Ausborne Blog

It was the summer of 1992 (or was it 1991?), and I, David, Mark, Visiting David, and Kimball were all up to no good.  Well, I guess it wasn’t so much “no good,” as it was having fun with no real regard for any possible cares in the world.  We were in San Francisco, though it was not for any particular reason other than to just be there.  We were listening to “I LIke Chinese” by Monty Python while driving through Chinatown, when we came across the Holiday Inn Hotel.  I don’t know who came up with the idea, but one of us was a genius.  Or something.

We decided to take the elevator to the roof of the hotel, where crazy people could go swimming, if they so desired.  I say “crazy people” because I can’t imagine that there are many days during the year when the weather in San Francisco would be conducive to swimming in a pool twenty six floors up.  While up there, I remember coming out of the door onto the roof, then turning to the left, where I saw a waist-high chain link fence.  I sauntered (you know, saunter – “a walk with a leisurely gait; a stroll” – duh) over to the fence and immediately became fearful of heights.  Never before had I never had such a phobia, but the view of the ground from twenty six floors up, with nothing to keep me from falling that distance apart from a waist-high chain link fence.  My hands immediately went into “death grip” mode as they latched onto the fence, releasing only so I could inch away from the edge.

Anyways, now we get on to the “genius” plan that somebody (I’m sure it wasn’t me – I think) came up with.  I’m sure it went something like this:  “Hey, why not have a race down all twenty six flights of stairs?”  What could go wrong, right?  For some reason, we all thought this was a good idea, so we lined up and started the race.  One member of our entourage, David (not to be confused with Visiting David), was pretty ingenious and came up with the idea of leaving the stairway somewhere around the twentieth floor, hopping in the elevator, then riding it down to the second or third floor before rejoining the race.

Did you know that when you run down twenty six flights of stairs, your legs become accustomed to going down many flights of stairs, and become incapable of going up even one flight of them?  Yeah, that’s what happened.  We noticed because, when we got to the bottom, we realized that we were in the basement, and the door was locked.  We had to walk up one flight to the first floor just so we could get out.

I’m sure that cheating helped David (once again, not Visiting David) to not suffer to the same degree as the rest of us, but he still had to deal with getting all the way back to the car, which was a few blocks away.  I remember that walking on even the slightest incline was tedious, and I was surprised at how difficult it had become, simply because I had participated in this little contest.

It had been years since I’d thought of this event, but tonight I was chatting with Visiting David via Facebook, and it got me thinking about some fun experiences from Yesteryear (or Yesterdecade).  Thanks, Visiting David.

NOTE:  I’m sure that there are editing and flow issues with this post.  That’s what happens when you write at midnight.

It was 1995 and I had been home from my mission for about three months.  Summer had just begun and it was beginning to get hot in the South Bay.  As I was in the mood for a drive in my shiny black Acura Integra, I decided to go someplace I’d never been before.  Today I was going to drive Mt. Hamilton Road up toward Lick Observatory in the east foothills of San Jose.

The Diablo Range of mountains are pretty dry and are relatively (compared with the Santa Cruz mountains a little to the west) sparsely vegetated, resulting in a lot of dusty landscape.

As I was driving up Mt. Hamilton Road on this fine warm day, I came around an uphill curve to the left and was surprised to see all sorts of life moving across the road.  I couldn’t believe my eyes as I came upon 20 to 30 different tarantulas running across the road, from right to left, as if it were some mass migration.

I drove through the herd and started thinking, “Man, I wonder if I can catch one of those suckers!”

I flipped a U-turn and headed back down the hill a little ways, driving in a manner that I hoped would not frighten the buggers.  After I had passed by where the swarm was, I flipped another U-turn and pulled over to the side of the road.

Getting out of my car, I looked and spotted about five more of the beasts in the road.  I grabbed a stick and proceeded in my quest to capture a tarantula.

The closest spider to me knew I was there.  He stopped and performed the fastest 180 degree turn I’ve ever seen.  He was looking right at me as I extended my stick toward him in a most non-threatening manner, I assure you.  As I inched toward him with stick outstretched, he raised himself up and lifted his front two legs in an effort to frighten me a way.  Yeah, I was frightened, though my curiosity outweighed my fear.

