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Wind Tales |
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Every so often I have the inclination to take account of the essence of my obsessions. Early this spring I was inspired toward such an activity by a day spent raging over rolling mountains of water on my 3.7 which was downhauled to beat the band. In what follows, I have chosen a few of my most insistent memories and fused them together into a quasi-mythical windsurfing session. As such, this story will contain anachronisms and embellishments. But who should care? After all, who can be sure that fact and fiction are altogether distinct in our deranged subculture of windsurfing? I drove at redline for several hours tonight and set up camp near the river's edge. As quiet as I am, still, lights in nearby tinfoil travel trailers pop on as suspicious migrant fruit-pickers wonder who in the hell is invading their claim at this hour. I'm not from Immigration or Labor, just from Seattle. It is pre-dawn, finally. Last night's forecast played havoc with my REM sleep: I tossed and turned in the raging surf of my dreams, dodging barges and sharks and masted knights in neoprene armor who shredded on a perpetual starboard tack, pinching me up, down, and pissing me off. M.C. Escher might have been amused; Me? I got worked. The eastern glow illuminates the morning sky, shallow blue and soft pink; Venus holds its own, still, but soon it too will slip away. The towering hills on either side of the river remain verdant in the youth of summer; they are not yet washed dry by the relentless baking of the high-desert sun. The air is cool and silent, standing in what I pray is just a momentary state of tranquility--I don't like getting skunked. Just in case, though, my trusty, triple-butted Ridgerunner stands confidently on my roof rack. I didn't drive this far to sit and bitch on a placid beach. 5:00 a.m.. If I get moving now I'll get a good spot at Maryhatcherufudougsevelt: Where it ALWAYS blows! See? What'd I tell ya? Check it out! It's ragin' out there. Yippee! Daaawn Patroool! Ya, that's me, D.P. Man, rippin' across an army of smooth and glassy swells. The troughs are my runways and my sail is an angel's wing; halfway to heaven I tuck and soar. My sail fills with grace and I quiver with the rush of elevation. This...is my version...of a perfect...world. Within minutes of leaving my terrestrial moorings, I am completely relaxed and perfectly adjusted. I take a moment to look around and marvel at the cool and tempestuous beauty that envelops me. Suddenly, a masterful stroke of soft, yellow sunlight pierces low through the valley. Now, more clearly than ever, I can see: I can see the exploding whitecaps leap from their mounts and give chase to long, rolling shadows; I can see the blanket of moist, liquid smoke that is sprung from the river and envelopes all who venture there; I can see the brilliant flashes of color from the wings of fellow angels as they, too, dance across a river flushed with the splendor of nuclear nirvana. In these conditions, however, the distraction of beauty has a way of exacting a gruesome toll. I emerge from la-la land to find myself racing up a painfully steep ramp. Ah, no worries, just a few minor adjustments and uUP...and...uh oh! BAIL, BAIL, BAIL! Kick out da feet, throw da rig...NOW!...THROW DA FRIGGIN' RIG...oh shhh... unhook... c'mon damnit... oh please, not now... unhook oh pretty please unhoooooo... . I'm no longer altogether convinced that the harness is a charitable device. After all, WHY!--if indeed it is my ally--does it so often become possessed with a resolute conviction to demonstrate its dark side? I'm tellin' ya, I'd dispose of this cranky alloy of misery if I could. Unfortunately, only a knuckledragger can do without it; I suppose, though, I should count my blessings that I wasn't born on the stinky side of evolution. But in the mean time, I'm in a white-knuckled, primal tug-o-war with this sadistic contrivance and it...is...winning: My body is being plucked handily from what otherwise should've been a highly evolved display of skill and balance. But as destiny, disguised now as a harness with an attitude, doles out humility without restraint, I must simply accept, at this moment of inglorious distinction, that fate is upon me like ugly on a toothless dog. I emerge from the initial shock of being launched to find myself still in flight, upside down, inside my boom, and still hooked in. My board? You seen it? Sounds bad, huh? On the bright side, however, my acute anxiety in the face of this near-death experience is not entirely without merit: I have ascended into a zen-like state in which all internal dialogue has shut down. This...is where...the Bhudda goes. The only flaw that prevents exit from this lamentable wheel of suffering is the nagging suspicion that my rendezvous with altitude will climax with...THAAWAAAAACK. I plunge deep and the river closes in with a resounding CLAP!--a full, two-handed clap; none of that one-hand-clapping nonsense. Buddha? Ha! He checked out and left me with the tab. So here I am, alone and...what?...a flash of white light and a long...tunnel...with a light...and I whoosh through and at the end... there stands... no way!... Archangel Gabriel clad in a white neoprene shorty! Man, you should see this guy's rig, it's totally... uh oh. Wait a minute. Somethin's not... he can't be... I'm not... OH NO! "Sir Mister Colonel Angel Sir, my duck-jibe is still a bit clumsy, I can't loop and...and...and Moe's playing tonight at the River City! "You'd sooner listen to Moe than spend eternity with the One who gave you windsurfing?" he asks indignantly. "You mean Bart?" I says. "OUT! GET OUT!" he screams, "YOU'RE GONNA BURN in... ." His voice trails off as I am sucked from Providence and hurled irreverently back down the tunnel. Was it... something... I said? Suddenly, I realize I'm back. But where, exactly? I can feel the pulse of the river and hear the dull roar of breaking swells and nuclear wind; but my eyes are crimped shut and the pressure between my clenched teeth would turn coal to diamond. But slowly my disorientation fades and I realize that I'm underneath my sail, still inside my boom and...STILL HOOKED IN! In brief, I spent the next five minutes doing three things: Extricating myself from the harried tangle of my equipment; hacking up river-water that