From: "Rich Limacher" To: "Ultra List" Subject: Down on Barkley's Farm, Pt. 2 "The Dance" Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2001 19:53:04 -0500 DOWN ON BARKLEY'S FARM In Two Quick Parts ('cuz Ah wuddn't thar long!) Called "The Song" And "The Dance" Part 2 "The Dance" Well, swing your partner's full butt pack Doe-sie-doe like you'll never come back Allemande up with your gloved hand All fall down in a right 'n' left Grand Promenade! Now bow to your corner, back to the square Pull out your pages, prove you was there Doe-sie-doe round the flame in the middle We use a bugle instead of a fiddle Promenade! Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-HA !!! I knew I should've taken better lessons the moment I first hit the floor. For indeed, I did hit the floor. I had found our little group's designated group tent site somewhere inside Big Cove Campground and was proceeding to carry my tent up the hill... when down I went. Doe-sie-doe. Actually, no-see-don't. And when Barkley smacked my face, the soggy, leaf-covered dance floor up and popped my left lens right out of my glasses. So, for a moment, I-don't-see-nothing. Later, of course, I joked about how the Barkley is so tough you can't even pitch a tent within the normal camp cutoff; but a little later than that, I realized I shouldn't have joked at all. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-hooey. Well swing your hammer, drive those stakes A doe-sie-doe is all it takes Allemande up for your chicken grease Your partner gets the very last piece Promenade! Oh, it's a real barn dance all right. The night before Barkley, I mean. There's music in the air (rain beating on canopies and tent roofs) and a terrible song in everyone's heart. ("Terrible" as in "able to produce terror," not necessarily as in "lousy singing.") For myself, I was just whistling "Dixie." The first, and last, vestige of honor that was paid to me happened when Gary actually left "race headquarters" and moseyed onto my site to conduct the prerace "check-in." I didn't have to report to his site, even though it was right next door. What he wanted, of course, was my license plate. So I dutifully took out a screwdriver and removed it from my car. This immediately conjured up "a story" which I wanted to tell to anyone who'd listen, but nobody would. They were all busily swinging hammers and eating chicken. So, I'll tell it to you! (Aren't you lucky. :) In order to procure a duplicate plate from the august and beneficent statehouse in Illinois, I had to send in six bucks six-to-eight weeks in advance. Which, of course, I dutifully did. Eight weeks later, and two days before I have to drive to Dixie, I still don't have my duplicate plate. So I called this august and beneficent statehouse in Springfield and spoke with Evie or Trixie, or something, who told me she had just that day opened my envelope and started processing my request. OK, see if you can follow this now. Starting processing on March 27th does no good when your March 31st expiration happens during the middle of the night at Barkley. So Evie, or Trixie, tells me to get a temporary permit at the Chicago Heights Secretary of State Jesse White august and beneficent licensing facility. I go there immediately, only to discover that Chicago Heights does not handle vehicle licensing, only driver's. But Joliet does and--oh, please stop these miracles! my life's too enraptured already--Joliet is open late on Tuesdays. So I drive to Joliet and can't find the facility. It just so happens that two weeks ago they moved. When I FINALLY DO get there, I have fifteen minutes to spare. But then the clerk does a real daughter-of-a-bitch switch and says there is no record on record of my second request for a duplicate plate. However--doe-sie-doe and a lil' ol' lettuce and a merry old sold--she writes me out a temporary tag for seven days max. No, not from the 31st expiration date, but from today's. In short, this meant that, if I were to actually complete five loops of Barkley, I'd be driving home in an unlicensed car. Not to worry, eh? Well, screw your driver to your old plate Allemande left, Gary just won't wait Doe-sie-doe, it's starting to hail When you drive home, yer goin' to jail! Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-HAH!!! As it happens, I made it in plenty of time. I am NOW driving an unlicensed car. Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-doggies! So we all gathered around Gary at roughly 10 p.m. to have him finally reveal what time the race's start time is. He's got a new watch which he's already set into motion. "Who's good at math?" he asks. The scientists of the group raise their hands. (I lay low.) "Well, if you can figure out thirteen hours from what it says right here, that's when we'll start." Naturally, the watch had been set wrong in the store where he bought it, neither he nor the clerk had bothered to read the instructions, and somehow Daylight Savings Time was already "figured in." This made it tough on the scientists of the group. First, start time was set at 11 the next day, then 10, and finally 9. Revelry, then, would blow at 8. I laid low. And I