Day Three - What Have I Done??

The first phase of Survival was called "Impact."  It was a simulated survival situation.  They planned the course to parallel the Plan of Life.  This was to represent birth through 8 years old.  A time of complete dependence.

It started with a bus ride from Provo to Green River, where we had lunch.  The trip was pretty rowdy, with lots of Adrenalin.  I don't even remember who I sat next to on that trip.  I was already having second thoughts.  Upon arriving in Green River,  we found that there was going to be a three to four delay to the rest of our trip.  Our back-up truck was late. 

We had been given instructions to buy a canned drink during our stop there.  After drinking it, we were to cut off the top with our trusty boy scout pocket knife and smooth out the edge.  The container would be our drinking glass/mess kit for the next 28 days.  As for eating utinsels, it was up to us to create them for ourselves, out on the trail.  Cottonwood made good spoons, we were told. 

Another instruction was to "tank up" on water.  We were told to drink as many cans of water as we could without throwing up.  At that point we were to drink one more.  I think I drank about six.  There was a little visiting and a lot of resting until the back-up truck arrived.  We were on our way again!

We left Green River and headed south on Hwy #24, towards Lake Powell.  About halfway to Hanksville, we slowed down and made a left off the highway and onto a dirt road.  During the hours of the drive, the water proceeded to make it's way through our bodies.  Try riding along a bumpy, dirt road.  Bouncing up and down on a full bladder.  We were miles and miles from anywhere.

In class, we had been given "trap setting" instructions.  How to take care of bodily eliminations.  Now we got to apply our knowledge!  They stopped the bus - "Girls to the right, boys to the left."  We dashed off into the limited bushes and were grateful!  The boys got a bad deal.  Their side of the road went uphill, so there was no getting out of sight.  One ran as far as he could before relieving himself.  Unfortunately, he was perfectly silhouetted against the sky! 

Finally we reached a nondescript spot and the bus stopped.  It was twilight.  Our delay in Green River had cost us daylight walking time.  We would have to make the hike down into the canyon in the dark.

This was our first sunset on the trail.



(Something that struck me about this picture is the distance between us.  We were a bunch of strangers waiting for the word to move out.  We were never this separated in any of the other pictures.  We drew together, literally.)

In the deepening twilight, we milled around.  Waiting.  We unloaded our gear.  All of it stayed there on the ground for the back-up truck to pick up later.  It would be transported to our first base camp site.  All we were allowed to bring with us was our "possible" bag, our aluminum can and the clothes on our backs.  Period.  We then "tanked up" on the water they had brought for us and started our hike.

When the full moon came up, we started out.  Heading down a dirt road, crossing over the desert, climbing over rocks and various things was an adventure.  We had to make it to the canyon edge and then negotiate the wild horse trail to the canyon floor.  One of the leaders, Lynn, kept saying "Follow me."  Being a Carole King fan, it automatically prompted me to sing:

"Where you lead, I will follow.  Anywhere that you want me to.  If you need me to be with you, I will follow where you lead."

She told me to save my energy, that I was going to need it.  It was my version of "whistling in the dark."  Lynn wasn't lying either.

The path was steep in places and I was glad it was dark.  I couldn't be afraid of heights if I couldn't see the bottom or where I was.  It really WAS a scary thing to do, but we just handled each obstacle as it came and we helped each other through it.  Good ice breaker.   Once we made it down to the canyon floor, we then had to hike through the canyon to the spring where we would be spending the night.  We learned it was called Horseshoe Canyon.

We arrived at the spring between 3AM and 4AM, so the hike took us about six hours.  To make camp, we needed to build fires.  We couldn't use matches.  It was flint and steel or nothing.  With the fires blazing away, we could now lay ourselves down on the bare sand, in the same clothes we had worn all day (and WOULD be wearing until we reached base camp) and try to sleep.  It was surprisingly easy.

How I Became a "Survivalist"

I had no concept of what I TRULY was getting into.  This happens a lot in my life...hmmmm...

