Four Idiots vs. One Buffalo

Later, Kenny recounted that he thought since the buffalo had been so docile up to this point, and because Schwab and I were so close to the animal without the tension of danger, that he could take a chance and maybe get close enough to touch it.  Why boys must touch, scratch, sniff, feel, taste, and listen to the most random of items, we, collectively as a gender, couldn't say; but the acute tantalization of curiosity prods us onward into paths of both glory and ruin.  And so it was in this case.  The moments that followed brought with them a crescendo of gallant humiliation only to be understood as the victory of survival. 

It started with a trip to South Dakota.  Admittedly a random vacation destination for four college kids, but we piled into Kenny’s Toyota Corolla anyway and told Provo to kiss it as we drove out of town.  Ten hours or so later we surveyed the sleepy town of Custer, South Dakota, the gateway to Mount Rushmore.  Tourist season was only a week away, but the town was still in its winter-long hibernation.  Shops and resorts lay dormant.  Even the campground we stayed at deployed gates that blocked all but one campsite.  With nothing to do and four days to do it, we decided that after a stop by The Faces we’d see what else was around.  It was then, during this period of aimless wondering through scenic Needle’s Highway, that we were brought face to face with the titan of the prairie. 

I don’t remember who said what or even direct quotations, as is typical due to the random and scattered banter that makes up our usual dialog.  But as we were winding through a forested area and passing an empty lodge, something similar to the following conversation took place with all four of us participating at different parts.

  

“Hey look!  A buffalo!” 

“No it wasn’t, that was just a statue.”

“Some say I have the jaw line of a statue.” 

“Statues don’t move, idiot.  Turn around.”

“Others say you’re just dumb, so . . .”

“You and I both know that statues can move.” 

“That is a buffalo!  Two of ‘em!  There's a second behind that trailer.”

“Wait, when was the last time you saw a statue move?  And dreams don’t count.”

“Flip around.  Drive in there and let’s have a look.”

“Jell-O statues move. They wiggle like this—blublublublub.”

“And when there is an earthquake.  Statues be straight dancin’ in an earthquake.  Boom!”

“Did you really just punctuate an Ebonics-esk statement with ‘boom’?”  

“Stop right here so we can look at ‘em.”

“I’m getting out of the car.”

“Yeah, me too!”

The four of us piled out of the car with giddiness and positioned ourselves cautiously closer to the animals, each taking one step closer than the next until we had leapfrogged ourselves to within ten yards of the nearest bison.  It was at this point that Kenny’s ambition of curiosity almost got us killed.  

Kenny whistled as he started his approach, arms innocently clasped behind his back, head and eyes dodging nonchalantly from one cloud to the next; but ever closing, ever gaining ground to count coup on the beast who grazed inattentively some ten yards away.  Kenny passed me then Schwab and continued. 

From five yards or closer the world exploded.  A red and brown eye the size of a baseball rolled from its focus on the edible grass up and to the side to fix on the approaching idiot.  Now, I don’t speak buffalo, but I’m assuming that the grunt that followed the eye movement was a communication to his buffalo buddy close by that said something to the effect of "Hey Earl, check this out."  Earl never took his eyes off his meal of green grass but did casually reply "Bet you can’t gore him before he pees his pants." 

A monstrous head turned to its side and down, flashing obsidian horns.  Black hoofs dug into the soil and launched forward causing the first few inches of earth to give way and slingshot back into a chunky puff of debris.  Reckoning.  In the form of a thousand pound bulldozer of muscle and sinew it was nothing less than our reckoning.  Death on four thunderous legs.  But Kenny could talk.  Nothing much, just a hurried “oh crap!” as he scrambled away from the charging beast, but at least he could do it.  Schwab and I couldn’t.

The scene inside my brain, my command center, my computing and analytics department must have reflected an office building in fear-driven revolt.  Clerical workers in terror screaming and jumping up and down, executives trying to find windows to jump out of, and brain interns punching themselves in the face.   Binders full of mental notes were thrown in the air scattering their contents with random piles of paper being burned.

