Thursday, November 01, 2007

Jan on the vine...
Some of us smoked grapevine, but all of us swung on them. Not really grape but the vines that hung from so many of our trees. Don't know what kind of trees but many of the vines were at least two inches in circumference. Some of them were near water and your landing would be adventurous but pleasingly cool and wet. Many vines could be found around Boone Lake. The vine I remember most was located at the creek in front of B&C Market in Indian Springs. There are large houses there now but in the seventies there was nothing but open fields, woods and the creek. One spot in particular was cultivated by guys from my neighborhood. Jimmy Hilton, Kevin Archer, me and Jan. There was a wide spot in the creek that we would dam and the water would be about knee deep to a sixth grader. We camped there, smoked Swisher Sweet cigars, Marlboro cigs, grape vine and the occasional Mexican doob. What I remember most is the vine we found and molded to spec to swing on, you know, like Tarzan. Like I said before, there were many vines, mostly pedestrian, harmless, eventually breaking from wear, only to drop one of us from two or three feet. Now this new vine is the vine of legend. At least twenty feet up to where it originated with a perfect handle, like a y. Notice how the y is shaped, left hand on the appendage, right hand on the bottom of the vine. As cool as this vine was, it just hung there, right out in the open, teasing an old man to tell a long ago story, it was on an incline with a steep eight to ten foot bank that we would swing over vaulting the swinger at least fifteen feet in the air. What a rush that was. The kicker was the tree in the path of the vine's arc. Let me start again. The swinger would grab the vine, take a five step running start, lift the legs and soar in the air at least twenty feet from the nearest terra firma and thirty feet from the original starting point. Now this was an enormous vine swing. The tree at the end could not be reached by the ordinary swinger. I could swing and maybe reach out and touch a leaf, only the very athletic and lithe could actually touch the tree. I never saw anyone swing and land in the tree except Jan. Now I cannot emphasize enough that at the apex of the swing, which would be at the skinny but tall tree was probally twentyfive to thirty feet off the fartherest ground. It was scary as hell in a Baptist church altar call. Noboby EVER could wrap their knees around that tree...except Jan. By this time in history, Jimmy and Kevin were skipping school, doing acid and not playing by the rules. Jan and I had this treasure all to ourselves. One summer day, we took motorcycles down to the creek to swing. Most of the time Jan would swing out, throw his legs, and grab the tree and let go only to fly safely back to the starting point, but on this day he said that he was going to land in the tree and climb down. Remember how high this was, more than a two story building. Me, being the voice of reason, said to go for it because I couldn't do it. Off he goes. People, I will say this many times when I speak of Jan. I will never, ever forget this. He reached the target, legs wrapped tightly around the the skinny, young tree. He let go of the vine with his hands and grabs the tree. For a second I thought he had done the impossible. The tree begins to bend, his hands slip off the trunk, there are no branches or real limbs, he hangs suspended upside down by his legs, his baseball hat sways to the ground. He is bent at the waist, backwards, his face looking at me. I was as helpless as his eyes, screaming, in a split second his legs let go...he lay motionless at the base of the sapling, moaning softly. How he lived through that one is beyond me. We were maybe twelve or thirteen and I never spoke of this again until now. Jan did not remember any of this for a few days until I told him. We never told his Dad. I put him on the back of my cycle, rode him home and put him on the couch. I then walked down to the creek and rode his bike home. He was asleep when I returned but I stayed with him that night. Like I said, he never knew. You will never know.