The latest Saville Row offering- Goretex three season suit, Dri-fit buttondown shirt, and spectra climber’s tie:
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I could make a long story short, but then I’d never squeak this many chapters out of this story. So rather than just tell you that I did it- that I got onto a moving incline train- I need to tell you that I plonked by butt down firmly onto the I beam that jutted out away from my pylon (I can call it ‘mine’, there wasn’t anyone there to argue the point.) and though I didn’t actually have a suction fit to the beam, my butt did its best.
Did you know there isn’t a really good word for working your way out along I-beams over a drop with your legs dangling and your brain jangling? I’m using the word ‘scootch’. Sherpas might have a word that would fit the mood. I imagine that the guys in those old black and white photos of skyscrapers being built had a good word for it, maybe twenty. None of them have a word, though, that would shade it with the proper nuance to imply that you’re trying to catch a train on the other end of the I-beam. Odd.
Once the scootching is done, you have to clamber. ‘Clamber’ in this context, means to cross your body over a set of railroad tracks at a steep incline that are mounted to some trusses all of which are between you and a totally different other set of trusses and tracks that you need to get to without 1) falling through and 2) getting anything pinched off by a train being pulled up the track by big ol’ greasy cables.
Now that the clambering and scootching is all accomplished (without falling or severing) I still had a little time till the train got to me. The train, unburdened by passengers or anything, is taking its own sweet time. Obviously not a swiss train nor nothin’. Don’t think I’m complaining. If the thing had been chugging merrily uphill, I might have used more haste than speed and done something truly stupid. I’m good at stupid.
This story takes place a few years ago. At that time there was a Snickers bar commercial that said “Not going anywhere for a while? Grab a Snickers.” You may not immediately see why I bring this up, but me? I have, at this point in the story, not only scootched and clambered my way across all the trestles, tracks, trusses, ladder and cables to find myself on the teeny little bit of I-beam left on the far side of the whole mess, but I have heaved myself onto the creeping incline train, not even finding myself plastered to the outside of the train cagedoor, wondering how to get in. I got in! So, there in the top ‘seat’ of the train, grinning, I have taken a Snickers bar out of my PFD pocket and would now nourish myself. I also plot how I would tell this story to the Snickers people in a letter, and possibly get a box of free Snickers out of the ordeal. I wasn’t “going anywhere for a while!” I “grabbed a Snickers!” Just like the commercials told me to! Booyah! That’s gotta be good for a box of gratis candy any day. So I was tasting not only my melty Snickers of today, but all the snacky wonderfulness of those future Snickers to come.
Then the damn train stopped.
No kidding.
Anyone with questions as to whether this is a true story can now give them up. Nobody making this up would DARE to put in this many savage assaults on Human dignity. This is getting absurd.
It was, too. This was just nuts. I stood there, wondering. I was wondering if the train would start back up. Or worse, start back down. Or maybe hold still or… I don’t know. I just didn’t know any more. An hour earlier, Greg Raymond had said, “Go over there, and take the incline train to the top. We’ll meet you in the parking lot.” That sounded EASY.
But here I am, still not even half way up this hot, God-forsaken crack in the wall on a broken train with a half-eaten, totally melted candy bar. A minute earlier, I had the ending to this story all ready. “And when he got the truckload of free Snicker bars for being in the new commercial, he shared them all with everyone on the trip, and they all lived happily ever stinkin’ after.”
And NOW, I’m leaning out of the train, staring up at the place where there should be workmen and there aren’t. And I’m looking down out of the train at where I WISH there was still an I-beam to stand on. When I got ON the train, the I-beam had been truncated and slick, but it had been THERE. Now, the side of the train opened onto a considerable drop. I don’t want to drop.
Of course, I also don’t want to wedge my fingers into the steel cage of the train walls and swing myself out and around onto the footstep platform I know is on the end of the train (I had seen it on my way in, of course) and then lower myself under the train onto the ladder that’s bolted to the tracks’ underside.
But I do it anyhow. There was some cussing involved.
Now, all I have to do is climb to the top before the train starts up again and I go the way of a possum on the highway. But that’s for Part Eight.
I’m fat. Y’know what makes me feel better about that fact? Not much.
Did you know that if you ask people on the street what ‘Obesity’ is, most people consider it to be “anything fatter than me”? They proved that by going out in public and asking people on the street. Eek.
So anyhow, one time my friends and I were out at the park (you know the one with the miles of bike trails? That one.) finishing up a ride when we realized just how lucky we were to be winding up when we did. There was a Triathlon starting up. By gum, THAT explains all the new tape and signs on the trail. It was a minor miracle we were able to get on and ride, all things considered. (We used to ride early. That’s a tip. Start riding at daybreak. More spiderwebs in the trail. Fewer everything else.)
So, why WOULDN’T you stop, take a drink of water, cool down, and watch a bunch of people swim across a lake, charge up a hill, grab their bikes and ride off, all trying to go faster than one another? You would. We did. And so did this other guy.
Nice guy. Little round across the midsection. Little talkative. So far, I might as well be describing me, but here’s the difference: He’s eating an energy bar. I was about to go home and pound down the calories, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that this guy is mildly munching away on a ‘meal replacement’ energy bar while watching other people exercise.
