one of the guys says everybody let go on the count of three, everybody lets go on the count of two. It's just common sense. Why Hap wasn't aware of that, I don't know. Maybe he hadn't thought to run a risk assessment on Vern and me.

I often ran risk assessments on Vern but not often enough or thoroughly enough. Once when we were about eight, we were pretending that two holes from which stumps had been blasted were trenches in one of our endless boyhood wars. We lobbed chunks of dried dirt back and forth at each other, the clods bursting harmlessly on one side or the other of us. Incoming clods were easy to dodge. Once, while searching for a suitable clod in the bottom of my foxhole, I glanced up. Vern loomed over me, an immense clod cocked above his head in both hands.
KABLOOEY
! I almost choked on the cloud of dust that burst around my head. Once again I had failed to run a proper risk assessment, this time on Vern. On the other hand, who would expect an enemy to charge during trench warfare? It was insane.

Learning early about risk assessment has served me well all my life. During my many years as a freelance writer, a photographer and I were accompanying a mountain-climbing expedition for the purpose of doing a TV feature on the venture. At one point we were traversing a steep slope of hard-packed snow. We had to climb down the slope at a steep angle and then proceed back up. The lead climber was stamping footholds in the snow for the long line of climbers following him. I quickly ran a risk assessment and discovered that at the point where the trail angled back up, my feet had to be in the right sequence to match those of the leader. Otherwise, at the sharp turn back up, I would have to leap in the air, switch feet from back to front, and hope I landed in the right footholds when I came down. My risk assessment allowed me to make this necessary adjustment well before I got to the sharp turn. I naturally assumed my photographer would make his own risk assessment. Alas, he didn't. When he came to the turn, he leaped in the air, twisted around, and tried to land in the leader's tracks. He missed, or so I judged from the diminishing “AAAAaaaiii!!” behind me. When I had the opportunity to look back, I could see him zooming down the mountain on his back, his heels sending twin sprays of snow into the air.

I thought, “Just my luck! Now what am I going to do for film?”

I think I must have assessed my first risk at about age eight. My favorite book back then was
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
. Huck had run away from home to escape down the Mississippi River on a raft. I would have loved to escape down the Mississippi on a raft, but all I had available was Sand Creek. The creek flowed through the country side for about three miles, then into Lake Pend Oreille, which emptied into the Pend Oreille River, which connected with the Columbia River, which emptied into the Pacific Ocean. I didn't know all that at the time, but actually only wanted to float far enough on Sand Creek that I could still get home before dark. I wasn't in Huck's class when it came to adventure.

My friend Crazy Eddie Muldoon lived on the farm next to ours. Eddie helped me build the raft out of fence posts, which were abundant on his father's farm. The raft turned out to be everything I had imagined except it was rather small. I noticed this when I ran my risk assessment on it. I also noticed that it lacked brakes and a steering wheel. Part of the risk was that I would be at the mercy of the creek and the raft. Eddie seemed to be running his own risk assessment. When I suggested he give the raft a test run, he replied that he couldn't because he was wearing his good pants. The problem with pants for boys in those days was you couldn't tell the good pair from the bad pair. As it happened, I suddenly remembered I was wearing my good pants also. So both of us having made our risk assessments, we shoved the raft off on its journey to the Pacific without a passenger. I was very glad afterward that I'd had the good sense to run that risk assessment. Before the raft had made it around the first bend, it began to disintegrate, each post going its own way. Perhaps it was a design flaw, I don't know.

If one tends to be addicted to adventure, it is important always to assess the risks. Then, of course, you ignore them. Otherwise, it wouldn't be an adventure.

The Forty-Pound Brown Trout

M

y wife, Bun, has been complaining of late that I can't seem to keep my mind on any single subject for more than five seconds. Nonsense, I say. Now, where was I?

Oh, yes, a while back a reader of mine sent me a colored photo of himself holding a forked stick containing about ten little trout, all eastern brook, as nearly as I could make out. He wrote that he and his son had caught them in a little Idaho lake, the name of which he forgot to divulge. Perhaps he knows I am an eastern brook fanatic.

Brookies are by far the best tasting of all trout. “Tasting!” someone cries out. “You actually eat the fish you catch!” Well, yes, I do, I confess. The recent rise of catch-and-release has made catch-and-eat somehow seem immoral. Fortunately, it appears as if some fish and game departments view the eastern brook trout as somewhat of a lesser fish, because the limit on brookies, (as we aficionados call them) is often set at almost double that of rainbows. I am certainly not in favor of rushing the demise of brookies, but I do appreciate the efforts of fish and game departments to keep the limit on them up to a reasonable eating level. Rainbows, on the other hand, are perfect for catch-and-release, particularly those removed from the hatchery and “planted” by the fish and game department the day before the season opens.

What's that, Bun? Forked sticks? Oh, yeah, I was just getting to that. This report is not about brookies. Don't know how I drifted off onto them. No, what I intended to write about is forked sticks. After brookies, the second thing in the photo to get me excited was the forked stick on which the brookies were strung. When I glimpsed the forked stick, I knew that here were two fishermen of my own ilk or what had once been my ilk. One does not release fish that have been carried about all day on a forked stick, at least not intentionally. In my youth, I occasionally lost a fish from my forked stick, but only because it had dried out, withered, and fallen off on its own. Maybe that's where the whole idea of catch-and-release came from. “Yeah, I had a lot bigger one, but I released it.”

There is something to be said for eating the fish you catch. I suspect it has something do with a gene we still retain from the days we actually hunted and fished for food. Undoubtedly, the joy of a kill or a catch was greatly enhanced for anyone who hadn't eaten for a week or two. We still get that little burst of joy from hooking a fish, and I think it may be because we still retain the gene that remembers not having eaten in a couple of weeks.

Fishing is one of those things you don't want to think too much about. I know people with $50,000 boats and about that much in fishing tackle, and they still get that little burst of joy from hooking a fish. Not only could they go to the fish market and buy a whole salmon, but they could buy the whole market. So where does the thrill come from in catching a fish? I don't want to think too much about it.

Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, forked sticks. I guess the reason I was so impressed by the picture of a forked stick strung with brookies was because I hadn't even seen a forked stick in maybe forty years, let alone one strung with little trout.