Slow Learner

"Truth is, I thought it mattered; I thought that music mattered. But does it? Bollocks! Not compared to how people matter." –Pete Postlethwaite in the 1996 film Brassed Off

I graduated from high school before learning to snap my fingers, and from college before learning to blow bubblegum. Only in the Peace Corps did I learn the proper way to cleanse oneself (with water), and in medical school proper squat mechanics (query Daniel Hsia’s The Asian Squat). Still in progress are such basics as how to shoot a left-hand lay-up, build a set of shelves, play a C chord on guitar: I’ve come to accept that while I may be a quick study, I’m definitely a slow learner.

Nowhere has this been more evident than in my approach to Getting Stuck in the Snow.

Getting Stuck in the Snow is a time-honored art form that at first glance can seem child’s play, yet has a depth and subtlety that can only be appreciated with years of experience. In my case, about 15 years.

Over the holidays I took LL home to my dad’s in Eastern Oregon and demonstrated for her my skill at Getting Stuck in the Snow. As with all worthy expeditions, this one began with great intentions. We wanted a few tele turns. The snow wasn’t there. A meager shadow clung to the north side of the house, whereas a typical year growing up had 3 to 4 feet at a time. To find snow one had to climb towards the 10,000-foot peaks above.

As luck would have it my dad’s ’93 Pathfinder wouldn’t start. At this point we should have a) abandoned our plan, or b) taken my little Civic, which at least has studded tires and front-wheel drive. Instead my dad (who is about the smartest person I know, and a physician), came up with the idea, and we, a pair of practicing physicians (albeit a pair containing one slow learner), went along with it, of taking the little black pickup. I think it was so we could bring Hugo.

Having learned many great lessons about Getting Stuck in the Snow on the narrow, winding, cliff-hanging road to Cornucopia 15 years earlier, I wisely chose the narrow, winding, cliff-hanging and much steeper Carson Grade instead.

We made it less than a mile.

The first couple turns were indicative. Early on the pickup began sliding backwards, and we retreated to a safe and rare patch of dry ground amidst what was otherwise packed ice: an excellent point to turn around. But by gunning the engine and getting a good run at it, we made it past that particular pitch and up around several more turns, each narrower, windier, and with more dropaway cliff. The road steepened. We slowed, stopped. The tires spun. The whole pickup began to slide slowly and inexorably downhill. LL hopped out of the front and watched and Hugo hopped out of the back and barked, while I tried turning, rocking, rocking, turning the sliding vehicle, until I managed to not quite get the back pointed uphill, and instead wedged it sideways on the narrow road on sheer ice.

This is the point were the learning opportunities really (in retrospect) opened up.

I’ve been thinking a lot since that day of two quotes from the real Patch Adams. “It has to be thrilling, or it will eat me up inside,” he says of his life’s work. And as to what’s important, “My god, it’s friendship, friendship, friendship.”

One would be justified in wandering what these things have to do with each other, not to mention with Getting Stuck in the Snow or my want for adroitness in learning from past mistakes.

The connection is simple and accessible, which is probably why even I can make it: there is little in my life more thrilling than the opportunity to connect with people, to lend a hand or as in this case receive one. Getting stuck is for me usually a solitary pursuit, and getting unstuck, communal. 15 years ago, when I got our little Sentra stuck on the road to Cornucopia in pursuit of ski-able snow, I first called up my friend Arthur Baker. After nearly getting his Blazer stuck just below the Sentra, I resorted to calling up Dave Mader, for whom I used to scrub out the inside of a dairy barn. Dave had a pair of Clydesdales and he graciously harnessed them up to his hay wagon, walked them the several miles to where my car was stuck, and pulled me out. In exchange I gave him a full day of bucking bales later that year in the heat of August. Not the ski adventure I’d planned, but ultimately more rewarding.

Now, older but apparently not much wiser, I again abandoned a vehicle to winter and set out in search of help from friends. LL and I walked down through the back forests and fields to our house. Dad did not seem surprised. After a proper Norwegian outburst (shaking his head a few times) he called up our friend Mike Higgins. Mike had employed me in a variety of jobs during my childhood in Halfway, and had pulled me out of more than one mishap. Like my dad, he didn’t seem surprised that I had, many years and a couple of degrees later, demonstrated an aptitude for Getting Stuck in the Snow.

The rescue was unremarkable. Mike drove us all up the hill. He, my brother Hans and I pushed the front of the pickup out of the ditch while Dad steered. Once pointed downhill, the pickup had no problems returning home. Mike nearly got his giant pickup stuck on the ice, but thankfully we did not require actual horse-power this time.

Until I get back to Halfway, this posting shall have to serve as my thanks for the help and for the friendship. And Mike, when I do return, if you need some rocks moved or trees pruned—I’m all yours. I might even be able to operate the riding lawnmower.

If, of course, you trust me to not get it stuck.