Very fit people are rushing past us and clambering onto expensive bikes and rushing away, burning calories like a coal stove. My friends and I had just had a leisurely weekend ride by comparison, and we were sweaty and burned down. And this pleasant talkative guy munched and told us alllll about how he competes in this kind of thing all the time. He was in such-and-such a town two weekends ago and rode in some race or other, and he doesn’t have his bike with him today because he’s doing another race next weekend and doesn’t want to burn out, and while he unwraps a second energy bar, he continues to talk about what kind of bike he has and how he and his friends love to race.
You caught the part about the second energy bar, right? This guy, who looks like he’s in no better shape than me or Hubris, is nattering on and on, and in the course of watching the hotshots of the triathlon come in from their first loop around the trails, the guy finishes the second energy bar and opens a third.
We tried to be polite. We tried gently ignoring him. We tried having our own conversations in low tones. The guy had a message, though. His message was “I’m an athlete. I do these kinds of races, too. Just not today.” We got it. Point made. Go on, now.
But he had to put the finishing touch. “You’d think,” he eventually said, starting into his FIFTH energy bar, which he had also mentioned that he buys by the box, “…that I’d be skinnier, what with all the racing and stuff, but I just can’t lose the weight.”
Five energy bars while standing around watching other people exercise. And he doesn’t know where the weight comes from. Amazing.
Having gotten this off his chest, he finally waved, told us he’d be seeing us around since he does this kind of thing all the time, and wandered off. Probably going to make sure that other people in the crowd knew that he wasn’t just a fat spectator, but that he, too, did this kind of thing. All the time. Just like those guys who were just now riding in off their second lap and starting to leap off their bikes to run for miles.
What’s the takeaway from this kind of story? It’s okay to be incognito? A stealth athlete hiding behind a screen of no bike and an extra twenty five pounds? Yeah. Okay. I’ma go home and eat a chicken.
Don’t let ‘Crashin’ fool ya:
Like a lot of cities you hear about, mine has bought up a whole bunch of ex-train land and turned it into a nice greenway. I’ve ridden bicycles on it and longboards on it. It’s nice. It’s not as long as Boston’s, which my wife and I got to ride around on a few weeks ago, but it’s cool! Here’s an illustration I did for The Memphis Flyer for a related article. I thought I was cramming different users in the image to make the point of what the line was good for. Turns out it really is crowded on nice days.
I made a few more abortive attempts to get past the boulder and its attendant thorn bush. No go. So I started working my way up the Right Hand Wall again. I was kissing this stupid wall enough to think we’d have to marry. My skills were not up to getting up this thing, so I eventually found myself standing next to one of the pylons that supported the I-beams that supported the tracks. There was a little shade, and a little place to stand and time to reflect on what it would take to get onto the tracks from here.
The tracks, you remember, are easily got onto down at the train station. They touch the ground, there.
They don’t touch the ground here, they’re suspended well over the ground. Heck, I’m way up on this stupid rock wall and they’re still above my head. So, from the look of things, if I decided to take my last option and climb the ladder bolted up under the incline train tracks, here’s what I’d have to do: Belly up onto the top of this pylon I’m in the shadow of now. Get my balance. Walk, run, crawl or scoot out along an I-beam. Work my way over the tracks. Get onto the ladder, avoiding the big greasy cables that run along with it. Climb all the way to the top of the gorge.
Both simple and complex. The simple part is climbing a ladder. We’ve all climbed a ladder. It’s easy! Why wouldn’t I climb a ladder? Well, this one’s at a hard angle. I’d have to support my weight on my arms and my legs. Still, I could stop and rest along the way. But I’d have to GET there, and that involves scootching out along an I-beam that’s well off the rocky, thorny, rotten, stupid, WHERE THE HELL IS MY BOAT, MY PADDLE AND MY FRIENDS? DAMMIT, THIS IS NOT FUNNY!
After calming down, I more calmly and carefully explained to God (The great cartoonist in the sky) that THIS isn’t funny. Badly written. I said all this out loud to Him, and why not? I said all this very calmly and carefully because you don’t want to upset Him, not here and not now. So. Having said my say, I did what most people in a hard spot do. I climbed up onto a pylon to get a better look at what kind of gag he’d written me into. Okay, not what most people do in a hard spot. I’m just pointing out how hard a spot this is.
From the top of the pylon, the fall off the I-beam was looking pretty inevitable. Plus, my luck wasn’t going so well. Plus, there was a hell of a lot of track to crab-walk up even if I scootched out to the ladder, which looked farther away than ever, anyhow.
On the other hand, I thought, I can see up along the crack a lot better up here, let’s pick a route and see… Ahhh, nuts. The climb up this crack on terra firma (terra sonofabitcha) looks bad. Really, really bad.
So. Vertigo and head injury, or twisted ankles and broken limbs?
I had nearly decided to take the slow, painful death by rock wall, when the unthinkable happened.
The train started to ascend the track.
Okay. Train is moving. If I quit pissing and moaning, crawl out onto this I-beam as fast as I can, I can meet the train going up, grab on, swing myself onto it, and ride in comfort all the way to the top. Heck, this may even be that someone at the top has seen me and they’re rescuing me! This is GREAT!
Does this sound too good to be true to you?
Yeah, we’ll discuss that in part 7.
Welcome to all of Danielle Corsetto’s devoted GWS fans. You guys have crashed the servers of TWO hosts today, and I still managed to get more views today than I usually get in two weeks. I’m awed and grateful. I hope you’ll continue to check out Hubris and Dr. Biner with us. You ROCK!