When the buffalo first twitched, when his eyes first shifted from food to pest, my vocal cords retreated with my mentalities into a dark cavernous room inside my head labeled "flight" where they huddled in fear.  This actually helped me maintain a certain level of dignity, otherwise I would have been flapping my hands in front of me screaming unintelligible whaling’s in falsetto.  Luckily something was left to control my legs so after jumping straight up into the air, twisting one hundred and eighty degrees and running five steps above ground I touched down again and ran for the far side of the car; intending to use it, if necessary, as a bull fighter would use a barrel.  Because that’s all the Toyota Corolla would have been to the buffalo, nothing more than a barrel to be tossed and tattered.    

Kenny was closest to the furry tractor now bearing down on him.  I’ve never been present when the Spaniards let loose the bulls in Pamplona, but I have seen many videos of terrified macho men with looks of pure panic and fear on their faces running with their heads back and chests out.  Kenny looked much like that.

 

By his own admission when the buffalo charged Schwab’s sphincter puckered to the point of retraction and ended up in his stomach, the resulting pressure transforming his inny to an outty.  Running with hips rotated out and knees extending laterally to his sides like a man pelted in the behind, Schwab scrambled twenty yards and up some stairs to the perceived safety of a wooden porch. 

Meanwhile, Lathen, who had returned to the car, sat wide eyed and gaped mouth in the passenger side of the Corolla.  While on-lookers may see this as safe position, it is anything but a refuge.  If the wild beast wanted to he could have easily flipped, smashed, and rolled the tiny Corolla like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn.

After only a few steps the beast stopped, snorted his dominance over four panicking fools, and returned to munching on blades of green grass.  With a wary eye on the stabilized bison, we all made our way back to the car with the hysterical giggles that seemingly always follow a narrow escape.  In true male form, we shouted taunts to the winner of our little contest of supremacy as we sped from the lodge area and back to the main road.              

Toddlers are Harsh

About a year ago I was sitting with two of my young nephews, aged three and five, watching TV after dinner.  Well, I was sitting anyway.  They were crawling up and down and around and through with the normal incessant energy of small boys. 

The large chair I was sitting on, and myself, of course, made up the jungle gym that the boys were using to expel some of that youthful energy.   The oldest had fallen (I may have playfully pushed him) from my knee and the younger one was high-centered on the chair’s headrest above me when a TV spot came on advertising a hair restoration clinic.

Pictures of prematurely balding men with depressed faces filed across the screen.  The boys halted in their irregular positions and watched the commercial for a second.  From the ground in front of me the older boy giggled.

“You kinda have that.” He said as he turned to look up at me.

I felt a tiny finger poke my bald spot followed by a small three-year-old voice from above my head.

“Yeah, wight therw.”

Dad-gum kids. Dad-gum painfully honest kids. 

At a wake for my hairline where the rootbeer flowed freely

"To the fallen!"

One of Life’s Little Mile Markers

The mile markers on a highway in Idaho are often used to designate a person’s location.  They provide a structure among the otherwise chaotic movements of mountains, valleys, and rivers that make up Idaho land.  Often, mile markers are used to mentally mark fishing holes along the river, the turnoffs to campgrounds, placements of various trailheads, and other like locations.

As with an Idaho highway, life itself offers little mile markers.  These mile markers can be used by a person to judge their own progression as they negotiate the winding curves and changing courses of life.  The first tooth for a baby, the first home for a couple, the first child for a parent, and so on.  I experienced one of these mile markers of life rather unexpectedly a few years ago. 

It happened when I stopped by a local beauty shop to get my haircut after class.  The hair dresser was kind, as most people who work for tips are, and we made pleasant conversation while she worked.  This mile marker of life, this signal that I had passed into a new phase of development and maturity, happened while getting my sideburns trimmed. 

After the typical scrape down the cheek and light but precise trim next to the ear, the buzz of the clippers stalled and innocently hovered over my right lobe.  With two quick strikes the stylist attacked.  In panic at being stripped of its furry coverings my right ear lobe shriveled behind itself and took shelter from the toothy monster that had accosted it. With a face of violation, shock, and honest confusion at what had just happened, I looked helplessly up at the politely smiling stylist. 