I inhaled and nearly choked on after being hit by a rogue swell during a particularly vulnerable moment of said disentanglement; and lamenting of being stricken by this unmerciful blend of fiberglass and pain--the tragic result, I am convinced, of an inverse relationship between board speed and intelligence. Yet, still, here I am, a thrash-bitten biped with an insatiable appetite for wind. I engage this obsession knowing full well that I must endure the consequences and suffer the occasional humility. And now, I'm willing to let bygones be and I'm certain that the river couldn't care less whether or not I hold a grudge. Being that as it may, I wiggle my sail out of the water and launch slowly into an embarrassingly sedate reach across the river; I'm going to take it a little easier easy for awhile in order to give myself a chance to recover my.... GREAT BALLS 'O FIRE! The most awesome swells I've ever seen are rolling my way. Why, I... I can see my name shimmering across their broad shoulders. It's show time! I sheet in and jump instantly to mach-speed (isn't it tragic how easily one forgets?). I squint hard, like a swarthy pirate, making eye contact with each one of them. "Arghzshee maties," I growl, "prepare for a thrashing." They loom large and stand steep as I approach at a speed of diminished intelligence. The lead swell screams, "Hey knucklehead, you better... ." "Bullocks!" I retort, and I jam down his face in a free-floating power-jibe. SNAP! Perfectly executed; back on tack; no loss of speed. He says, "Wow, dude, you are one radical thrasher, man." "Youuu betcha," says I, spritely, and I ride him harder, dropping into hyper-space for another snappy jibe. He says, "And uh, by the way... dude" "Yah what?" says I. "Looook behind'cha," he says, all tight-lipped and smug. So I do and... oh shit! BARGE! BIG BARGE! Despite what you've heard from a millennium's worth of pompous theologians and hack philosophers who have never been to hell, I can tell you with absolute certainty that it's a breathless patch of water several hundred yards long and 150 feet wide; it's the calling card of a giant, floating wood chip the size of Mount Hood. Oh man, how could I have missed that thing? I'm always looking up and down river. Quick! Think! I still have some speed; can I plane through or should I jibe now? Damn this wind shadow! And fer cryin' out loud, of all them 40-plus knots out here, you'd think a few of 'em would be plucky enough to roll 'round the business end of bargey-boy here and gimme a lift. Fat chance! Jibe now, barge-bait. With the grace and dignity of a popping bass plug, I launch into a frenzied display of desperate bodily contortions. The damn tweezer-butts make sub-planing jibes look so easy! Of course, none of them can get a date. Come to think of it, neither can propeller-chum. So I toss the clew of my sail around and... whew, made it. Now, pray! I've got about 10 desperate feet between me and the edge of this morass. I can feel a few knots tickling the head of my sail, attempting resuscitation. Come on, baby, come on! I pump my sail vigorously and surf down a remnant swell. The barge is about 100 feet from dinner. All of a sudden, in one glorious and triumphant breath, I am snatched from the Tidewater's somber path and propelled forward and up into three meter heaven. Whew! It takes some time to purge from my veins a barge-wrought adrenaline rush. But now I am back to speed, thrashing my world with unrestrained enthusiasm. From time to time, though, I decelerate to a speed of sobriety and mindfully glance up and down the river, checking the horizon for...and a gust throws me into mach-speed and...what was I saying? For several hours now I have been gleefully shredding around the river in strong, steady winds and massive, rolling swells. That the others are enjoying their lives inside this massive, natural venturi is evident by the chorus of their pre-literate hoots n' hollers. I stand in the shallows now listening to their joyous exclamations and watching them perform incredible maneuvers. Join them I must, so up and off I go, howling in harmony with my fellow angels. After a few more outrageous runs, I find myself back in the shallows again; I know I am quite tired. Just as well, I suppose, for the wind has become a bit fluky and the slog-to-plane ratio has risen; so, too, has the sun, now at an angle that washes away the shadows behind what remaining swells beat their way through the thickening crowd. So it's time to take leave of the river. I de-rig slowly and glance often back toward a waning paradise which is now stricken by gusty winds and rabid chop. I feel a certain degree of melancholy for the passing of a perfect morning, but I am overwhelmed by the blissful satisfaction of knowing that I rose to the challenge of a full-on, nuclear dawn patrol. The parking space I leave is immediately appropriated by one of several victims of priority funk--they chose a warm, comfortable bed to the wide-eyed, raging chaos of extreme pressure differential. I've got no sympathy for these puppies and I can't help but flash in their direction a self-satisfied and incongenially smug grin. Bye-bye. I accelerate quickly now as I head for Hood River. I am amused by the parade of frantic, dry-eared victims of neglect speeding past me in the opposite direction. What a shame if they just wasted seventy-five cents to cross the bridge. Once in town, I notice that the flags are quite frenetic, snapping in a frenzied flutter one moment and waving lazily the next. A host of hipply-attired, credit-maxed wayfarers, each needing just one more of whatever, wander in and out of the many shops that line the streets. Vehicles come and go, almost every one of them topped with a roof-rack smothered by an arsenal of poverty. I hope they all find what they're looking for. As for me, I got in mind a honkin' mound o' blue-berry cakes from Bette's and a mondo cone of mango ice-cream from Mike's up the hill. And fancy this: It's only 10:00 a.m.! Amazing. But I'm certain that by mid-afternoon I'll be ready for another mythic session, something a bit more slalomy, perhaps. Maybe later tonight I'll head back to town and dance to Moe. But until then, I'm gonna eat, find some shade, read a book and take a nap. What a life! If you have any feedback, please email me at gebrihagen@worldnet.att.net |
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