I backed up and thought to myself, “Self, if we’re going to catch this thing, we’re going to need some sort of container in which to put it.”  Hmm, to the trunk of the car!

I popped the trunk and found virtually nothing in which I could keep the animal.  In fact, the trunk was almost completely empty, only containing a set of scriptures in a black case.

“I wonder,” I wondered.  Would it be possible to catch this thing in my scripture case?  With a flash, I emptied the case of its contents and had the thing opened up and ready to do battle.  Instantly, I had resumed the oustretching of the stick and the spider had resumed the whole “lifing up its front legs” thing.  I approached it with the aforementioned stick in one hand and the open scripture case in the other, hoping that it wouldn’t bite too hard when my attempts at controlling it failed.

In one quick motion, I had it pinned to the ground (relatively gently) beneath the scripture case and was hastily closing the case around it.

I had done it.

For the longest time, I had forgotten about this story.  As I started piecing together the remembrances of it, I realized that I’d never seen the spider again after that.  I never did release it.  I seem to recall overnighting it via FedEx to a friend of mine, Adam Jones, who was still a missionary back in Texas.  I wonder if he ever received it.

Hmm.

There was this house down the street from me known as the Pond House.  It was called the Pond House because, well, it was owned by the Pond family.  The home was located on a large lot, which has since been subdivided into five residential lots.  Before the subdivision the lot had just tons and tons of trees and bushes.

Well, one day Gino Silva (previously referred to as a juvenile delinquent) stopped by the house and had us come check something out at the Pond House.  The point of interest that day was something attached to a horizontal branch of one of the pine trees on the lot.  It was … a lot of bees.  By a lot, I mean “a lot.”  “A great deal.”  “More than one by a bunch.”

The group of bees was about 18 inches in diameter and about 24 inches tall, the whole bunch seeming to exist as one mass hanging from the branch.  It all seemed to move as one single living organism, parts of which were flying away on occasion.  As we looked at this … thing … and watched it pulse and breathe, I heard a word that immediately caused me to freeze:  “RUN!”  Turning to look at who was yelling it, I saw Gino standing there with his arm cocked back and 10 inch chunk of concrete in his hand.  As he released the projectile and it sailed into the bees, I realized that I had neglected to follow some instructions which had been given me, namely “RUN!”

Well, I didn’t get stung, as I finally came to my senses and made good time getting out of there.  In fact, nobody got stung, though Gino would have been the most deserving of it.

I remember this kid who lived down the street from us when we were kids.  His name was Gino Silva and he was the truest definition of “juvenile delinquent” that I’d ever met.  Well, one day, my brother and Gino and some other kids had found some type of large lizard which Gino had decided to keep as a pet.

Well, when they looked at it up close, it looked as if a bunch of ticks (or some other clingy parasite) had gathered on its neck.  Apparently, when boys find something like this, they need to incorporate their passion for burning things to remedy the situation.  In short, they tried to use a lighter to burn the little buggers off the neck of the reptile.  No, it didn’t sound smart before they did it and it just ended up making the lizard angry.  Sure, the things jumped off but it was pretty unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, Gino must have gotten bored with the whole thing because he decided to do something else with a different lighter.  He stuck it under the seat of my brother’s pants while Chris was bending over looking at the lizard.  Um, that was also something that didn’t sound smart.  The next thing I knew was that Chris was jumping up and down and running around while grabbing at the underside of the seat of his pants.  Gino “came to the rescue” by kicking Chris repeatedly in the butt to try to put the fire out.  The fire was extinguished and everybody just went back to goofing off, but I remember seeing the 1.5″ hole that was created.

Honestly, now.  What sort of idiot intentionally sets another kid’s pants on fire!?

I’m starting a new thing on my blog.  I’m going to occasionally write about an event that happened in Long Long Ago time.  There really isn’t a particular reason for this, other than to just get it written.  Maybe it’ll be a conversation starter for some friends.  Maybe my family members will read it and say, “I never knew that!”  Maybe my kids will find it in Google’s cache 20 years from now and say, “My dad was an idiot.”