Monday, 30 March 2009

• Outdoor Lab

                  When I was but a wee pup, I was fortunate enough to take a week-long field trip to the snowy peak of Mt. Evans. Every sixth grade class in the district went on this miniature excursion into the wilderness, Outdoor Laboratory, where us Denver city kids were “acquainted with nature” and learned invaluable life skills, such as how to sing (badly) in a campfire chorus, and how to make (badly) a cheap imitation of a Native American dream catcher. The week was broken up into “courses” led by high school volunteers.

  ARCHERY

  This was one of the activities I was most looking forward to, and also the activity I was most certain would result in the death of classmate. I don’t recall the quality of my instruction, but suffice it to say that to this day I am still incapable of firing a bow. Later in life, however, I remembered a crucial bit of advice imparted by the high school girl with the red-banded braces and the wheat-and-white pigtails (“just focus on the target”)  just when I needed it the most: standing on a makeshift firing range in the countryside around Stanton, Nebraska with my girlfriend’s dad, who had just sold me a substantial amount of pot, firing a Kimber .45 at an array of old, broken television sets. I had never fired a pistol, and ol’ brace-face suddenly popped into my dazed thoughts as I was trying to look cool in front of both my girlfriend and her father, who I was trying to impress both as my dealer and as my potential father-in-law. It didn’t work out between me and her, much as it didn’t work out for me on the archery range (none of my shots even made the hay bales onto which the ubiquitous concentric circles were affixed) but I did learn to fire a pistol and up on Mt. Evans, behind the targets, fat Joe Widner sold me my first condom for two dollars. So I’d say I learned some lessons.

  CONSERVATION

  I didn’t know what the word “Conservation” even meant, and those bastards used that against me beautifully. When we arrived on scene for this activity, the high school camp counselor went through an obviously rehearsed speech about the importance of protecting nature and respecting the wilderness and preserving life and yadda yadda. Following this speech, we were instructed to haul some rough-cut lumber up a hill, building a path from the valley down by the cafeteria up and around the rise to the planetarium. Justin Hudnall, a neighbor kid who shot hoops with his tongue out like he thought he was Jordan driving the lane, was my partner for this particular activity, and as the sweat started rolling down into our eyes and he started complaining about the trek uphill with a ten-foot log suspended between us, I realized that “conservation” meant “chores” and resolved to expand my vocabulary.

  When we got back to civlization, our teacher had us build journals discussing all the activites we did. I adopted the device of rating all of the actvities on a scale from one to ten. I gave Conservation a 2, the lowest score of any activity.

  NATURE WALK

  If you’ve never heard a pika before, they are the most self-centered little mammals on the planet. A member of the marsupial family, I believe, The only word they utter is “ME!” at a very high pitch that alerts you to their presence, but richochets off of trees and boulders all around you so that you can’t actually locate them. Despite hearing thousands of them solipsistically proclaiming their existence as the sole object of importance, I only saw one, when we stopped for lunch halfway up the path. I tried to get it to come closer by tearing off pieces of the crust of my sandwich, but to no avail. It would eat the bits I tossed to it, but never come any closer. “ME!” it shouted before ducking under a boulder.

  They gave us a magnifying glass to use on the trip, presumably for examining insects and plants we encountered along the way. I used mine to channel the awesome power of the sun and burn my initials into the lichen on a large boulder overlooking a valley full of elk during a break in the clouds. While everyone else was transfixed by the grazing herd, I was trying to get my rays narrowed to a perfect point through the lens. “No, me,” I whispered as the smoke started to rise.

  FALCONRY

  No, I didn’t get the pleasure of feeling a hawk’s talons grip my spindly, sweaty little forearm through the hot kevlar and leather of a massive gauntlet. There was a falconer on permanenet staff who brought in an assortment of birds to teach us about. He did one particularly memorable exercize where he lined all of the students up in two parallel lines that ran the length of the lecture hall, holding hands, and flew a massive golden eagle right down the middle of us. He had us close our eyes. The force of the wind aerodynamically shearing off from the enormous wings and buffeting my face is one of the most impressive sensations I have ever experienced. I had dreams about this lecture for weeks afterwards.

   I don’t think I retained wingspans or flight speeds or dietary habits of any of these magnificent raptors for more than the two or three seconds after they came out of the falconer’s mouth, because I was staring intently at the eagles and kestrels and owls, trying to get them to look me in the eye. None of them would, of course. At the time, I thought they were cowards, but now I think they probably just had more important things to keep their attention.

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