Recently at work, the morale committee hosted a virtual happy hour in an attempt to foster the camaraderie that's not been the same since telework was mandated a year and a half ago. One of the ice breakers on the agenda was "Two Truths and a Lie". Each participant made three statements about themselves. In that trio of factoids, only two would be true and one would be a lie. The rest of the group would have to suss out the lie based on what they knew already knew about the person in the hot seat. Although I wasn't able to attend, these would have been my submissions:
- I wandered into a minefield by accident.
- I almost fell into the Grand Canyon.
- I missed making the Olympic Archery Team by 3 points.
In August of 1990, I was a Midshipman attached to a guided missile frigate. The highlight of this cruise was a port visit to the tourist hotspot of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, also known as GITMO. Sun, surf, sand, and a crap ton of Castro's boys eyeballing us across a field of barbed wire. After training evolutions, including a brief stint in the base's gas chamber that left my shipmates and me choking and yakking up our breakfasts, a couple of my buddies and I scored the use of the ship's van. GITMO is no joke and is the tensest DMZ second only to the 39th parallel on the Korean peninsula. So of course this group of 20 somethings decides to go for a joy ride. When we inevitably got lost, the guy driving spies a line of signposts a hundred yards from the road. In an attempt to get our bearings, he drives off the pavement and makes a beeline for the nearest signpost. Conversations slowly stopped in the van as the sign's verbiage became readable. With large, bold, and insistent red letters, the gist was "DANGER - ACTIVE MINEFIELD". With exceedingly deliberate slowness, we reversed back over our tire tracks to the main road. Eventually, and almost overdue, we made it back to the ship.
Over winter break one year in college, Mom, Dad and I road tripped it out to California to spend time with some relatives. On our I-10 route between Mississippi and California was the Grand Canyon. Although it meant a 3-hour detour just to get there, taking in the splendor of the Canyon's South Rim was a family tradition whenever we came west. We stayed overnight in the park, and the next morning before Mom and Dad were up I went off on my own. I'd gotten a new camera and was busy putting it through its paces when I spied a particularly picturesque vista. I was trying to frame it properly but couldn't get the shot I wanted from the trail. So of course I jumped the fence. I was trying to dig my feet in on a steep slope to get my shot, and I'd just clicked the shutter when I started sliding. Slowly at first, but then I hit some really loose gravel and started to pick up speed. During my accelerated descent, I reached out and luckily grabbed hold of a small tree jutting out of the cliff face. I spent a moment contemplating my good fortune and spent the next 10 minutes laboriously clambering up to safety. Back at the top, I leaned against the rail, took a look back down, and shuddered. I chalked it up to another youthful misadventure that I wouldn't relay to Mom and Dad.
In the winter of '84, the guy who sold me my bow invited me to join an archery league being hosted at an archery pro shop in town. He advised me that constant exposure to seasoned shooters was the best way to learn proper technique and form. A total newbie, taking in all the info my first night at the range was like drinking from a fire hose. At a range of 20 yards, your target was a series of 5 concentric circles. The center bullseye was worth 5 points and each larger ring dropped a point until the outer ring which was worth a single point. We shot 12 rounds of 5 arrows each for a possible perfect score of 300. I shared the shooting line with about a dozen other archers who took me under their wings, scrutinizing my process and offering masters level tutelage on the sport. My early scores barely broke 100 but after weeks of guidance from guys who'd been shooting twice as long as I'd been alive, they started to climb. I was now consistently in the 280s. My final round broke 290, earning me the league's "Most Improved" trophy. With the Olympics coming to L.A. that summer, I contemplated pursuing a spot on the archery team for about 5 minutes. I quickly realized it wasn't for me. I wasn't part of any farm system for the team, Olympic distances were different, and I wouldn't have been able to use my current bow. Besides, knocking about with a bunch of strangers in L.A. wouldn't have been anywhere near as fun as hanging with the good old boys at The Bear's Den.
While I didn't make an appearance at the '84 Olympics, John Williams did. Williams scored the soundtracks for some of the biggest hits of my childhood including Jaws, Star Wars, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. His original composition for the L.A. games, "Olympic Fanfare and Theme", won him a Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition the following year.
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