The Encounter

Running; it can be such an awesome thing if someone enjoys it.  I must say that my 7 year old son loves it, and is very quick as well.  I noticed very early on that he was fast but never really wanted to say anything as to not be one of those parents that brags on their child and then when the sneakers hit the pavement, he is not what I have made him out to be. But then I had other people say to me that he was fast for his age.  Which I might add makes a dad very proud.

We had gone up to my parent’s house for the 4^th of July.  The community that they live in holds a 1 mile Fun Run for 6-17 year old kids.  We had signed him up for the run, and he was really focused on trying to and wanting to win.  At this point I was a bit concerned, due to the amount of kids, what the possibility of that would be. 

However, I did my best at the starting line to encourage him to do his best and let him know that I would be very proud whatever the outcome might be.  As all of the kids were lining up, he was one of the ones that had gotten placed near the back of the group.  The race official prepared the runners to start and then yelled go.  Very quickly my boy was gone with the wind, and right up in the front. 

I thought to myself, “don’t get tired, don’t get tired.”  I started to work my way down to where they would make a turn so that I could encourage him to keep it up, but was unable to find him.  So I moved on to the next spot and was watching, and there he came running full on.  I start yelling and being a bit foolish. We made eye contact and… no, no, no – he started to walk. 

“Daddy I am tired.”

“But son you are almost done and you are doing great!” 

I have to admit I had no idea where he was in comparison to the others in his age group, but for me he was doing awesome. I could not have been more proud.  I was giving him some water, and walking alongside of him, “Let’s go. You can do it, you can do it!”

Still not able to move as fast as I would like, due to my recent knee troubles, I told him not to let me slow him down, to go for it, and to finish strong.  He took off again; full on.  As I rounded the corner and saw my wife and daughter, I asked where he was and how he did.  She gave me his time of 9:30.  I filled out the card as he and I had some water together.  Then the long wait for the results. 

As I was looking at the other kids his age I thought to myself, “They look really tired. They must have been really slow.  I didn’t see her come through the finish gate. I wonder what her time was.” 

Yes, yes I wanted him to win, probably more than he did. Not for me, but because I know he really wanted to.  I know that some of you are reading that and thinking, sure, he really wanted it, right.  Really, he had talked to me the whole week prior about how he really wanted to win and get a trophy, so I wanted it too. 

What parent doesn’t want their child to have an awesome sense of accomplishment for something that they really want?  So we waited for all the girl winners to be called for all the age groups and I thought, “He has a real chance.”  So they get to the boys, and they start with the first place boy from his age.  While I am listening to the times I am thinking man those are not far from his, and yes I did wonder if their parents had been truthful about their finishing times, but then I remembered that he had run against 6-8 year olds and the two boys ahead of him were 8 years old.  I know I was being bad to judge someone else; I just really wanted him to feel that he had achieved something that he had been so focused on for the week.  Then it came to third place; my heart was about to bust out of my chest and then out of the megaphone the race official called his name. 

That’s when I saw the big smile on his face, which made me very proud.  He walked up to get his trophy and came back to me. He was no longer smiling. I asked what was wrong and he said, “I wanted first.”  I told him he did an awesome job and that I was very proud. Then he said, “I wanted to be number one for you.”  

I kneeled down put my arms around him and told him that I was very proud of him for doing his best for me and that he was number one in my mind and heart.  

Waking up, even though I do consider myself to be a morning person, can be a challenge sometimes.  I assume that even the best of us, who enjoy the morning time, can have difficulty getting started some days.

I was having one of those days. 

Another factor in my life right now is a small, but manageable, challenge that makes mornings even more interesting. I am just a few weeks out from having had knee surgery. So let’s just say that my knee is a tad bit stiff in the mornings, which makes getting up and moving, let alone moving fast, a little harder these days.

