Category Archives: Just Plain Fun

Droopy-Drawered Jibber

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Finally, one of the greatest mysteries of our time has been solved. That’s right, the mystery of the “Droopy-drawered Jibbers”.  You may not know what a Droopy-drawered Jibber is, but you’ve all seen them multiple times. They are those guys who walk around with their pants half way down to their ankles. 
The dirty little secret I’ve found out, is that it’s not their fault ! Yup, they can’t help it at all. “How do you know that?” you might be asking right now. Here’s how I found out, recently:
My third son needed a belt. He had lost his, and was playing, working, and walking around holding his pants up by his hand. He sometimes “waddled” to keep his pants up, just like the Droopy-drawered Jibbers that are 15 and 20 years older than him. My son is 5 years old.
We drove the 40 miles to town, and were looking for  a belt. First off, no, I’m not going to buy him a belt at Walmart. They fall apart, are made in China, and aren’t even leather. On top of that, Walmart thinks I want my son to wear a belt with skulls on it. Nice social statement. We went to a place that is high class, and carries clothes built to last. A place that Americans can trust and place their money into. A place of refuge from the world of cheap and superficial-JC Penny.
At J.C. Penny, we found out that they don’t carry boys belts. Neither did K Mart. Neither did Radio Shack. It became apparent that society doesn’t want boys to wear belts. It starts when they are 5 years old, and by teenage years, the boys are used to not wearing belts. So they waddle around like ducks with their legs apart, trying desperately to keep their pants above half mast.
Droopy-drawered Jibbers are most commonly seen at ski areas, like Snowmass, where I teach skiing.  You will find them mostly in the Terrain Park, the man-made area with 40 ft. jumps, and a huge halfpipe. It’s not unusual to find old couples skiing past one of the big kickers. As a 13 year old boy goes sailing over their heads doing a “roast beef”, you can often hear the husband saying, “Look, Martha! There goes a Droopy-drawered Jibber in his natural habitat!”
It’s no wonder the military isn’t recruiting as many kids. They wouldn’t be able to march. Can you imagine the U.S. Army waddling into a town to secure it?  The first thing the locals would do is show them where the public restrooms are in the park.
The direction society is going is a little bit scary . If I take my son to JC Penny and they don’t sell boys underwear, I think we’re all in trouble.



Blackbeard’s Ghost

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It’s difficult to say when the idea of putting cannon fuse in my beard first hit me.  I know that as a dad you need to show your young children there are things a father can do that they can’t. Seeing the name “Blackbeard the Pirate” in a children’s encyclopedia certainly sealed my fate. In any case,  it seemed like a good idea at the time. Putting cannon fuse in your beard and lighting it is something altogether different.
The “cannon fuse incident” happened when my three oldest children were fairly young-sometime between Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Post -Barney the Purple Dinosaur era. Those of you who don’t know what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are all about, need to start watching the History Channel. I grew to hate those turtles. As a rookie ski instructor teaching kids, I had more children walk up and kick me in the shins with their ski boots on while pretending to be a Mutant Ninja Turtle.
So when trying to impress your children with lit cannon fuse in your beard, there are a few rules that you must follow: First, never let your wife stand there with a fire extinguisher pointed at your face.  My wife doesn’t have a lot of experience extinguishing burning beards, so I didn’t even suggest the fire extinguisher idea. Second, don’t do it in the garage. There are lawnmowers, chainsaws, gunpowder, and  more cannon fuse stored there. “Kablooey”  isn’t something you want printed in your obituary. Third, and most important, make sure you say to your children, “Now kids, don’t try this at home!” I don’t know why your are supposed to say it, but it always seems to be the thing to the little ones just before you try a stupid, dangerous stunt. 
When I lit the cannon fuse, the first thought that came to my mind was “Why didn’t I wait until my beard was longer, like maybe down to the floor?” The second thought that went through my mind was, “Wow! Look at the eyes on those children! They must be as big as saucers!” Now I was really getting through to them.  I  scowled, looked mean, raised my hand with a pretend pistol, and let out a few “Aaargh”s and “Aye, maties!” Then I ran for the bathroom.
Once inside the bathroom, with my kids in hot pursuit, I inspected the damage. ” Not too bad,” I thought. Slight singeing, and a nasty smell were all that I got. And my beard was a little bit more black! The kids were either stunned, impressed, or  had to use the toilet badly. I’m not sure to this day which it was.
Fortunately for me I knew two things about cannon fuse which helped in my little experiment: My cannon fuse burns at a rate of one foot per 30 seconds, and it keeps on burning under water.  If Blackbeard had a similar fuse and a battle between boat crews lasted for, oh say, twenty minutes, then I could have needed fuses 40 feet long. My guess is that he wanted it to go out once he started fighting.  And  I’ll bet that after it burned a while he didn’t run to the bathroom to check out how it went. At least not after the first few battles.
So in summary, I’d have to say that you shouldn’t try this at home. That is, until you clean out the garage first. Now men, get out there and clean out the garage.



