Nubze

In the movie Liar, Liar, Jim Carrey plays the character Fletcher Reede. Fletcher is divorced and his ex-wife has custody of their young son. In the beginning of the film, Fletcher promises to attend the boy’s birthday party, but forgets to show up. The movie is not a great cinematic feat, but the scene of the sad and disappointed boy waiting for his father to appear moved me.

I mention the movie, because this last Sunday my son experienced his own Fletcher Reede moment. It wasn’t Spencer’s birthday. And, I didn’t forget about him, but I wasn’t at my apartment for the allotted custody drop-off time.

Yeah, shitty, I know. But let me explain.

I had gone backpacking with my sister in Mount Rainier National Park this past weekend. Knowing I had to be home for Spencer’s drop-off Sunday afternoon, I had calculated hiking distances and timings before taking off into the wilderness. I was certain I would make it back home to receive Spencer at the scheduled time.

Unfortunately, my best laid plans went awry.

Saturday’s grueling hike up 3,000 feet to our campsite had really taken its toll on me. Subsequently, I slept a little later than expected. In addition, my sister recently purchased new boots. Unfortunately, the break-in period wasn’t kind to her. The boots had inflicted blisters and great pain onto her feet. Translation: a late start and blistered feet resulted in a slower descent than I had calculated.

About halfway down the mountain, I realized we needed to pick up the pace and I pushed for a us to move a bit quicker. The pained expression from my sister’s face told me, “not going to happen.” I think she gave me the evil eye, too.

The vision of Spencer standing, waiting for my apartment door to open, made me panic. Oh my god, I can’t be one of those horrible fathers.

I looked at my watch and saw I had several hours until Spencer would ring my doorbell. But, it didn’t look good given our location on the trail.

With a couple miles left until the ranger station parking lot (and 30 minutes to deadline), my calves and quads were screaming at me. My shoulders joined in the chorus. My feet felt as if they were on fire. And, my sister growled at me every time I said, “we’re almost there.” I wanted to stop and rest, but I knew I had to get to the car. I needed to call my ex on the cell phone in an attempt to let my son know I didn’t forget him.

My sister snapped at me like a wounded wolf whenever I asked if she was okay. It kind of scared me. My sister had enough of me the last couple miles. She gritted her teeth, put her head down, and kicked it into high gear. A small cloud of trail dust followed her. I had trouble keeping up. When we finally made it to the parking lot her growling and snapping ceased. I think my sister is tougher than I.

We arrived at the car about 15 minutes before the deadline. Whew. I was relieved and grabbed my cell phone. But, I had no signal. My heart sank. I get signal at Crystal Mountain Ski Resort (which is right on the border of the park), so why not at the ranger station? After heaving our gear into the car and checking with the ranger to see if he had a phone (nope, just a short wave radio), I tore down the road towards the town of Wilkeson. Hopefully, Wilkeson was in the 21st century and had a cell site.

My sister had become car sick as I sped along the curvy road towards redemption. Luckily, she didn’t need me to stop so she could relieve her nausea.

We each were constantly checking our phones along the way to see which one of our providers had the better network. The dashboard clock showed 5:15. My heart sank deeper as the vision of Spencer crying, wondering where I happen to be, was stuck in my head. I was officially Fletcher Reede.

Finally, I saw the “Welcome to Wilkeson” sign and both of our phones beeped. Bars showed on the phone displays. Yay!

I saw I had waiting voicemails and I knew who left that last message. It was 5:30 when I pulled over and frantically dialed. I heard my ex-wife’s boyfriend answer the phone. I didn’t bother asking why Spencer’s mom hadn’t answered.

I explained the situation and the tension over the phone was palpable. It was apparent he thought of me as a loser jerk. Then, he handed the phone to Spencer. I could tell the poor guy was on the verge of tears. I told him I would pick him up at his mom’s condo soon, knowing that a nine year old doesn’t consider an hour and a half as ‘soon’. A picture of his sad eyes in my mind created a heaviness in my chest.

Luckily, traffic on the I-5 cooperated. The cops also must have issued a no fly zone as we encountered none while racing up to Seattle. We made it in one hour and ten minutes.

By the time I picked-up Spencer from his mom’s condo, he seemed to have recovered from his disappointment. But, he didn’t greet me with his usual joy. I figured he was worried and mad and trying to get over his sense of abandonment due to his father’s Fletcher Reede impersonation. I promised ice cream when we got to our apartment and that seemed to cheer him up a bit. Okay, I admit it, I am not above bribery.

I am not sure who suffered more from this episode. I can only hope Spencer was not scarred permanently; I think I was, though. Next time I will definitely have a ‘plan B’ in place. Don’t know what that will look like, but I know I don’t want to be Fletcher Reede again.

Sorry I haven’t posted anything in the last few days, but my sister and I were on a backpacking trip in Mount Rainier National Park. No cell, no internet.

Today I am stiff and sore and moving very slowly. Even my hands hurt as I am typing this. So, I will leave you with a few pictures, and hopefully, tomorrow I will have all my gear cleaned-up, stowed, and my hands working again. I’ll leave more details about the trip in future posts.

