C is for...

not 'the' trestle

C is for...college, concussion, canoeing, courage, climbing

C is for...climbing. And courage too but that comes in later.

I don't remember if I was much of a climber when I was a kid. I remember we had a chinese tallow tree in our backyard because in the summer we would have chinaberry wars. I think the tree was probably pretty young and so was I and I may or may not have climbed in it. As vivid as some of those memories still remain, there are not many of them. I know we were forbidden by our mother to climb in the young mimosa tree in the front yard. I remember I was furious with one of the neighbor boys and I went over to his house and 'climbed right up him' as I heard it described later but I don't know if that counts. Billy Hughes. I don't remember why I was so mad but I still remember his name.

When I was six or seven we moved to the house I did the rest of my growing up in which was carved out of the piney woods at the edge of the city. Our street paralleled a railroad track, took a 90˚ left turn, another 90˚ right turn and then lazed off to the right running parallel to the bayou and ending in a cul-de-sac. Minimum lot size was one acre and most people had several. On the other side of the bayou was (is) one of the largest city parks kept undeveloped except for a few areas.

We had only one acre and half of it was kept wooded with a thick layer of pine needles on the ground (and pinecones, you went barefoot out there at your own peril) and though these trees and I were definitely big enough to climb you can't really climb pine trees. Everyone else mostly kept their extra space wild as well, so we kids had lots of woods and ravines to roam around in and though our house was not one of the ones that backed up to the bayou, no one minded us kids cutting through their properties to go play down there. I imagine I did my share of clambering and climbing.

One day when I was about 12 or 13 I think...I don't remember exactly how old I was. Before I became a 'teenager' I'm sure because by then I had abandoned that kind of play in the woods. Young enough to confuse stupid with invincible but old enough to be out there by myself without worrying anybody about being gone all day...I decided for whatever reason...I could have wanted to explore on the other side of the bayou or I might have wanted to get to the top as a short cut to the 7/11...to climb to the top of the train trestle I had finally come too as I had wandered along the bayou's edge. This was the same train track that our street ran parallel to when you first turned off onto it and this was the trestle that bridged the bayou for the train.

I was out there by myself and with no one to dissuade me from this bone-headed idea, scaring me with how dangerous it was, I started climbing up. There is a big new modern trestle over this spot now but back then it was one of those old timber creosoted bridges. Lower down the cross pieces were closer together but as I got higher they got farther apart until finally I could go no higher. The track above me was out of reach. And then I looked down.

I don't know how high that trestle was. 30 feet? 40? I don't know what the grade slope of the land was at that point where I was on the bayou in relation to street level. But from where I was crouched looking down, it was pretty damn high. It might as well have been 60 feet or 100. High enough that if I fell it would seriously injure me if not outright kill me so I did what any respectable kid would do. I froze with fear and cried. Couldn't go up and couldn't get down. I don't know how long I sat up there. Long enough to get bored and over my initial paralyzing fear. Long enough to talk some sense into my head. No one knew where I was and I wouldn't be missed til dinner and then no telling how long it would take for them to find me. Long enough to convince myself that if I had gotten up there, I could get myself back down. Long enough to know that if my parents had to call out for my rescue, they'd kill me themselves.

And so I finally gathered up my courage and started my shaky descent down. Obviously I made it. I was so glad to be on the ground again I sat down and cried a little more. I got home, no one had missed me and I never mentioned it to anyone. I knew that it was a stupid thing to do in hindsight and telling about it would only bring me grief.

Later in my adult life I found myself in many a scary and precarious situation boulder scrambling in mountains and in river canyons, scaling cliff faces and middens, following goat tracks to get up to the paleo-native american shelters to look at the pictographs and paintings they left behind.

I'd like to say I had learned some sort of lesson that day but apparently not. Maybe it was the courage that stayed with me.

*I have changed the font.