Ten Miles Carried and Left in the Amazon

It’s isn’t often that we get to spend an intimate moment with one of our kids. I got to do it with both my kids and it imprinted an indelible memory in my brain. Mind you, one was painful as hell and the other rift with poisonous snakes, lethal frogs and creepy crawlers who liked to go caving in parts of your body they shouldn’t be in. But that’s another story.

The first crash and carry story had to do with my wonderful daughter, Melanie, and the grand plans we had for running the 2014 Twin Cities Marathon together. I ‘d already done two other marathons. The first in 1982, when I was a much younger man, proved a very nice PB (personal best) for me. The second was more laborious but ultimately successful in that I finished pretty strong for a middle-aged jogger. The third would be my last. I was getting up on age and three seemed like a nice round number in which to end my distance running career.

This last twenty-six miler turned out to be an adventure neither one of us had planned for or anticipated. Melanie and I began training in early summer and were up to 22 miles for our last weekend when I came down (literally falling to the ground) with a stress fracture.

That injury meant six weeks of recovery. So, by the time the marathon came along we had only built our weekend mileage back up to sixteen miles. Undeterred, I was determined to run the race and hope for the best.

We started out slow and easy and kept a reasonable pace for all of sixteen miles. Then everything fell apart. Back pain began to creep up and crippled my spine. My legs turned to rubber and I experienced some of the worst pain I’d ever experienced in my life. It felt as if all my systems, internal and external, were going south and taking me mentally with them. It seemed the end of the road for me.

Common sense dictated that I drop out at that point. There seemed little reason to continue when I could hardly put one foot in front of the other. Melanie was kind, sympathetic but realistic. “Dad, I think you should drop out.” She said. “But if you want to continue, I’ll stay with you.”

That was all I needed to hear. Dreading another summer of hard training and trying again in 2015 was enough to convince me, even as brain dead as I was in that moment, that another summer of pounding the pavement would be worse than the pain I was experiencing at the moment.

So, we started out slowly together, walking one block, jogging another. We kept up that stumbling, staggering pace for another ten miles and finally came in at a little under six hours. Melanie had carried me home and I will be forever grateful for that. I’m done with marathons now. I finished the last one in 2014 and while my timing wasn’t the best, I finished the thing and am damn proud of my accomplishment.

Melanie gave up any PB for herself but has since gone on to run numerous other marathons, triathlons, the Afton trail race, Pikes Peak, Cactus to Clouds hike and running the Grand Canyon rim to rim. Her running portfolio hasn’t suffered from her patience and kindness shown to her old Dad as he mentally fought those last ten very painful miles beside her.

Brian, on the other hand, took me into the heart of the Amazon rain forest and left me there. Boy, am I grateful for that experience! 

Send a sixteen-year-old down to South America on his own (actually part of a school field trip), leave him there alone for two weeks and you’ve got a total stranger on your hands.

Two weeks with a wealthy family in Quito, Ecuador, was enough to turn my son Brian into a Jack London, Jack Kerouac and Tom Clancy wannabee wrapped up behind the disguise of a high school sophomore, varsity wrestler, chess captain, honor student and overall macho man.

Quito, formally known as San Francisco de Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador. At an elevation of 9,350, it is the highest capital city in the world. It’s a strange mixture of new buildings and old. New wealth mingling with extreme poverty. All of this surrounded by the magnificent Andes Mountains.

Once our group left Quito, transportation was quickly reduced to using the local long-range bus system. Built for stamina and very rough roads, these transportation dinosaurs could do the distance. But creature comforts were left back at the station. The buses were built for the locals, which meant that if you were over five feet tall, your head would bounce up against the roof every time the bus hit a pothole or rut in the road. It happened a lot!

Traveling down to the Amazon rain basin from mountainous Quito entailed harrowing bus rides on dirt roads that simultaneously hugged mountainous cliffs on one side of the road and sheer drop-offs on the other. Not for the faint of heart or those with altitude problems.

River crossings were always interesting, especially since this was the rainy season. If the bus driver wasn’t sure about the depth of the river crossing, we’d hop a pickup truck along with the locals and try to cross that way. We were like the preverbal canary in the mineshaft. If we made it across, the bus should be able to make it too.