Some lakes at Windy Gap.

Trail up to Windy Gap.

Beautiful Trails in the Gap.

Yellowstone Cliffs on the way to Windy Gap.

Ciao!

A couple of weeks ago, we went camping with one of Spencer’s friends and another family made up of a mom, a little girl, and a boy around Spencer’s age. Two adults, three boys, and one girl all enjoying the great outdoors. On Saturday afternoon, the females went on a walk, leaving the four males in the campsite. The three boys were playing a game, created from the minds of nine year olds, which involved running around in the bushes. Things looked under control, so I took my leave to the restroom.

Upon my return, I almost sprained my ankle by tripping in a hole in the middle of the campground. Where the hell did that hole come from. I stared at it and swore it wasn’t there before. Gophers? In the coastal forest? I looked around and several similar holes were dispersed across the forest floor of the campsite. I then noticed the three boys huddled over by the tent, each with a shovel, intently chattering away while digging yet another hole.

“Um, what are you doing?” I asked them. And, without skipping a beat, they replied, “We’re digging for gold!”

“Arr, pirates on a search to claim forbidden treasure, are ye?” I said. Spencer looked at me with an expression that said either, “well, duh,” or “Dad, don’t embarrass me in front of my friends. Again.”

At first, I was upset with all the holes in the campsite and with the boys getting all dirty and muddy. Then a few thoughts came to mind. First, at least the were not glued to their Nintendo DS video games. Second, they were not practicing knife throwing and taking turns at sending projectiles of death at each other. Lastly, I remembered what is was like to be a 9 year old boy creating my own adventures with my friends.

“Carry on,” was the only thing I could think of saying at that moment. “And, if you find any gold I want a percentage, since I paid for the campsite and all. Kind of makes it my mining claim.” They were too engaged in their endeavor to respond to my last request.

After about ten minutes, my phone rang. It was the ‘women’. They wanted us to come to the beach. So, I gathered up some beach gear and told the boys. I hated to have to interrupt an activity in which they seemed to be having so much fun. But, I was surprised by their response: “Yeah, let’s go see if we can dig up some gold on the beach.”

The true adult of our little camping group asked me about the shovels the boys carried and their muddy condition. I simply said, “They’re digging for gold.” What else could I say?

After a few minutes of digging in the sand, the boys became distracted and pursued other interests on the beach, except for Spencer. The other two boys were down the beach looking for seashells or chasing seagulls and Spencer was still engaged with the hole in the sand. He eventually stood up, and the hole was gone.

“Giving up on looking for the gold,” I asked.

“There’s no gold here, so I buried the shovels,” he said. And, then he ran off to chase the other boys.

I didn’t inquire further, but I hoped we would be able to remember the cache of shovels before we left the beach. Someone had to fill in those holes at camp and it sure wasn’t going to be me.

When the time came to return to camp, the shovels were in fact retrieved. I instructed the boys to fill the holes in camp, which thankfully they performed with as much enthusiasm in which they created them. They reported that they finished the hole filling job, and there the three of them stood. Lined up, looking like coal miners who just came out of the mine. Except, instead of coal dust, it was a combination of camp dirt and beach sand covering them from head to toe. Okay, maybe they weren’t as filthy as coal miners, but they were pretty dirty. All I could think of was what a mess that mud would make in the tent and on the sleeping bags.

I remembered when I came home from playing in the dirt, my mother wouldn’t let me walk into the house. “I just vacuumed,” or “you’re not getting that dirt on my furniture,” or something similar would emanate from her. Consequently, she would then hose me off on the deck in the backyard.

Luckily for the boys, I didn’t bring a hose. And lucky for me (and the tents), the campground had showers.

I just finished reading The Hair-Raising Joys of Raising Boys by Dave Meurer. It was published originally in 1999, and enjoyed its seventh print in 2007. If you can over-look the Christian references, the book is a smart and funny look at those crazy things boys do. And, since all fathers were boys at some point in the past (some argue, men remain boys, just in bigger bodies), we find the humor in, and relate to, the way our sons think and act – much to the disapproval of their mothers. I enjoyed the book because Meurer’s anecdotes made me feel like I wasn’t the only father that: a) had a son who does stupid things; and, b) does stupid things himself.

The chapter on boys pretending to understand what you are saying as they wait for you to finally shut up so they can go play, is priceless. I say that only because it happens to me all the time. And, the chapter on camping with boys is spot on as he discusses that boys+dirt+wildlife+mosquito spray = mayhem. Even though I don’t fish, I totally relate to his discussion of his boys throwing rocks in the water. Spencer likes to do that, as well as hurl them at trees, squirrels, whatever, right at the same time I want to take in the quiet beauty of nature. In a future post I will share about the time I found big holes dug in the dirt all about the campsite as a result of Spencer’s and his friends’ search for gold.

Click on the image of the book to read more reviews or to order. It’s only six bucks, and I think it is money well spent.