I finished my first year at UC Berkeley without screwing up too badly. Some good experiences and several not so good – like the time i snuck a HUGE firecracker – an “Atom Bomb” the size of a stick of dynamite purchased in Tijuana – under the bed of Rich Weinstock on the 8th floor of Griffith Hall.
I put it into a WW2 ammo case with a burning cigarette as a ‘timed fuse’ before surreptitiously sliding it under his bed as revenge for his spitting on my face when i stuck my head out of my 7th floor digs the day before. I returned to my room, barely able to contain my giggles, and i waited for the explosion … and waited and waited and …. I was just about to conclude that the fuse had failed when an intense explosion rattled our windows and echoed throughout south Berkeley. Wow! Strange, however, since it did not seem to come from the dorm room directly overhead.
I raced up the stairs and into the 8th floor’s hallway. Fred, Rich’s roommate, was walking in my direction like a zombie – not responding to the commotion about him as everyone had poured out of their rooms into the hallway. Fred was obviously in a state of shock.
I joined Rich as they returned to their dorm room. Rich filled us in on the events. They had smelled something smoky and eventually found and opened the ammo box. Indeed the cigarette had stopped burning. Fred pulled out the stick with a fuse on it and decided it would be fun to shoot off this “Roman Candle” from the 8th floor balcony overlooking College Avenue.
In case you don’t know what a Roman Candle is, let me explain. You prop the thing up so that the business end aims into the sky and then light the fuse. Every couple of seconds or so, the ‘candle’ shoots out a colorful burning pellet that sparks as it arcs into the distance. Each launched pellet is a different color from the previous one. If you are macho, you hold the Roman Candle in your hand and aim it away toward a ‘safe’ area. Fred had held Roman Candles before and my “Atom Bomb” happened to be only slightly larger.
Rich had pleaded with Fred not to hold onto this thing since the writing on the cylinder clearly said “Atom Bomb,” not “Roman Candle.” Fred refused to listen. The two of them went out to the balcony over College Avenue and Fred lit the fuse. Rich pleaded and yelled at Fred to drop it. Fortunately, Fred finally chucked the cylinder over the railing and it nearly made it to the sidewalk before exploding. The “Atom Bomb” would have easily removed several of Fred’s fingers and possibly destroyed both of his eyes.
This was just one of my “not so good” experiences as a freshman at Berkeley.
One day i had gone to the summer jobs office at the university and applied to be a summer worker in Yellowstone Park. I was accepted along with Jean Shepherd from our campus. Without so much as looking at a map, I told Jean that i would pick her up on my way from my folks’ place in El Cajon, California, since dad offered to loan me his ‘58 Ford Station Wagon for the summer. Because of the way our planet happens to be spherical and the coast of California angles from southeast to northwest, the distance from El Cajon to Yellowstone is about the same distance as Berkeley to Yellowstone. My offer to Jean added 500 miles to my journey. My parents were not particularly happy with this since they were paying for gas. Oh well.
Jean and i eventually arrived in Yellowstone in time for the orientation meeting by our employers – a hundred college kids from around the country crammed into a hot stuffy room. I looked around, figured out how the window mechanisms worked, and opened several of them. One of the managers took the microphone and droned on about hard work, obedience, reliability, and initiative. As an example of initiative, he praised the “young woman” who opened the windows without being told. OK, so my hair was a little long.
I was assigned to the Old Faithful Ice Cream Parlor. We were carefully instructed how to create hollow balls of ice cream with the metal scoops. It would look like the customers were receiving generous amounts of ice cream but, in fact, we were saving bundles of money for the concessionaire company. Repeatedly through the summer, our manager would scold us for serving too much ice cream. He compared the receipts with the inventories of ice cream and told us the Ice Cream Parlor would go broke unless we mastered the art of the hollow ice cream ball deceit. Whenever I served up ice cream in the proper hollow configuration, my customers bitched about it so generally i searched for an unhappy middle ground where the ice cream wasn’t totally solid but not so hollow as we were instructed to serve.
I credit myself with the invention of the “Old Faithful Special.” People would note the hand-written addition to our ice cream and drink selections, and ask, “What’s the Old Faithful Special?”