No words were spoken.  She knew I knew, and I knew I knew, that ear hair trimming was now an official part of my haircut; making my lobes fair game to all who specialize in the cutting of human hair.  I sat sad and deflated through the rest of my haircut.  I didn’t even flinch when the same treatment was given to the left lobe.  I was utterly and completely defeated.  And do you know the worst part?  I realized then that I was one step closer another of life’s little mile markers - multi-colored eyebrows.

Stupid Sound of Music

A couple years back I took a Far East history class (turned out to be harder than I thought because every time our teacher pronounced a Chinese name I’d have to stifle a giggle-Liu Bang, hehe). After class we’d sit down in groups and write out a paper on what was learned that day, what we thought of the material, the definition of each new vocab word, etc.

One day we learned about a Chinese political philosophy called legalism. There are three principles that form the base of the philosophy which are called Fa, Shu, and Shi. The group remembered the premise of Shu and struggled through the meaning of Shi.  When we got around to explaining Fa, a group member said "what was Fa again?"

And I said, "I think it's a note to follow So. Wait no, no it's a long long way to run. Yep. Fa, a long long way to run."

Blank stares and crickets emanated from my group.  I guess that’s what happens when a guy grows up with three older sisters.  He gets easily infatuated with puzzles and derives his humor from musicals. 

The Durr Child

My mother once referred to me as her Durr Child.  She claims it was an accidental slip; a mixture of words that produced my title as Durr and that she really wasn’t nominating me as the dumbest of her offspring.  Nevertheless she said it, my brother and sister-in-law laughed at it, and one Memorial Day weekend I proved it.

I left Lewiston, ID, around four thirty on Memorial Day itself after a weekend of watching NAIA baseball.  By nine o'clock I was parked in Knife Edge campground on the banks of the Lochsa River rockin’ out to James Taylor in my sleeping bag. I ate half of my Subway sandwich and drank half of my bottled water and fell asleep. At or around six o'clock the next morning the bottled water from the night before caught up to me. As a kid I could just let fly in my diaper and roll over like nothing happened, but my mom had stopped buying Goodnites for me once she realized I was using them as a way to avoid the short walk across the hallway to the bathroom. 

It had been raining all night so I put on my boots. I also thought it might be a little chilly so I slipped on a raglan-T. Typically when I go camping in the back of my car I'll open one of the rear passenger doors and finagle my way out head first, but this time I thought it might be easier to pop open the rear gate and slide out feet first. I took care of my business (peed on a snail. Why? Because I could.) and crawled back into my vehicle for an extra hour of sleep. At this point I realized that it would be impossible to close the back hatch of my GMC Jimmy completely from the inside so, naturally, I hopped out and closed it. I got about half way to the side door when my error came into focus.

"Is it possible that I'm that stupid?"

I gave a tug on the locked latch.

"Yep, I'm that stupid."

After the swear words left my head I pondered the situation.  "The keys are in my pants pocket which I can see through the car window. This is unfortunate because if my pants are in my locked car that means they are not on me."

A timely draft reaffirmed my fear.  "I could call for help myself only my cell phone doesn't get service here and, besides, it too is in my pants pocket which again brings up the fact that I'm not wearing pants. I therefore am left with only two options: One, I can break a window; or, two, I can flag someone down and ask for help . . . in my underwear.  Well crap, this is going to get awkward."

I could see myself in the reflection offered by the sheen of my wet car. There I stood; boots but no socks, undies but no pants, and a baseball T-shirt. By appearances I was ready for a two-dollar-Tuesday performance at Chip-n-Dales. In reality I was walking around in a secluded north Idaho campground half naked. I shrugged.

“So this is what it feels like to be a creep.”

The only other occupant at Knife Edge that morning was an old man traveling alone. Attached to his truck was a horse trailer he had converted into a sleeper unit.

“Ah, a fellow creeper.”

I walked over slowly. Afraid there might be some unseen grandchildren in his truck I approached using the tree line for cover. He spoke first.

"Good morning."