So, on a recent morning, I got out of bed and moved into our master bathroom to get myself ready for the day ahead.  I bathed, shaved, brushed the choppers, and had my clothes in hand. As a side note - it’s been becoming less and less difficult to get dressed since my knee surgery, but I still find that it is much safer and simpler to put on my knee brace while sitting on our bed. 

As I opened up the bathroom door to hobble, yes I said hobble, (and keep that visual in mind as you read on) to the bed I looked up and saw smoke. 

SMOKE!!

What? “Don’t panic”, I told myself. Yeah, right. 

I threw down my clothes and yelled to my wife, who was in the living room watching T.V. with our daughter, “Smooooke!”  I saw smoke, and we all know that where there is smoke there is usually fire! 

So I ran sprinted skipped, oh whatever one does when you’ve just had knee surgery three weeks earlier, to the other side of the bed. I was preparing myself to deal with the flames I thought I was about to encounter. I was also already going through my mind how to get my family out of the house and dial 911 at the same time. The adrenalin was pumping!

When I got to the other side of the bed I discovered the source of the “fire”. It seems that at some point in the middle of the night my lovely bride had turned on the humidifier, which was doing what humidifiers do. It was sending up big clouds of steam.

I took a deep breath. Of the calming steam. And waited for my heart rate to return to normal. I was relieved that everything was ok.

I also took a moment to think about how awkward I must have looked for those brief moments when I was trying to get to the other side of my bedroom, and I laughed. Then, realizing that all was well, I gingerly moved back to the other side of the bed and began to listen to the birds singing away outside as they do every day. I chuckled once again and went about my day.

So, what can be learned from this? Well, first of all ask your spouse to never turn on a humidifier in the middle of the night without letting you know. Otherwise the local fire department may be called to put out the ‘fire”.

And secondly, if you are going to run around your bedroom like a mad man yelling “smoke” and trying to put out an imaginary fire while doing the “stop, drop and roll” dance, don’t do it just three weeks after knee surgery.

For as long as I can remember I have loved looking up into the sky at night to see what I can see. It is amazing to me just how beautiful it is to see all that you can see.  As I have traveled to several different places around the world there is one thing that we all will always have in common; the sweet mysteries of the night sky.  I found that everywhere I go as I look up in the sky it is breath taking.  

Several years ago, I had, what would be defined as a toy telescope. Let’s just say that it was great for viewing the moon.  But even though it was just a toy, the detail that you could see was much greater than the naked eye.  It was beautiful to see, with just a bit more magnification, how remarkable the craters looked.  

As I have gotten older and still enjoy peering into the night sky, I was able a couple of years ago to obtain a much nicer telescope.  I went out that night and gazed up at the moon and the deep black sky.  I was able to see so much more of the moon than what I had been able to before.  It was so bright and beautiful that I found it difficult to see once I looked away from the eye piece. As I looked back into the telescope to discover what else there was within my viewing pleasure, I saw a very bright speck with a very odd shape. Taking my scope and focusing in on the object I very quickly realized it was Jupiter with all its rich pastel colors and bright shining moons.  

So I was so unbelievably excited that I ran into the house and rushed my wife out to see what I had discovered in my viewing.  Needless to say she was just as awed as I had been moments before.  It’s one thing to see pictures on the internet and in books and magazines, but another to see it live right in front of you.  

From that time I have been able to see multiple things such as Saturn, Mars, Venus and possibly Mercury, as well as a multitude of other very spectacular night time objects.  I have found myself on many occasions simply turning the scope to what I thought was a simple spot of darkness, only to find my eyes adjusting and beginning to see portions of light show up.  

I realize that as I look into the vast expanse of our universe that I have but merely scratched the surface of our galaxy.  It is in those moments that I begin to feel very overwhelmed and overtaken by the greatness of just how small we really are. And I realize just how tiny even this awesome planet that we live on is.

As I was on my way home from work the other night, I received a call from my wife.  She told me that my little princess had, in my wife’s words “face planted” on our driveway while playing outside.  Naturally, as I drove home I was concerned about how bad it was.   

