While this story is in many ways just another “close call” by a youth during the long summer vacation, it also illustrates the mind’s ability to “stop the world” and act using a vastly different point of view and time scale. This event was my first experience of the change in the flow of time that sometimes happens when we are in great danger, absolutely dependent upon our actions to save ourselves from great harm or death.
The summers in Sonoma California were times of high adventure for me as I was growing up. I spent much of my time hiking in the hills (we called them “mountains”) between Sonoma and Boyes Hot Springs, swimming in one of the six public swimming pools within my “territory,” hanging out with friends, or riding my bicycle.
One of my bicycle haunts was down by Sonoma Creek, about two miles from my home. Next to the creek was a grove of oak trees in what must have been part of a park at one time. The grove consisted of a couple of acres of flat land with trees that were either planted, or thinned out, to make nice shady picnic areas next to the creek. The creek was normally almost dry during the summer months. There were small ponds with warm water, green scum, and giant bullfrog polliwogs in between the large, rounded boulders lining its bed.
At the end of the grove of trees there was a dirt road leading down to the creek bed. The road angled steeply down for thirty feet or so, and then bent sharply to the right, going around an “island” of land that rose on all sides – creating a peaked hill about 15 feet tall. At the top of the hill was a single oak tree spreading its shady limbs over the hill and part of the creek below. The side of the hill facing the creek had been eroded into a vertical cliff falling away from the tree to the boulder-filled creek more than twenty feet below the peak of the hill.
I liked to visit this part of the creek because there were fish, frogs, pollywogs, crawdads and other creatures in the pools. It was also a great access point for hikes up or down the creek. During that summer, each time I visited on my bicycle I would ride down the first part of the dirt road and up the side of the island, hoping to make it all the way to the top. I would get part way up, run out of speed and fall over – tumbling back down the hill. I knew that if I went fast enough I could make it to the top, but since there was just barely enough room on the top to park the bike before going over the cliff I had to be careful to judge my speed to avoid that possibility. Every time I tried it I would go a little faster and get a little higher up the hill before falling over and tumbling back down the hill.
One day I decided that it was time to get to the top. I started far back in the grove of trees and pedaled as fast as I could. I was really going by the time I got to the road, bouncing around on the rough dirt road. I flew down the road, turned up the hill and didn’t slow down at all! In a flash I was at the top of the hill, into the air, and still climbing.
As I flew up into the air, I felt that time almost stopped. It was like I was suspended in time and space. I had all the time in the world to check out my new predicament. I looked down and saw that I was well past the edge of the cliff, headed upward in a nice gentle curve that had a trajectory leading me to the middle of the creek below – right into the place with the biggest and nastiest looking boulders. I thought about stopping, but since I had long since left the ground it was obvious that wasn’t an option. I let go of my bike, feeling like I was hanging almost motionless, and bike-less, in the air.
On my right side I noticed a big limb of a tree reaching out over the creek, the limb was right next to me, parallel to my flight path. I reached over and grabbed onto that limb. The next thing I knew I was swinging from the branch, watching my bicycle continue through its arc and then falling front wheel first onto the rocks right where I had predicted. The bike bounced and then crashed with a resounding smashing sound, ending up in a scum covered pond with broken spokes and a bent frame. I swung from the limb for a little bit imagining what it would have been like if that tree hadn’t reached out and caught me. I think that might well have been the end of my adventures for that summer. I finally reached up with my legs, encircling the limb – holding on upside down. I inched my way back to the trunk of the tree onto firm ground and went to rescue my bicycle. It was a little bent, but still usable. It was covered in long, green, pond scum. After cleaning it up as best as could, I was back on the saddle, no harm done – thankful to that grand old tree that was just waiting there to catch a boy in its arms.