didn't wake up until the next morning when the terrible day revealed a most magnificent ugly, cold, and gray. (Don't forget, this is the South. In fact, race headquarters had a Confederate flag flying high atop the license plates.) Anyway, the cloudy fog and gloom that pervaded the place reminded me of that "Glory" movie. I half expected to see Union troops emerge from the trees at any minute. No such luck. I'm from the North. I would've been spared. So, after a leisurely morning of teeth brushing and undigested chicken dumping, we all stocked our packs and swung 'em over our backs and promenaded to the big yellow gate where we awaited the starting "gun." Ah, but this is the Post-War Era. There's no guns to shoot with. Grant took 'em. So Gary flicked a Bic and lit his cigarette. That's how we have to start races in these Reconstruction times. Well, swing your lighter lid over the gate Your partner now, she just can't wait Doe-sie-doe, now it's up that hill You're doin' the Barkley an' it's a thrill Promenade! And promenade we did. At something approximating a brisk walking pace, we marched like foot soldiers, single-file, all the way up all those zillion switchbacks up and over Bird Mountain, our first obstacle, er, debacle, er, objective! I cannot believe the condition of this imaginary single-track trail. WHERE IS IT? I have no idea, and I'm ON it! This is the way it goes: right-foot, left-foot, down-foot (it slips off the edge), mud-foot (each shoe now weighs half what you do), then DUCK! It's a blow-down. You can either crawl under it, leap over it, or bushwhack through it. And don't worry if you do it wrong the first time. You're going to have LOTS of practice. I figure this way: twenty-plus miles of mud, ten thousand-plus feet of up-and-down, a log or a ditch to negotiate every hundred feet or so, and thorns ripping your flesh the rest of the time. I also figure: I'm not making five loops today. Good thing I'm following somebody down that imaginary trail from the peak (beak?) of Bird. Because--whoa, is THAT it?--at the bottom someplace is a rock pile (hmmm, that's different, no?) and inside that pile is a book, safely protected by a Ziploc (go ahead, sue me for not reproducing the registered trademark symbol) bag. The paperback is handed to me, so I nonchalantly rip out some paper from somewhere near the back. "That's not how you're supposed to do it," some guy says. "No? Did I use the thumb-and-forefinger method instead of the thumb-and-middle?" At this point I'm curious to learn how it's possible to rip out a book page wrong. "You're suppose to take them in order, from front to back," the good man explains. "That way Gary knows how many people have been through here." Hmmm. Must be something like erasing your dance card to see who's left to date. I try to imagine Gary later discovering all the folks who DIDN'T prance through here by counting the pages that are left in the book. Pretty crazy, huh? (Anybody count how many pages in the frontispiece? Preface? "Other Books by Same Author"? Table of contents?) [Imagine how shocked I was later to learn how inaccurate this "theory" is. What Gary actually does do, I think, is simply count the number of pages you turn in--and there should always be nine--and then he just pitches 'em in the campfire. Let me give you another example. For partial loops, Gary simply "takes your word for it" and doesn't even ask to see your pages. In fact, I have all mine sitting right here on my desk. And now I look, and what do I see? Not all pages have the title of the book printed on them. Hmmm. This is a hint for future cheaters? Well, my suggestion to Gary for the future would be to print out nine copies of "Kitschme Siouxme" and assign everyone five different pages to be ripped out, in sequence, from each copy stashed along the course. Furthermore, each copy could be printed out on different colored paper. That way, every runner turns in ONLY his or her assigned paginations in nine different colors, and I myself can retire on what I'll be raking in from the royalties. I'm, uh, always thinkin'. :] Well, slather your ink all over this page Then stuff this stuff in a Ziploc cage Stick it down yonder in a pile of rocks And Matt'll collect 'em all in his socks Yiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-piggies! Well, it's gettin' to be plain to see that this Part could well be over before I finish the dance, so maybe I'll just skip some steps: Goin' up the next terrible climb, I stop to pee and everybody I'm running with is suddenly gone. I note this down in my imaginary notebook: "Only enter big races. Chances are better that some folks are slower than you." At *this* race, I'm a wallflower. I don't know the dance and nobody's willing to teach me. Meanwhile, comin' DOWN whilst I'm goin' up is our favorite alphabet lady with the triple diphthong, Chaennnon. Whoa! What's up with this? Quittin' so soon??? Nope. She never ripped her page out of Book One. [Side note to Chaennnon: You won't believe this, of course. But just now when I just opened my own Ziploc bag? I find I must've ripped TWO pages out of Book One. Lotta good that does you