I read the description.  Words do not convey the actual experience.   Case in point:

Transition in labor is described as "the most intense part of labor. Contractions are usually very strong, coming every two and a half to three minutes or so and lasting a minute or more, and you may start shaking and shivering."

Does that give you an accurate picture of what you are in for??  No way Jose!  Somehow in reading, your brain skips over the words "most intense."  We get the impression that it is going to be uncomfortable and maybe scary.  HA!  Little did we know!

THAT was my experience with Survival!

I only knew about the class because I met a girl who was taking the fall trip in 1972.  I had never heard of it before then.  She told me general things and I thought it sounded amazing.  I heard her pre-trip and post-trip descriptions.  Post-trip mostly consisted of  "it's not something I can easily explain...we walked a lot..."  and she spoke of how much she grew spiritually on the trip.  She was preparing to go on a mission and thought it was the perfect pre-mission experience she could have had.  Sounded good.  I wanted to go.

I am not really a detail-oriented person.  I'm kind of a "fly-be-the-seat-of-my-pants" gal.  Okay - I'm a total disaster!  My plans for going to this class were - sketchy - to say the least.  I didn't think though the details at all.  I wanted to go.  I quit my job.  Took my last paycheck, and took off for Utah.  I left my stuff with my roommates, including my car, and got a ride with a guy in the branch who was going to Utah. 

The course offered on-campus housing for the first two days and the last day of the course, which I applied for and received.  I arrived at the first class September 11, 1973 - blithely unaware of what lay ahead.

BYU Youth Leadership 480 - 1973

Lately, I have been obsessed with the memories of an experience I had in 1973.  It was one of the most significant experiences of my life.  The lessons I learned that month in the desert changed my life that year, and every year since.  Not a week goes by that something doesn't bring those experiences back, and I learn again.

That experience was put on by BYU as part of their scouting curriculum.  It was a month long "outdoor experience."  Can you believe they summarized it that way?  I laugh.  Studiously described as "youth acculturation through Outdoor Survival."  Boy, howdy!  Take a look at their flier:

Perhaps moving to southern Utah, in the very neighborhood where the course took place, has something to do with it.  I don't know.  I DO know that names, events, vistas pop into my mind uninvited ALL the time.  Time will tell what the significance of that will be.  I feel caught up and, well, excited about this.  I thought it might be a good time to share.

During the time we were in the wilderness, we functioned as a traveling branch (congregation, for non-LDS).  On Sundays, we had sacrament meeting.  As part of this "obsession," last week, during church, a memory came of a testimony meeting we had while on our trip.  A girl got up and told of her testimony of Jesus Christ.  She was amazing.  As part of her statement, she added, "...if you remember nothing else about me, remember that I loved the Lord..."  (or words to that effect...it's been a number of years).  BUT - I always HAVE remembered her that way. 

Her nickname on the trail was Tag.  Suddenly, I knew her whole name, which I haven't thought about for many, many years.  The impression was so strong, I wrote down her name and decided to look on Facebook for her when I got home.  I did just that.  I found her.  Go figure!  She wrote back and it turns out she is a blogger, too.  She shared her blog with me, telling me that she started blogging about Survival a couple years ago.  I was ecstatic!

Reading her experiences on the same trip I had taken was an eye-opener.  We had totally different experiences!  Which actually makes sense.  We are different people, put in the same situation to learn different lessons.  We weren't each at the same point physically or spiritually.  I just had never considered it before and have had no contact with other group members to compare notes.

Finding someone who has been though what I experienced validates all my feelings.  Survival, like most life experiences, can't be shared in words.  It must be experienced.  Having made that journey together, as different as each individual experience might have been, bonds us together. 

Imagine me a 24 year old girl.  Go on!  If I gave you guys anything - it is imagination!  Use it!

Fishing with Grandpa

From the time I could hold a pole, I used to go fishing with my grandparents.  We fished in farm ponds, small lakes, large lakes, streams - any place where they were biting.  Grandpa had an aluminum boat and trailer and we used it often.