“It’s a root beer float.”
“OK. I’ll take that.”
Barely able to mask our glee, we would fill a glass tumbler nearly to the top with root beer and then, with the care of a neurosurgeon, slowly lower a scoop of vanilla ice cream until it placidly floated at the surface. Then, with smoothness, placed the Old Faithful Special and a long spoon on the counter in front of the customer. Unfailingly, the customer would pick up the spoon and use it to push down on the ball of ice cream. The result was an impressive flood of fizzing root beer out of the glass and over the counter and a concerned cry from the customer.. Before the flood spilled into the person’s lap, we’d race forward with towels to stem the flow and tell them, “It’s OK. Now you know why we call it the Old Faithful Special.” And finally, “We’ll give you more root beer as soon as it settles down.”
I shared a dorm room with Bill, who like me had just finished his first college year, and with Steve who was soon to begin his senior college year. Not only that, Steve was no longer a virgin like Bill and me. Naturally we granted Steve full leadership and miscellaneous privileges. Additionally, Steve was 21 so our fridge was continuously stocked with beer. To top off our dorm room identity, i found a discarded carton that once held twelve packages of twelve condoms, trimmed the cardboard, and posted on our door, “Trojans – 1 Gross.”
Naturally we quizzed Steve about his sexual experiences when he returned one night after dating an extroverted, attractive, older student worker. All he would say was that she had an inordinate amount of hair on her chest. From then on, everytime i saw her walking by, i tried to imagine that hair.
Jennie always caught everyone’s attention, not just because she was attractive, svelte, well proportioned, and perpetually in a good mood, but because she was tiny – a mere 4 feet 9 inches tall. When you saw her standing alone, there was no hint that she was so small. She won the 1963 Miss Yellowstone contest a few weeks after we arrived.
Andrea – Andie – was my social partner of choice. She worked in the gift shop adjacent to the ice cream parlor and had the mannerisms of a tomboy. The fact that she balanced her college studies with competition go-kart racing sealed my attraction to her. We went to “woodsies’ together with at least eight crammed into the Ford. (Woodsies are like night-time beach parties but at picnic areas in the woods.) We filled the car and went to get pizza in West Yellowstone, Montana. We went to swim at Iron Creek together; again with the Ford crammed with bodies but always with Andie pleasantly up against me on the Ford’s front bench seat.
The swimming hole in Firehole River has a cliff people jump off of. Greg, the worker with a face perpetually covered with horrific pimples, executed incredible dives from that cliff. His flips and twists were amazing. And always he entered the water with hardly a splash. I decided to at least jump from the cliff. I climbed the dusty, rocky trail wincing from the pressure of the uneven surface on my tender bare feet. I slowly eased my way the last five feet to the edge while trying to will my acrophobia into submission. Finally i stood close enough to the edge that i could survey the void between me and the water below. And stood and stood and stood. I could not bring myself to jump. With a sigh, i turned away and started down the trail. Before i was ten paces away, three running, giggling girls – the oldest maybe ten years – swept past me and, without breaking stride, disappeared into nothingness. I returned to the edge and watched the still laughing girls swim to shore. I took a big breath and jumped.
After plummeting and accelerating down toward the river, i exhaled and gasped in a second breath. The fall was taking forever. I decided to hold my arms tight against my abdomen for the entry. I grabbed a third breath and then came the violence of hitting the water feet-first and my forearms painfully clobbering my chin. I took my time floating up to the surface as i felt my sore chin. When i got out of the water i checked my teeth; none were broken.
OK. I’d done it once. I talked myself into doing it again but this time i decided i wouldn’t try to hold my breath until just before entry. Also, i’d hold my arms straight up over my head. I hiked to the edge and did not give myself time to chicken out. Jumping into the void was still frightening but a familiar fright. I grabbed a breath a moment before entering the water while holding my arms straight up. The deceleration upon hitting the water wrenched my arms down. My hands clobbered my ears and my underarms reached the horizontal in time to painfully slap the water’s surface. I climbed out of the water and inspected my bright red painful underarms. No more cliff jumping for me.