Spiderman at 8500 ft.

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The adventure isn’t over, yet. Last week I turned 52, and yesterday I was hanging by a climbing rope with a Holehawg drill and air impact wrench installing braces on the south end of my house. The braces are triangular, and weigh in the neighborhood of 100 lbs. each.
To be quite honest, installing the braces is something that I’ve dreaded doing for over two years. My wife and son, Caleb, and I have discussed how to do it for all of that time. Not having a deck to set up scaffolding on has been the major obstacle.  I knew all along that I’d have to hang from a rope to put them up.  
Climbing ropes aren’t new to me. I have several. I’ve been a climber for many years, and a mountain guide for a few. I’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. But using climbing ropes on the side of my house with drills, impact wrenches, and SAWS was a little bit weird. (Yes, I cut plywood with a circular saw just a few inches from my rope during the installation.)
Needless to say, the braces went up, and that part of living life large is over.  My son, Caleb, and my daughter, Heidi were up on a scaffolding, around the corner of the house, handing me tools, and beams. 
I was Spiderman, doing my thing on the rope. “Thank you, Jesus” kept coming out of my lips whenever a big beam got attached by the 12 inch lag bolts. I didn’t want to fall 25 feet backwards onto rocks with a log on top of me.
Living life large comes real natural when your home is up in the mountains.  If you chuck the “comforts” of city life, flatland life, and on-the-grid life, you can’t help but live an interesting life. 
The other night, I was awake at midnight, thinking how much work needs to be done on our house before the snow flies. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up, made a fire, fixed a snack, and sat down in front of the wood stove to make a schedule. Building contractors make building schedules all of the time. To get the outside of the house ready before winter will require massive work, 6 days a week, for 6 weeks.  
So far, I’m only slightly behind schedule. But for the next 5 weeks, it will be an accelerated schedule for me and my family.  
Don’t ask me how the house is coming. The answer is way too complicated. People who know nothing about the design or building of our house look at it and say, “Oh, all you gotta do is shingle it.” If I listed the things I need to do before it’s shingled, it would take up the entire blog. 
But don’t feel sorry for me. Last night as the sun was going down, I was hand peeling logs for the porch posts. I was warm, the sun was on my face, and the only sound I could hear was the wind clanging the chimes in the tree and whistling softly in the branches.

How To Move A Cactus

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So there I was, untying a cactus from a tree. Not just any old cactus, but a 7 foot tall cactus. No, make that two cacti. They weren’t exactly up in the tree. They were leaning against the tree. I’m the one up in the tree on a small branch. As I’m struggling with the knot, I’m thinking to myself, “I hope this branch doesn’t break, or I will land on the cactus.” Of course this was taking place just one hour after Jason and I saw our first dead moose laying on the side of the road. Man, living in Colorado is challenging.

 

There are two things in this world that I hate working with: sheep, and cactus. Yesterday, 1000 sheep went walking by onto our road as they were being driven home out of the high country. Today was Seven Foot Tall Cactus Day.

 

I’m struggling with the knots on the cactus while wearing rubber gloves. How rubber gloves are going to protect you from the prickers, is anybody’s guess. The guy who tied the knots, never intended to untie them himself. He must have tightened them with vice grips.

 

I got the cacti untied, climbed down, and Jason showed up with a hand cart. The owner said that we could wrap the thin white cloth around the cacti for transport, and that way we would “hardly get any prickers” in us. Brother! I told Jason that I wanted to go back to the truck, get a machete, and chop the top 3 feet of of the impending disasters off. When I suggested wrapping cardboard around the towering pincushions, everybody agreed. Jason and I went wheeling the flopping cacti to the truck and loaded them in.

