Look Out Below!

The ground beneath my family tree is littered with the bones of my male ancestors who were unable to maintain their balance while they were at great heights.

Grandpa was a carpenter. All I know about his adventures with gravity is that he stepped off the edge of a roof once or twice in his time. I know even less about Great-Grandpa, but apparently his nickname was Newton.

I myself have not had any tumbles from great heights. I have had three magnificent, acrobatic spills from no height at all. Yes – from the ground. Two of those falls involved toboggans. Coincidentally, the other one did not.

Winter, 1978. Scout Camp with my Dad. The organizers had built a spectacular toboggan run. It was as wide as a road, and as long as the night time walk from my tent to the frozen outhouse. Best of all, it was fast. Top to bottom in 1 to 2 minutes depending on whether you were running wood or aluminium. Then you turned around at the bottom and walked up the left side. On one run I fell half way down. I collected myself in time to see a fully loaded aluminium toboggan at top speed headed straight for me. I was only a few feet from both the sled and the safe zone on the side. I only had a split second, and I was dazed and confused, so I jumped…straight up. The impact spun me 360 degrees on the vertical and I landed on my ass.

At least the ride to the hospital was warm.

Years later during University Spring Break I went to the cottage in Northern Ontario. Different hill, same Dad. Boredom inspired us to create the Ultimate Run. It was an excellent partnership. Dad did the shovelling while I was the test pilot. Like many test pilots, there came a time where the wrong craft on the wrong course was pushed too far... At turn 3 my Saucer turned backwards with no chance of recovery. I did not bail. I saw no danger ahead, for I was facing where I was from.

I knocked over 3 pair of skis leaning against the cabin wall before I came to a sudden stop as my lower back slammed into the corner of the picnic table bench. Eight days later I was still cramped into a folded pretzel. I was towed out on the remaining toboggan, doubled over some luggage, crying on the inside. There had been no blood, so no trip to the hospital. 15 years later and I still refuse to get on a toboggan. When we returned in the spring we saw that the impact had been forceful enough to shear the leg off of the picnic table.

My third great fall was in summer, during a softball game. I was running very fast for home plate and the third baseman was running in to recover a fumbled ball to beat me out at home. For some fool reason just as I was making that last stride to plant my foot on the plate I turned slightly to see if he’d beaten me......and I planted my foot on a near perfect right angle to my trajectory. Baseball cleats are designed to have excellent lateral traction. I had excellent cleats. My foot stayed planted firmly while the rest of me kept going. First the shoulders, then the hips and knees—but never the foot, at least not until after a loud snapping sound, and the voice of the umpire calling “Safe… man. Ouch. You ok? That’s gonna hurt later.”

That was the day I learned that ambulances carry portable Laughing Gas canisters. The paramedic explained that “this won’t take away your pain, but after a few puffs you just won’t give a s**t”. He was my new best friend.

Thanks to modern medicine, generations of men in our family have defied natural selection and become more fall prone. This Darwinian distillation of dizziness has culminated not in me, but in my father. Just one of his great falls would be enough to make him the undisputed Gravity KING, but he’s had 4 excellent falls. That he admits to.

My Grandfather (on Mom’s side) had a barn fire when I was young. When it came time to rebuild the barn my Dad was there to help. During construction Dad took a tumble from about 20 feet up. He could have broken his neck, but of all the body parts to land on, he nailed his funny bone. It couldn’t have been less funny. He lost all feeling in his arm for 5 weeks – about the amount of time it took for it to change from black and purple back to its normal colour.

As if it wasn’t bad enough to fall from a barn once… Same barn -- different day. While helping to load hay into the loft he fell again. This time he landed squarely on his ass in the middle of a very large pile of horse manure.

Things took a turn for the serious a few years later when he was helping friends take down a large old tree from their back yard. When you are cutting down a very large tree you need to do it in sections, from the top down.

Common sense dictates that this is the same sized tree that should make you want to use a climbing harness when you are up it, cutting off its top. But climbing harnesses chafe on your man-parts.

Besides, chainsaws all have a kick-back guard – if the saw binds and kicks back toward the operator the guard will hit your arm and stop the chain from turning.

The user manual doesn’t indicate if the guard will work the same way if the saw is dropped from 50 feet in the air.

The kick-back guard didn’t work until just after Dad landed partly on the saw. It ran up the length of his arm. He needed over 120 stitches and a considerable amount of Rye Whiskey. Since then we’ve allowed him to climb trees, or use the chain saw, but never both.

Just last year Dad had his most recent fall. On a construction site he fell from low scaffolding. It wasn’t the height that hurt him; it was the shovel handle sticking out that really bothered him as it tried to stop his fall by catching him in the ribs.

What he lacks in balance, he seems to make up for in bone density. Funny bone; manure pile, chain saw, and shovel handle. Four great falls and not one broken bone.

I don’t know how to live up to that sort of legacy. I do know two things though: 1) I plan to keep listening to my fear of heights; and 2) I am not shopping for a ladder any time soon.