How high was that cliff? Greg estimated thirty to thirty-five feet. Others scoffed at that and insisted it was at least 50 feet. I had my climbing rope in the back of the station wagon so i carried it up the trail, dangled an end down, and my co-workers below told me when it touched the water. I tied a string around the rope to mark where it was at the edge. When we returned to the Old Faithful dorms, i found a yard stick. From end to the string was 29 feet. Allowing for a bit of stretching, we concluded it was a 30-foot jump to the river.
Bill and Andie approached Steve and me one day with the idea of going to see “Hemingway’s Adventures of a Young Man” showing at the movie theatre in West Yellowstone. Unfortunately there wasn’t an evening when all four of us had time off from work. The best we could do was Tuesday when i was the only one scheduled to work, so i agreed to call in sick. Tuesday morning, i decided to swallow a small amount of soap which i hoped would would work like an emetic without lasting effects but allow me to barf in front of a witness or two. I could not bring myself to swallow enough although i tried retching into a public toilet anyway. I convinced one stranger that i was ill but the absurdity led me to abandon further efforts at feigning illness. I called in sick, claiming stomach troubles.
That evening the four of us quietly sneaked into the station wagon and we were on our way. Some thirty miles later we found a parking spot close to the theatre in front of the pizzeria. As i was locking the car, two other college workers came out of the pizzeria and we exchanged greetings. And then, “Hey Dave, i thought you were sick.”
“Uh. A little better but i don’t want to take the chance of infecting customers.” Whew. Good thinking.
It was an engaging movie but not a great movie. We returned to our dorms late at night.
I showed up for my shift the following afternoon and was confronted by the concessionaire boss.
“Dave, weren’t you feeling sick last night?”
“Yes sir, but i’m feeling much better today.”
“Well, you were seen in West Yellowstone last night.”
“I took a couple of us to the movies but i was afraid that coming here, i might spread my stomach flu or whatever it was.”
“The cash register was short following your shift on Monday.”
“I didn’t know that. By how much?”
Silence. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go. Come with me to the office.”
An hour later i was on the road out of Yellowstone Park with all my belongings packed into the station wagon.
Ruing my bad judgment i drove alone into a rapidly darkening afternoon. I had not even been given the opportunity to say goodbye to my summer friends.
As i sped along the winding two-lane highway that snaked within a scenic river gorge, a few huge raindrops hit the windshield; then more. Within seconds the car was buffeted by fierce gusts and a virtual wall of rainwater came at me nearly horizontally. Visibility dropped below 50 feet. I slowed to 20 mph along the shoulderless highway and, worried about a collision with a another car, searched for a turnoff, i saw a sign for an exit on the right to Green Lake Road. I took the turn and found myself sliding out-of-control down a steep and narrow muddy road. I took my foot off the brake pedal and, terrified, counter-steered as i fought to stay on the road. The muddy road levelled out and i eased the Ford to a stop..
There i sat quietly until the deluge slowed to a heavy shower. I stepped out into the rain and strong wind onto the evil slick mud. I found i was on a single-lane, triple-culvert dirt road “bridge” over a raging river. There were no railings or curbing. I was lucky that i hadn’t skidded off the side and into the river. The three culverts were the largest i’d ever seen and yet the river filled them by more than half. I could see that the far side of the crossing was a long muddy incline at least as steep as the one i’d skidded down. I got back into the Ford, climbed over the seats into the back and dug out my towel. I climbed back to the driver’s seat and dried my face and hair.
I tried backing the Ford up to the highway but the wind shoved the car sideways in the mud toward the the river as soon as it started moving. I put the transmission in Park and turned off the headlights. There was no chance to get off the “bridge” until things calmed down and dried out.
So there i sat behind the steering wheel with the engine running and heater on, munching snacks and listening to a Frank Sinatra tribute on the AM radio as it crackled with distant lightning strikes. Fierce blasts of wind and rain repeatedly rocked the car. After an hour or so, i forced the driver’s door open against the wind to go out and relieve myself. My shoes kept slipping on the muddy road. I held onto the front fender with one hand to keep the wind from tossing me toward the river as i unzipped my fly and peed downwind. I wanted to get back inside as quickly as possible since the cold rain was drenching me.