(found on-line: http://www.barteverettphotography.com/Kansas.html )

The farm ponds in Kansas didn't involve the boat.  We drove out to some one's acreage and parked as close to the pond as possible.  Then we walked out to the pond, sometimes dodging cow pies!  Mostly it would be a day in the sun, since most farm ponds didn't have many trees around them.  We fished from the banks and skirted around the reeds.  We mostly caught bluegills and crappy.  If Grandpa was lucky, he would get a couple bass.

(found at:  http://www.visittablerocklake.org/page.php?id=9)

The big lakes were mostly in Missouri - like Tablerock.  That was one of his favorites.  We would use the boat and go out for most of the day.  We'd go around and hit little coves and I'd always wish I could just jump in the water and swim.  Fishing taught me patience and how to sit still and be quiet.  It wasn't always a pleasant lesson, but when I caught a fish, it was worth it!

I remember going to "fish camps" with my grandparents.  There we would rent a little cabin for a couple days.  The owners were always friends of my grandparents and we spent as much time sitting and visiting as we did fishing.  We would sit outside the cabin in the late afternoon, as twilight creeped up on us, Grandpa smoking his cigarette, listening to the whip-poor-wills and other birds.  The frogs would start croaking, as the sun went down.  The colors of the sunset played over the water and I could hear Grandma working on supper.  It was a different time.  There were no TVs or radios.  The cabin only had one bed.  I slept across the foot of their bed at night.  We got up before dawn to get out on the lake.  And I loved it.

By the time I got to be an adolescent, Grandpa had gotten excited about fly fishing for trout.  My favorite summer memories were our trips to Bennett Springs, Missouri.  It is an underground spring-fed fishery that was about the most beautiful places I had ever been.  I had total freedom there. 

Fishing there had time limits.  It began about 5:30-6:00 AM, with a loud siren going off.  We were up, dressing in chest-high waders, and out in the river by the time it went off.  Believe it or not.  Think of walking out into COLD water, in the dark, to wait for the chance to throw your line.  It was exciting!  The fish bite best in the early morning and drop off after that.  I had learned to fly fish, as well, and took pride in how well I could handle the pole.  Nothing was exciting as pulling in a big rainbow trout!  They were smart and not easily fooled. 

Grandpa always made a big deal about my catches.  It was our job to clean the fish we caught, since Grandma had to cook them.  I loved everything I did with my Grandpa. 

Nicknames

My Grandpa Tooley gave me the nicknames that I remember.  I was born towards the end of the big radio show period.  My grandpa used to call me "Snooks."  It was after a character on the "Bickersons" radio show, Baby Snooks.  He called me that even after I was married.  If he called me "Paula," it was usually because I was in trouble.  He was usually the only one who used nicknames.  I liked them.

The other nickname I remember was "Doodle-bug."  That was what they called the little "pill" bugs that we found in the garden.  If you touched them, they would curl up into a ball.

For My Grandkids

For some time now, the youngest daughter has been encouraging me to document many of the stories I have told them verbally.  With all good intentions, I have done very little.  I have an adversion to taking a book and writing page after page.  Not sure why. 

Last year my son got sentenced to ten years in prison.  That changed many things, including my writing habits.  As he is incarcirated in another state, I don't get to visit him frequently.  We have struck up a heathy correspondence!  As I read the issues he stuggles with on a week to week basis, it triggers similar experiences from my past and I write about them.  At this point, he knows more about some of my early life trials than anyone else in the family.  I decided that as these memories come up, I needed a place to share them with all my children and grandchildren.

I have bought (and been given) several of those "Grandma's memories" books and the space they offer is too restrictive for me to even start answering the questions offered there. I gave those books to my Mom as well and now i think I know why she didn't fill them out. I like the idea of sharing my life by writing about subjects, rather than a timeline format.  That will fit well into a blog format and that is what I can going to start!