When I got home and walked into the house I was not greeted the way that I normally am each day by my little princess.  Instead she was on the couch with her head down, eyes shut, and her pink blanky in her hand sucking her thumb.  My wife told me to go and wake her up because she wanted to see her daddy.   

As I went around the side of the couch to see her I started to think about how when we are hurting or upset our Heavenly Daddy loves for us to want to come to Him and be held in His arms.  When I sat down on the couch next to her and put her in my lap, she still had tears in her eyes. I could see the busted lip and scratched nose and face.  My heart hurt and I could almost feel the pain that she was feeling.  

She put her precious little pony tailed head down on my shoulder as she said, “hug me daddy.”   As I rubbed her back, I sat there and held her. “Princess, look at daddy”, I said. She picked up her head and looked at me with those big, beautiful, blue eyes. I said, “You are such a beautiful princess.”  As she slowly put her head back on my shoulder she softly said, “I know daddy”.  

Needless to say it brought a very big smile to my face and a bit of laughter to my heart.  What a sweetie.

I was sitting and listening to a new song that I have fallen in love with by Steven Curtis Chapman called “Cinderella” and reflecting on my own little princess.  How she loves to dance with her feet on mine.  How it makes me smile to look down and see her smile and giggle as we move across the floor.  I love to think about how, as a dad, it is a privilege to have these dances and special moments.  

Then I think of the tea parties I’ve had with her and how much she enjoys playing with her tea sets, and pretending to serve her special hot tea.  She would serve it in those tiny porcelain cups for hours if I would continue to drink it.  What a joy it is for her to know that I will take the time to have a cup with her and tell her how good it is and how great a job she did in preparing it.  

As I am reflecting on all of this, the song starts to end and I hear the chime of my computer telling me that I have an email.  Oddly enough it is an email about tea parties.

Tales From a Tea Party  
 
One day my mother was out and my dad was in charge of me and my brother who is four years older than I am. I was maybe 2 and a half years old and had just recovered from an accident in which my arm had been broken among other injuries.  Someone had given me a little “tea set” as a get-well gift and it was one of my favorite toys. Daddy was in the living room engrossed in the evening news and my brother was playing nearby in the living room when I brought Daddy a little cup of “tea”, which was just water. After several cups of tea and lots of praise for such yummy tea, my Mom came home. My Dad made her wait in the living room to watch me bring him a cup of tea, because it was “just the cutest thing!!”

My Mom waited, and sure enough, here I come down the hall with a cup of tea for Daddy and she watches him drink it up, then she says, “Did it ever occur to you that the only place that baby can reach to get water is the toilet?”

Now, let me take a moment here and let you know what was going on back at the truck while I was trying to find my way back. Through the dark. While being chased by a bear!

Some people had stopped where Dad and the truck were. He was wondering what they were doing and they were wondering the same thing about him. Dad finally got out of the truck and slowly made his way back to them.  They yelled out, “Is everything ok”, at which point Dad said, “I’m not sure”.  He explained what we were doing and then they asked him, “He’s not run into those two, mean, old bears, has he?” 

Yep, it was confirmed, I was in a bad spot. They began to tell my dad that not only was there one bear, but two; a male and his female companion. The good news was that if it was the female bear chasing me, she wasn’t quite as mean, but both were not friendly.  They continued to say that the bears were pretty hungry because the drought had depleted their food supply and so they were a bit more testy than normal. GREAT! 

Back in the woods I was still walking, and still hearing him (or her) following me. As funny as it may sound, I was encouraged that I was headed up hill, because I knew that I had walked down hill to get myself into this mess. I stopped one last time to catch my breath and listen.  I was on a small plateau. As I started walking again I crested the hill and I saw the parking lot, my dad, my truck, and our new friends that lived in the valley and had stopped by to check out what was going on. It was a very refreshing sight. 

