They Shoot Canoes, Don't They?
By Patrick F. McManus |
A while back my friend Retch Sweeney and I were hiking through a wilderness area and happened to come across these three guys who were pretending to cling to the side of a mountain as if their lives depended on it. They were dressed in funny little costumes and all tied together on a long rope. Their leader was pounding what looked like a big spike into a crack in the rock. We guessed right off what they were up to. They were obviously being initiated into a college fraternity, and this was part of the hazing. Not wishing to embarrass them any more than was absolutely necessary, Retch and I just let on as if everything was normal and if that scarcely a day went by that we didn't see people in funny costumes hammering nails into rock.
"We seem to have taken a wrong turn back there a ways," I said to them. "Could you give us some idea where we are ?"
The three pledgies seemed both angered and astonished at seeing us. "Why, this is the North Face of Mount Terrible," the leader said. "We're making an assault on it. You shouldn't be up here!"
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"You're telling me!" I said. "We're supposed to be on our way to Wild Rose Lake."
"Say, it's none of my business," Retch put in, "but this thing you're makin', don't you think you would get it built a lot faster if you found some level ground? It's pretty steep up here."
That didn't seem to set too well with them, or at least so I interpreted from their flared nostrils and narrowed eyes.
"Say, don't let a couple of flabby, middle-aged men disturb you," I said. "We'll just mosey on past you and climb up to the top of this hill and get out of your way. Maybe we can get a bearing on Wild Rose Lake from up there."
Well, I was glad they were all roped together and the rope was fastened to one of the spikes they had hammered into the rock. Otherwise, I think they would have taken off after us, and that slope was so steep you could just barely walk on it, let alone run. They would have caught us for sure.
"Those guys certainly weren't too friendly, were they?" Retch said later .
"No, they weren't," I said. "The very least they could have done was offer to give us a hand with the canoe."
Upon later reflection, I came to the conclusion that it was probably the canoe itself that had disturbed the pledgies. There are people who can't get within fifteen feet of a canoe without turning psychotic or, as my psychiatrist puts it, "going bananas."
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