now, eh? Sorry.] So, now I figure she'll be hopeless lost; but then, of course, I look around and suddenly realize that I AM HOPELESSLY LOST! But then just as suddenly--oh, please stop all these miracles from happening all the time; my heart just can't take it--here comes another runner, named Wayne. Wayne has done this dance quite a few times, so, you know, now he becomes my Moses. And I follow him dutifully all the way to Book Two and on to the first "water stop" (there's two in 20 miles) which is also aptly named--"Coffin Springs." That's where Wayne decides on his own pine box, and he dies right there. (No, he doesn't "die" die. He just decides to kill me by taking the "candyass trail" back to camp, leaving me all by myself.) Naturally, I'm dead in the water. And not a priest or rabbi in sight! But before he departs, Wayne, to his credit, tells me exactly where to go. "You'll make it," he says. And with tears in my eyes, I watch him start down the candyass trail while I turn... to go... uh, where??? I mosey down a ways until I realize I am just so incredibly LOST!!!! But soon... another miracle... Well, bow to your partner with your backs to the wall Sashay single all down the hall Now to your corner jus' make an advance Why, the two of y'all can start a romance! Promenade!!! ...it's Norm Carlson. Norm is disoriented, he tells me. Like, as if I'm not. He was about two hours ahead of me down the "haul road" (ancient coal miners' path where trucks could go, if they were real skinny trucks and didn't go fast) when, all of a sudden, he thought he was on the wrong road. Like, as if this was a real spaghetti bowl of freeway interchanges. "Hell," I told him (imaginatively), "you probably tried getting off at Congress and ended up in Oak Park!" [This is easy to do where I come from.] Anyway, Norm thought it was a miracle same as I did. Like St. Paul with the lightning bolt, he'd been temporarily confused and unknowingly came back to find me in trouble, and we both knew he'd be the LAST human on Earth to discover this, too. My next option was befriending the caveman and regressing back to a hunter-gatherer. And that--because I'm ooh, so civilized--could take eons! "I was confused and you needed help," he said. "Sometimes the Lord works in mysterious ways like that." Okay, so my very next question for the Lord is: "Hey! What was I doin' down there in the first place? You KNEW I had no business even being there!" Well, in his own delirium, I'm sure Moses at one time or another said the same thing to God about Egypt. Me an' Norm. What a team, eh? He's been to Barkley many times and actually completed one loop once. I've never been here and just barely made it to Coffin Springs. I tell him, I *think* he was actually on the right road, and he looks at me like I'm some kinda man of the--although by now pretty much ripped--cloth. This *must* be a miracle, we both agree, of the first degree. Well, doe-sie-doe down the old haul road Wade through the creek, step over the toad Now allemande soon, you'll rip your hide Y'all's goin' down--ol' Leonard's Butt Slide! Now promenade!!! Norm found it, and I followed. Halfway down--ta da! Book Three. Norm then found "The Gorges" and, no, I didn't fall in. Norm then found the New River, and I followed. (I crossed it, no kidding, on my hands and knees. Those rocks were that slick. No wonder Blake stopped there a year ago when the river rose up angry. He could've slipped on a rock, hit his head, and maybe they'd find his body in North Carolina. Or Panama!) Norm then got me to Little Hell and Book Four. I followed. It took him about an hour to climb it. I got it done in less than a day. Norm then found Book Five and, later, amazingly, I did too. Norm then found the Guard House at the bottom of Rat Jaw. I took a couple of pictures, in case my grandchildren will never believe this. Norm then started up Rat Jaw. I about shit. Halfway up, I had to stop. He thinks I got lost, or had to repair my pack or something, but I had simply run out of gas. Not even a fart left. So, I ate my stickley peanut butter and sawbrier sandwich. Norm then found the right "trail" and boogied along until he spotted the flat rock with the diphthong "MF" painted in red on it. I caught up with him there. He figured this is where the "trail" veers off and becomes the "hump." I figured some ancient coal miner probably didn't know how to spell, so, to express himself, he graffitoed the abbreviation. Norm then led me to Book Seven, and then--wouldn't ya know--it got dark. And then, incredible as it may seem, even Norm got lost. One possible explanation is that "the hump" was new this year, and Norm had never been there before. The other explanation is that I had slowed him down so badly on Rat Jaw that we ran out of daylight before he could see our way out of this mess. And thus, we were stuck. Norm couldn't put any trail together again, and I had hit the wall. So, we kinda had to dump this "humpty" where it lay and bushwhack our way somewhere else. Norm then succeeded in bushwhacking over to Indian Knob, which is where we were supposed to meet our date and dance with Big Hell (as if a Little wasn't enough), but then, suddenly, right THEN... ...another miracle: Norm decided that maybe we'd better quit. And I, naturally, followed. It was, after all, just two hours before we were supposed to be done with this loop (and back at camp to turn in our pages) if we were going to get credit for doing it at all, and, Norm figured, we probably had more than four hours to go (like, down the Zip Line, for example, and back UP Big Hell and then who-knows-what-size-hell else). So we pull out our maps and spot--lo and behold, I can't take it, another miracle?