 

On the way back to the store where we were delivering the cacti, Jason hit a bump, and when we opened the back door of the delivery truck, the cacti (which had been strapped down as best we knew how to strap flopping seven foot cacti in minuscule pots , down) were laying on their side. More cardboard, more ropes to hoist the cacti onto their feet, more tape. We just about lost Jason and one of the cacti off of the hoist lift on the back of the truck. Can you imagine laying in the bushes with a seven foot octopus full of prickers on top of you? “One Adam Twelve. See the man laying under a cactus at _______. Be advised to wear welding gloves upon arrival…”

 

We got the cacti into the store, unwrapped them, and leaned them up against a wall. They were so floppy, that the previous owner had the gardener remove them from the house, and tie them to a pine tree outside, so we could come and remove them.

 

What a day. I even got into an argument with the GPS. I knew full well where we were going. I had just been to a birthday party near there a few weeks ago. These GPS contraptions often take you the long way around. ‘ Turns out the GPS was right. And she’s never even been to that part of Colorado, before.

 

I’m not sure. If you had the choice, would you rather lay under a seven foot cactus, or a dead moose?

Grover and the Moose

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Horses hate moose. It’s a fact.

 

When I was a Wilderness Ranger in Meeteetse, Wyoming, I rode horses, and saw moose. There were lots of moose/horse stories being told, but I never thought that I would be in the middle of one of them.

My horse’s name was Grover, because he looked like a Muppet: shaggy, one color (black in this case), and a bit wild. Being the low man on the Totem Pole, they let me ride Grover…

It was a rainy, late September day; the kind of day when even a 27 year old can feel in their bones the advancement of winter. The kind of Wyoming winter where it is 30 below zero, and you have to chop the ice on the water tanks for the livestock. As a kid, I used to chop the ice for my dad’s cattle back in Indiana.

Grover and I were headed up the Greybull River trail. Before we got to Venus cabin, there was an opening with a huge bull moose standing at the other side. The moose had antlers that were bigger than anything I had seen in my life. I patted Grover on the neck, knowing that he must have already seen the moose, and that me being on the horse, the moose would quickly walk away. But the moose didn’t.

We were headed toward the moose at a nice horsey pace. Grover’s head was bobbing up and down, as they do when your mount is working hard up in the mountains.

“I’m sure you see the moose,” I said to Grover.

Grover walked along, kind of dopey like. Doo dee doo. Doo dee doo, his head bobbing up and down.

We were about 80 yards from the moose.

“I’m sure you smell the moose,” I reassured Grover, knowing that horses have a keen sense of smell, and can detect danger long before humans. Doo dee doo. Doo dee doo went Grover, walking up the trail with a soggy ranger on his back. We were about 50 yards from the moose.

Another pat on Grover’s neck for a reminder, and then, “I’m sure you can hear the moose milling around,” I said a little louder. It seemed like an urgent reminder, knowing that horses are animals given to fear and running away. We were now about 35 yards away, and the moose wasn’t interested in stepping out of the way. Being a very brave, very stupid ranger, I kept the course. Doo dee doo. Doo dee doo went Grover’s head, bobbing up and down.

Suddenly, Grover’s head jerked up, his eyes grew wide, and he jumped about two feet straight up in the air. He yelled, “A MOOSE!” He spun around, 180 degrees in the air, and hit the ground with all four hooves spinning. The race was on.

If we had been in the Kentucky Derby that day, we would have won by about 4 lengths. That old cow pony pulled speed out of his hind end, and set it on fire. We were flying down the trail, and that horse was wearing Nike horseshoes.

Now I never considered myself a great rider, but I knew one thing: You don’t fall off of a speeding horse up in the mountains. You could get killed, and if you don’t get killed, you might just lay there, all busted up until you die. Your chances of having a grizzly bear come along are as good as having another person show up and look at your from their horse, wondering what you are doing, laying there all crumpled up, and soaking wet.

So I hung on for all I was worth. Narrow, winding, mountain trails at full speed require a certain amount of anticipation when riding a scared, wet horse. You lean inside the curves like a Can am motorcycle racer, and you flop to the other side before you even get to the curve. All the while I was shouting “Whoa! Whoa!”

After about what I estimated to be half a mile, Grover and I rolled to a stop, about like a Land Speed Record holder car would at the Bonneville salt flats. Grover stood there, trembling. His sides heaved in and out as if he had just finished the Boston Marathon, or won the 1000 meters at the Olympics. Grover turned his head back toward me and said “Why didn’t you tell me there was a moose!”

Stupid horse. Wait ’till you hear the grizzly stories…