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I zipped my jeans closed and got back into the car. Shivering, i again dried my face and head. I reclined the driver’s seat and leaned back as i slowly warmed up again. I turned the radio off so i could take a nap. The occasional blasts of wind shook the car but i managed to doze off anyway.
A jolt woke me up. I sat up as the car lurched again. It was too dark to see what the hell was happening. Then the station wagon began turning. The right side quickly dropped as i realized we were sliding off the road and into the river.
I grabbed for the door handle but missed as the car pivoted and plunged into the river. I slid down the front bench seat and hit the passenger side door with my head. I was then thrown to the ceiling and into the back seat as the car tumbled and filled with frigid water. It’s too dark. Can’t find a door handle. I aspirated water trying to get a breath. I coughed the water back out.My head smashed into something. Hurts. The sloshing water bashed me about so violently i couldn’t hold onto anything. Shit, aspirated more water. Can’t see a thing. Tumbling suddenly worse. Smashed my face against something and aspirated more water. Muscles not responding. Woozy. Going numb. The policeman just watches me squirm on the sidewalk and laughs. Not right. Not right. Linda tries to help me up but i’m stuck to the sidewalk. Not right. I’m sinking into the sticky sidewalk . Sinking, sinking, sinking ….
**||
But something did not look right. Was the edge of the road closer than earlier? It was too dark to tell. I zipped my jeans closed and fetched the flashlight from the Ford’s glove box. The light beam revealed several feet of lateral smears in the mud upwind from the front and rear wheels. The wind had blown the car sideways. The Ford was near the very edge of the road and about to slide down the shoulder into the river on the downstream side of the “bridge.”
Slipping on the mud, i dashed to the back of the car, threw open the tailgate, and grabbed my climbing rope and my one carabiner. I tied one end of the rope to the door post and belayed myself down toward the top of one of the culverts on the upstream side. I was terrified by the torrent that splashed up onto me before it charged through the culvert. The river level now reached the top of the culverts and surges splashed up onto the road. My heart skipped a beat as i slipped and fell on the muddy slope until one boot was in the water. Using the rope, i pulled myself back from the water’s edge, thought about my options, and decided i had to try again. This time i kept my footing and fearfully clipped the carabiner onto the upper edge of the culvert. I looped the rope through it and climbed the rope back up onto the road. I repeated this until the car was tied in three places, doorpost, front bumper, and back bumper. However, due to its elasticity, the rope stretched as the car continued to creep sideways. I tugged and pulled in the cold, soaking rain. The car kept creeping. I got the lug nut breaker bar out from the spare tire compartment and used it to twist the rope strands together like a tourniquet. Finally the rope was sufficiently tight to stop the car from creeping further. The right front wheel was partially on the sloping shoulder.
By this time i was exhausted, drenched, coated in mud, and hypothermic. I started the engine and ran the heater as i scooped mud off my clothes and flung it out the window that i could not completely close since the rope looped around the doorpost through the window. I dried my face and head with a towel.
After another hour the rain stopped, the wind abated, and the darkness lifted. The late-afternoon sun intermittently peeked through the clouds as it slowly dipped behind the gorge walls. I clambered up the mud slope on all fours to the highway and saw there was some loose gravel along the edge of the asphalt. I skidded back down to the car and fetched my muddy towel. I returned to the highway, collected gravel in the towel, returned to the “bridge”, and tossed the gravel behind the Ford’s rear wheels. I repeated this ritual several times until i had scavenged every last piece of gravel from both sides of the highway for a hundred yards in both directions. I even spread some gravel on the muddy slope.
I then untied the rope from the bumpers and again belayed myself down to the culvert to retrieve the carabiner. I coiled up the muddy rope and tossed it and the carabiner into the cardboard box in the back of the car. I climbed in, started the engine, put it in reverse, accelerated the Ford backwards over the gravel-coated mud, and then started up the slope. The tires spun a bit on the muddy slope but i modulated the throttle until, finally, before the car came to a complete stop, we reached the pavement. In the dark, i resumed along the highway, hours after taking that turnoff.
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