River transportation in that part of the Amazon consists of mainly dugout canoes. Enormous tree trunks were hollowed out and a motor placed in back. Since it was the wet season, our pilot was always on the lookout for washed out tree trunks floating in the river. A collision with one of those battering rams could have easily turned our dugout over on its side and put bodies into the water.

The other word of caution was for us to watch out for snakes hanging from low-lying tree branches or snakes in the water. And, of course, the proverbial crocodiles, which loved to shadow our dugout canoe hoping to find a hand or two dragging alongside in the water.

Brian and I agreed that the most memorable experience of the entire trip was our vision quest in a pouring rainstorm. Each of us, student and adult alike, was marched into the jungle and then left alone (totally separated from one another) for a period of an hour or longer with only the sounds and smells and humidity of the jungle to assault your senses. It just so happened that our incubation period occurred during a very heavy rainstorm. I mean sheets of rain and visibility of about ten feet, if that, for hours on end.

The idea was to experience the Amazon rain forest in its entirety without the distractions of other people and outside influences. There was no way any one of us could have found our way out of there. We had to trust that our guide would come back and find us and lead us back to camp. It was awesome. Brian and I both thought we’d died and gone to heaven. Hard to explain if you haven’t been there but it was a very thought-provoking experience. A true vision quest.

Our trip to the Amazon was more than just a high school field trip. Instead, it became a journey of self-discovery for both Brian and myself. For Brian, it was his first taste of other cultures, which only wetted his appetite for greater adventures ahead and inspired him to travel around the world while still in college. For myself, it was a continuation of my desire to explore options and opportunities that might expand my own creative horizon.

So, while some other fathers might regale their buddies with father-son bonding stories of camping trips or baseball games, I came to admire and grow very proud of my son in the dangerous backwaters and jungles of the Amazon River basin. As for my daughter, my asphalt angel, well, she carried me home too…. just in a different wonderful way.

What a lucky dad am I.

Doesn't Need a Man in Her Life

‘Need’ is the operative word here. I’m talking about the kind of woman who makes some men very uncomfortable. The last thing you’d dare call her is the ‘little woman,’ ‘wife of’ or ‘other half.’ She is herself; totally herself without apology. Most men get it; some poor souls don’t.

As a novelist, playwright and screen writer, it’s my job to create, imagine and paint colorful picture-stories of women that readers want to read about. They should be real, provocative, mysterious, and honest to the real thing.

For example, I’ve tried to do this with my ‘Debris’ trilogy. There’s Natalie, a semi-butch lesbian, Juliet, who turns out to be bi-sexual, Millie, an aging Hollywood star, Miranda, a victim of incest and a host of other (I believe) real world women. Yet, as often as I try to paint an honest portrayal of a real woman, I find myself falling back into my most comfortable, familiar refrain.

It’s like in Greek mythology where sirens, half-bird, half-woman creatures, lure sailors to their death with their enchanting, irresistible songs. Their beautiful, yet deceptive, melodies play in my head as well and cause me, along with those mariners, to lose our minds and sail the ships into the rocky shores of the Sirens' island, causing us to drown.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, I find myself almost always gravitating toward a singular profile for my female protagonist. What can I say; I’m prejudice in the best kind of way. Through my writings, I’ve made no secret of my admiration of and attraction to independent, strong-willed women who are confident enough in themselves and their own abilities that they don’t need a man for any kind of affirmation.

I have absolutely no idea where my fascination with strong women came from? My mother was a strong-willed woman but never in a demonstrative way; German Catholics seldom are. It wasn’t the other woman in my life; aunts, nuns, female classmates, someone in the church pew ahead of me.

In my younger years, the women I’d been involved with all fit that criteria in one manner or another. Until the day, one came along who wore that crown like it was custom-tailored for her. Fifty-three years later, it still fits despite two personalities that couldn’t be more different in so many ways.

One of the Seven Wonders of the World is how an ISTJ (off the charts) married and learned to live with an ENFJ (off the charts) for fifty-three blissful years. An introvert and an Alpha Female navigating the ups and downs of communal living with all the baggage of kids, mortgages, careers, etc.

My own experience living with an Alpha Female means that most of the time she gets her way, mainly because I don’t care!  So, it’s eighty percent of the time (she’d argue it should be 125%) that her way dictates our lifestyle. Surprisingly (or not), this unplanned arrangement fits our opposite personalities and causes no problem. Seriously! It’s the other twenty percent that gets interesting.