--another candyass trail, called Chimney Top, that leads right back to the Visitor's Center and THAT has a blacktopped road back to camp. Cool! I figure, we'll be home and asleep in our--separate--tents in less than an hour. Wrong. That candyass trail led us right upside the mountain to, natch, Chimney Top, where the cool, green-blazed, MARKED candyass trail suddenly stops. Wham! I could fairly feel ol' Barkley's stormdoor slam in our face. We wandered around that particular Top for a few MORE hours. We bushwhacked our way all around the big huge capstones at the tippy-top of this Chimney. The map showed a trail meandering around to the north of this Top, but we were balancing precariously over the edge on the north side--and we didn't see any trail. So we bushwhacked our way back down, then north, then northwest, then west, then southwest, then south, and then we stopped. And... sure, right on cue, another miracle: Norm was carrying a cell phone! He called his wife. His wife spoke to Gary. Gary said "turn right." Unfortunately, we were at a different elevation than this right-turn trail was; and, besides, we had already turned right, then straight, then left. We had zero clue as to where our exact fixed point along the x and y axis was. Yassir, we wuz inna fix awraht! And all the camp's scientists and all the camp's men weren't going to bump us two dumptees to gather again. (Info, that is. Like, uh, "what the hell our exact global positioning satellite data read was?") I suggested we bushwhack in the camp's general direction. And, miraculously (perhaps), Norm followed. I led him straight down a drainage ditch until the sawbriers were over our head and we had whacked our way so far into the bush that not even the elite of the Army's elite Special Forces could find us. Not even with heat-seeking missals, or other prayer books. That's when Norm suggested we wait until daylight. And, no miracle this time, I agreed. That's when we battle our way out of the drainage thorn pit, up a hillside to a flat spot, between two blowdowns, and he pulls out a space blanket. Under this cover we huddle and freeze. That's when the rains come. That's when the freeze comes. That's when the rain turns to sleet. That's when, I swear, all hail breaks loose as well. We didn't sleep much. And the first time I could read my watch under the space blanket, I shouted out glory hallelujah. Well, okay. I did this quietly so as not to disturb the other creatures' comfort. (Like, uh, for example, BEARS. Doesn't anybody remember what Davy Crockett killed him when he was only three?) I figured Norm and I were at a considerable disadvantage. We're both older than that. From the map, we could tell that the boundary of the park was west. We climbed up the hill west. At the top we could see some lights (as in ELECTRIC lights). I said, "We are GOING to those lights!" Norm, miraculously again this time perhaps, followed. He was having a harder time than I was. I think he was freezing to death. We single-filedly bushwhacked our way up and down and over every single hill and ridge in this place we later found out is named Rough Ridge. (No kiddin'?) And... sure, another miracle: Over the very last ridge we crossed and down the very last hill... there... it... was... that... #*!@#!!*'n Chimney Top Trail!!! Quickly, Norm calls on his cell phone. He wants his wife to meet us at the bottom IN the van WITH the heater blowing full blast. I think, ah, let 'em go. I'll just run up the road to the camp by myself. Another thirty minutes go by, and we're at the bottom near the Visitor's Center. Then, another thirty seconds go by and I'm inside the van with the heater going full blast. Mrs. Carlson, (she seems calm, yes? perhaps she has been put through this sort of nonsense before?) the dear long-suffering wife of my partner, drives us along that last half-mile of PAVEMENT up to the camp where Gary is. Well, doe-sie-doe, my friend. Allemande quick with lips and hands. Blow that bugle, blow it high Tap out partners, bye an' bye Blow that bugle, blow it low Ain't no ways left I's gotta go 'Cept promenade! Right to the showers... and then... ...into the tent I went. (An' I dreamt until noon at least of my favorite singer, John Denver :) "When the work's all done An' the lights are aglow, I pull out my fiddle an' rosin up the bow. The kids are asleep, So I keep it kinda lowwwww-- Thank God, I'm a country boy!" ==== ==== === = ===== ==== YASS, SIR!!!!!!!!! Yours troubly, Barkley scRitch TheTroubadour@prodigy.net "THE scruffy, unkempt hard-lucked Illinois chicken farmer contemplating the miracle of giving up"