Crawling over

I’ve just read the section ‘Abseiling at Kilt Rock on Skye’ in the book, The Clanlands Almanac: Seasonal Stories from Scotland. It’s a follow-up travelogue to the Men In Kilts series on Starz.  It’s written by Sam Heughan and Graham McTavish, actors in Outlander if you’ve happened to watch that series.  Sam is Jamie, the young heart-throb lead along with Claire, who in 1946 travels back through a circle of stones 200 years to meet him.  In Outlander, Graham is the crusty old uncle of Jamie.  In 2020, both of Sam and Graham, having Scottish heritage, decide to take a road trip to learn more about their clans (and a film crew tags along).  Their banter is worth the price of the book.  I was laughing out-loud reading this section about abseiling—or as we across the pond call it, rappelling.  Graham is seriously afraid of heights and Sam loves to ‘poke the bear’ as we say.  It’s a hilarious read or view should you watch the Men In Kilts series.

It bought up a memory of my one occasion at rappelling.  When our girls were in their early teens it wasn’t unusual that if we were taking two cars somewhere (what American family doesn’t drive two), Jennifer nearly always was in the car with Jeannie, Micki was with me.  As typically teenagers do trying to play their parents, I heard Jennifer say more than once, “You love her more than me!”  At times when dog tired or just frustrated from hearing it, I’d simply agree with her—“Yea, you’re right” (cruel I know).  To try and counter some of that positioning from her, we decided I needed to do something with just Jennifer.  There was a mission trip to the Dominican Republic coming up so I volunteered to be a chaperon.

The youth director and one parent who looked like a mountain man, thought a bonding experience would be good for all of us going on the trip.  They decided we’d go primitive camping, which means go out in middle of the woods and weeds, beat down the grass and pitch your tent.  Rugged man also thought  rappelling was a great way to bond.  I’m not quite as freaked about heights as Graham McTavish, but I’m close.  So I stayed at the campsite while the rest of the crew decided to crawl over the edge.  One young teen was scared as well and had made his way back to camp.  In trying to calm his fears, I ended up telling him I wasn’t excited about it either but if he would do it, so would I—thinking that he would never agree to it.  Nope.  He agreed.  As I backed up, creeping closer to the edge I yelled “On belay”. Lori, another chaperon and jokester,  was at the bottom and yelled the same back. I more loudly yelled,”NO WAY!”, with HER on the other end.  With a change of rope handlers down below, heart in my throat, I did it.  Once over the edge, surprisingly it wasn’t as frightening.  Still, there will be no repeat performance.

The crew in the Dominican. I’m in the center back row surrounded by my eight senior high guys. Was a good bunch of young men.

We spent two weeks in the Dominican that summer.  I was the senior high guys chaperon.  Those guys worked like slaves and it was hot.  We were raising an open area behind a school several inches.  My guys wheel-barrowed two dump truck loads (maybe more—memories get fuzzy) of dirt from the street to behind the building. Other than water, the little market across the street sold an orange drink.  Each of us returned our bottles multiple times for that one soft drink that was available.

The missionary knew the owners of a resort where we took the group for a couple of days of R and R at the end of the trip.  The resort next door catered to European tourists with a topless beach—and I had a bunch of senior high boys!  I calmly said, leave your cameras in the room and gander all you’d like. I was sure glad it was before cell phones. Then again, most the tourists at that resort were their grandmothers age so fascination wained rather quickly. I knew that if they returned with photos of the beach next door, it could put the kibash on future mission trips.

It was a beautiful beach where we let the kids order virgin pina coladas.  When one girl complained that her’s tasted ‘funny’, I graciously volunteered to take and down it myself.

The effort worked with Jennifer.  She observed that the senior guys bonded pretty well with her ole dad (partly due to the fact I still was/am just beyond adolescence myself).  Her ole dad could be cool….on occasion.

I’ve broken a number of promises along life’s way but kept this one; I’ve never rappelled again.