The other ten percent where we can’t agree means that nothing gets done until some kind of compromise is reached. That stalemate can last days or months. Some have never been resolved and we’ve managed to survive as a happy couple. The final ten percent is the most important ingredient to our marriage success.

Without any preplanning, real discussion, or analysis before we got married, Sharon and I have (most fortunately) found ourselves in complete agreement on several core issues paramount to our lives. This includes little interest in material goods, current status symbols and any other cha-chas that announce ‘we have arrived.’ Neither one of us is afraid of hard work, monetary sacrifices, and common-sense dictates in raising our children.

Of all those things, large and small, that are important to both of us, education is at the top of that list. As mentioned in a past blog ‘Origins of Birth,’ education is the gift that keeps giving for us, our children and grandchildren. I hope it continues to be the standard of excellence of all of us long into our future.

As far a living with an alpha female goes, a lot of folks don’t understand that someone like that has to see her partner as equal not less. So, while she doesn’t need a man in her life, Sharon isn’t one to let a good thing go…not after fifty-three years. Lucky me.

Pastures Gone Barren

It was an experiment born out of a crisis, enriched by isolation and then crippled by life’s return to normal. As the cliché goes, all good things must end sometime. It’s just too bad it had to be this because I think we all needed it back then and still do today.

At the height of the COVID-19 crisis, I was stumbling around trying to figure out how to stay connected with past friends and acquaintances. Turns out that at about the same time, there were rumblings among the mental health community about a relatively new phenomena called: male loneliness. Google said it best:

The "male loneliness crisis" refers to the increasing number of men, particularly young men in the U.S., who report feeling profoundly lonely and isolated, often due to a lack of close friends and deep social connections. This crisis has serious health consequences, including increased risks for heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression, and premature death. The problem is linked to rigid societal expectations of masculinity that discourage vulnerability and help-seeking behavior, a decline in the number of men with close friends, and the lasting impacts of social media and pandemic lockdowns.

My idea was simple enough. There was a pandemic and people couldn’t gather together. Even as a certified in good standing introvert, I missed those unplanned, casual encounters with friends that always brought me some great writing ideas, insight into their lives, and the feeling that we were all sharing something between us. It was safe, secure, and honest.

Sharon and I were in Palm Springs that Spring. Fear of contact with others prevented us from flying home so we rented a mini-truck (SUV) and began our trek back home. It was during that long journey across miles of nothingness that I thought about reconnecting with friends back home. Truth be told, I’m not a group-kind of person. I’m much more comfortable with a one-on-one situation. I find those conversations deeper and more enriching rather than group chats.

So, my idea was a pretty simple one. We would meet outdoors where distance was assured. It could be park shelters, coffee shop patios, lake front property and/or my own porch. Anyplace convenient for the other party. The goal was just as simple. A chance to connect or reconnect with friends, on a one-on-one basis, safely distanced apart and share our lives. Simple in concept, hard in reality.

At first everyone was all in.  Almost ten folks, male and female, who seemed to embrace the idea and were willing to give it a shot. The conversations flourished in the absence of communal gatherings and friends apart. It was safe, convenient, different and richly rewarding for most of us. Older adults just being themselves. Sharing and caring and openness seemed to be the order of the day. At least that’s what I thought. But just as quickly as the idea was accepted, its duration began to grow tired and slow down after a couple of years.

Calm placid waters in the early morning stillness weren’t enough to hold some people’s interest and attention. Life began to creep back into their lives. Even as I felt our intimate conversations grow and evolve, some of my salon compatriots began to show their cracks as their respective lives began to regain some kind of normalcy. Nothing ever remains as it is. So, too it was with my coffee and chat encounters.

Like ‘Bob Dylan’s Dream,’ it was there and then it wasn’t. The reasons were many and varied and each carried with them a glance into lives returned, lives changed and lives moving on. Dementia, cancer, elder care, work (didn’t have to) and work (had to) were just some of the variables that began to scratch away at this good idea. I don’t blame anyone for dropping out. Life just got in the way.

Fortunately, a few old stalwarts remain; still willing to challenge the early morning chill and quiet of dawn for a chance to connect, reconnect and solidify their bond with fellow life travelers. I intend to ride this pony for as long as I can and my friends are willing. There’s still nothing like the early morning stillness to open up one’s mind to a kaleidoscope of possible topics and verbal banters to exchange.