"Morning. Um, I'm in a bit of tight spot here. I locked myself out of my car."

I wasn't sure where to put my hands. At my side is no good. My left hand is in a perma-shield position thanks to the unfortunate fixed angle of my left elbow.  Putting my arms to the side would mean that my right hand would appear innocently at my hip while my left would hang awkwardly in front of my groin, giving the illusion I was intentionally covering. Then do I purposely cover? To cover wearing one layer is to full on grab, there really is no in-between on that one. Behind my back, then?  No, no good. All that does is draw more attention to the waist. I was stuck. I think I finally settled with the left hand on my hip and my right hand at my side.

The elderly gentleman couldn't help me directly, but he promised to send someone my way. He packed up his carpeted horse trailer and drove out to the main road, leaving me alone with no pants. 

For the time being I had the campground to myself. It was cool outside and still drizzling lightly. The Bear Grylls in me took over and I sought shelter. And honestly, for being an outhouse it really didn't smell too bad. The occasional fecal smell wafted from beneath my seat, but overall it still smelled like the peppermint cleaner that had been used recently.

I had no clue if Horse-Trailer would come through for me so my plan was to wait until the afternoon and then break out a window. I had spent about an hour and a half shivering in the honey hut when I heard a truck pull into the campground.

Like the natives scoping out the pilgrims, I peered discreetly through twigs and leafs until I identified the vehicle as an Idaho State Police SUV. Then I started the long awkward walk down the road from the outhouse to the waiting ISP trooper. This time I spoke first.

"Good morning. Well, I guess I've had better mornings."

He didn't say anything. I had an argument in my head that went like this.

-"Joke didn't land. Shut your mouth."

-“Well the guy can see my ding-a-ling. What am I supposed to do, not say anything?"

So I tried again. "I got locked out of my car. Unfortunately my pants are locked in there as well."

He just looked at me. "Do you got a spare key?" he asked.

"Yep. It's in the jockey box."

He gave a little chuckle.  His defenses were wearing down. "Any identification on you?"

"Nope, you could see it if I did."

That did it; I had made friends with the only officer assigned to patrol the Lochsa. Our friendship was sealed when I gave him a clear view of the full moon rising as I crawled up and into the back of his Dodge Durango.  Dispatch contacted my sainted mother and explained to her how dumb her kid was. So, like usual, I waited for mom to fix it.

Tom and I talked for about an hour in his rig before the call came through that a locksmith was forty-five minutes out. He asked if I needed him to stay and I said no and hopped out. So there I was again, alone with no pants.

The thermometer in the patrol car read 51 degrees. Now that's not terribly cold, but when you're in your Billy-Bears it can wear on a fella. I tried walking around but I just ended up with dirt in my shoes so I did what I figured my brother would do.  I started to sing and dance to a Beyoncé song.

"ALL THE SINGLE LADIES, all the single ladies, ALL THE SINGLE LADIES, all the single ladies. Now put your hands up! Whaoh oh oh . . ."

That kept me warm and entertained until I got a little aggressive with a stomp-and-look-over-the-shoulder move that tweaked my knee. I limped back to the honey hut.

The forty-five minutes turned out to be well over an hour. By this time I was anxious to get some clothes on and get out of there. My anxiety didn't bode well for a few innocent visitors to my campground.

Twice I mistook the sound of a minivan for that of a locksmith's truck and ran out in my skivvies to greet unsuspecting families. I would make my appearance, realize my mistake, and retreat to the outhouse. It's not like I could play it off and pretend to be picking wildflowers or something. I would just hang my head, turn around, and walk away.

Later, when I had moved to be closer to my car, two totally cool kayaker bros caught me in the open. I stood there; proud, defiant, hands on my near-bare hips, and we traded stares.

Finally, at eleven o'clock, two locksmiths from Kooskia arrived and one of them said "Are you the guy locked out of his car?"

"Yes sir I am. Did my underwear give it away?"

The potty humor made the Idaho County boys chuckle as they grabbed their tools from their truck. In the end, my family’s designated Durr Child gave new meaning to the term attached to the Lochsa as being "Wild and Scenic."