 I took one last look back and waved goodbye to my very large, still hungry, furry black friend. We thanked the locals for stopping by to check on us and we started home.   

So, what did we learn from this, campers?  Well, first don’t go into the woods by yourself – at least not without a side arm and the appropriate carrying permit. Finally, and probably the most important, always (ALWAYS) mark your starting location in your GPS device. 

Now if you are reading this and wondering, is he going to go back some time soon and get that cache?  The answer is – NO! Don’t want to; ain’t going to. It can stay right where it is.

 Well, at least until the bears go into hibernation!

Now, being in the woods as much as I have been over the years I’ve heard lots of sounds. I didn’t really think anything about it. I was thinking it was probably a deer, coon, turkey, or possibly an opossum.  I could have only wished that was it one of these.

If you are thinking it was a bear, well, you are right.  As I turned around there it was about 15 to 20 yards away.  I very quietly, and slowly, got down on my knees.  Then perfect timing kicked in as - “can you hear me now”- my cell phone went off.  My dad, still back at the truck, was calling to make sure I was ok.  I very quickly turned it off and stayed still, only to watch the bear stand on his hind legs to look around and take a nice, long sniff.  At that point I knew I had to come up with a plan. 

I started to crawl away; trying to get my bearings as to which way was going to be the fastest way back to the truck.  The bear had started my way and I was trying to keep that minimum of 15 to 20 yards between us.  At this point my phone rang again. I answered, telling my dad, “You are going to have to give me a minute.”  I was still being pursued. 

I found the logging road but was not really sure if I was on a road that would get me back to the truck.  I moved forward on foot at a much greater speed.  I finally got to a point where I felt I could stop and listen.  I could still hear him coming my way.  I called my dad and told him what was up.  I asked him if he could see the sun, that had almost set, and tell me which way north, south, east, or west was so I could find the location of the truck – which I had not marked in my GPS. 

He proceeded to tell me that he could not see the sun setting and he was trying to find me a landmark.  The only thing I could make out in the dark was some lights from houses that were way too far off to try to get to. 

One thing that I have left out of this story so far is the fact that the ground elevation in the area had changed drastically. From where the truck was parked to the location of the cache, there had been a 584 feet change in elevation - straight down and straight back up.  So at this point between my adrenalin and hiking at a very fast pace I was way out of breath, and still disoriented, I didn’t know if I was heading towards or away from the truck. All I knew was that a BEAR was following me. 

I finally stopped and called my dad. I asked him to honk the horn on the truck and he did. But because I was so low in a valley, I could not hear it. I continued to move. I knew that I needed to keep plenty of space between me and my friend - The Bear!

(to be continued…) 

It was a very cold night to be out, and with my dad just getting over being sick, I did not think he needed to be getting out of the truck. So, I told him to stay back and I would go and get the cache. We were out Geocaching.

What is Geocaching? Well, I have heard it explained in different ways, the funniest being, “using the government’s multi-million dollar satellite system to traipse through the woods using a GPS to find Tupperware containers”. Or modern day treasure hunting.  It is a hobby that I have picked up and gotten my dad into as well. 

Back to the story. As I plugged in the coordinates to the cache “On Top Of Old Smokey” and started into the woods, I quickly realized that I was going to have to move faster than I had thought because it was getting dark. The trail was rough and straight down. With a few switchbacks here and there and here and there - now that I think about it there were a lot of them. I would periodically take a look at the GPS to see if I was getting close and, of course, it seemed as if it was taking forever. But as you know, when you do not really know where you are going it feels like a long time.  I probably was only gone from the truck for about 5 to 10 minutes. I went on into the woods when finally the alarm on my GPS went off telling me that I had arrived at the Cache site.

I stopped to catch my breath and removed my toboggan from my ears. I was hot. I had no sooner stopped to let the GPS settle in good on my location and let my ears cool off, when I heard something behind me.

(to be continued…)