The Handshake

That initial attraction speaks volumes about a person. Sometimes all it takes is a smile across a room, a greeting, an introduction or a handshake.

He shook my hand with eagerness. It was obvious he thought I was an attractive female. I'm not one to see myself for my physical appearance, and actually ignore it completely unless applying my makeup in the morning. I don't see myself as pretty or attractive, but rather as smart, driven and determined. I blushed instinctively.

I could tell just from looking at him that my head would fit perfectly on his shoulder, but I also knew that I shouldn't have such thoughts the first time I met someone. His eyes burned into me, his smile warmed me, his touch made my hand burn with a pleasant tingle. There was no denying it, there was something special about him.

That was too long ago to want to admit. I didn't do anything about it.

I won't let another opportunity like that to pass me by.

I'm doing something about it this time...

The Horrible Success

In January of 2007, I planned a dinner party for several people. It was the first I had ever fully planned, and it was my way of saying thanks to the couple who invited us over the week before to share their dinner with them.


At their house, dinner was a buffet style. They had made tacos, and this way everyone could choose what they wanted to put in them. I loaded up my taco with a little of everything, topped it off with salsa and homemade guacamole from avocados I had brought over, and I watched my date do the same. When we sat down to eat, I asked him if he noticed anything was missing.


"No," he replied. "What do you mean?"


Feeling that it was a remarkably unobservant remark for a veteran Police Officer of 13 years, I pointed out the one obvious fact he had failed to notice.


"There's no meat."


"What?!" Incredulous, Pete looked at me, down at his taco, and back at me. I could see him thinking for a second. "You're right!"


"I think they're vegetarians," I said quietly. George and Rachel were still putting together their tacos, so that moment of privacy was the only moment I would be able to point out my simple observation without incurring an uncomfortable silence.


"So," Pete said in a much less tactful way when they sat down near us, "you're vegetarians, huh?"


"Oh," George and Rachel proclaimed. "We forgot to tell you. Yes, we've lived a Vegan lifestyle for the past 3 years now," Rachel explained to us, "but I was a Vegan long before that. It just took me a while to convince George." She kissed him sweetly on the cheek while his mouth was wrapped in a big bite around his taco. He smiled a bit.


"Yeah," he concluded after chewing his bite and clearing his mouth. "I wasn't easy to convince."


Before I realized it, the night was nearly over and we were headed home. I couldn't seem to stop myself from speaking when I invited them over for dinner the following week. I'd never cooked a Vegan meal in my life.


I started cooking that Saturday at 9:00 am. It had taken me all week to decide on a menu, and then I discovered that there were so many options that I couldn't decide between them. The final decisions were left to Pete. The dinner party had grown from 4 people to 5 couples, so I knew that no matter the menu, I would have something for everyone. Still, the majority of food was to be Vegan by design.


The first thing I worked on were the appetizers. I chopped the stems and crumbled the bread crumbs for the stuffed mushrooms, wrapped the brie rounds in the Phillo dough with walnuts and Jalapeno Pepper Jelly, and sent Pete to the store for more pears. The baked brie was to be served with apple and pear slices along side a variety of crackers.


Then I got to work on the salad. What Pete's sister described as a "California Salad" is precisely what I made. I started out with the fancy lettuce variety – arugula, baby spinach – the like. Then I tossed on some chopped walnuts (left over from the baked brie) some Feta, also to be used in the lasagna, some sweet yellow peppers, later to be cooked in with the vegetarian lasagna, and some raspberry vinaigrette dressing. It was wonderful! I served this to the guests as soon as they stopped chowing down on the appetizers and chit chatting over the days events, a good half hour after the first couple arrived. They also turned out to be the last couple to arrive. The rest of the group except Rodney (minus the girlfriend) cancelled at the last minute.


Then I made the HAND ROLLED lasagna – two different kinds. I had the traditional meat and tomato, but also the spinach and cheese. It was very good, I'll admit. I had only made it once before. While the guests worked on their salads, the Lasagna was baking in the oven, making the whole house smell wonderful. Noses turned to the air, sniffing wildly as George mopped up the last bit of Raspberry Vinaigrette with a baby spinach leaf.


Next I tossed the ingredients together for my own Cherry Cobbler Cake – a whopping 4 ingredients. This cake is simple, fast, and always a party favorite. I threw that in the oven just as the Lasagna came out and the guests were setting down their salad bowls. Each piece of lasagna came out as a beautiful presentation, and having previous experience as a food server, it was nothing for me to carry three plates at once. Pete carried ours. Ever the polite hostess, I even offered choices.


I had plated two servings of the vegetarian lasagna for George and Rachel, knowing full well from the previous week that they had been Vegan for years. The chances of that changing in less than one week were slim to none.

"Would you like the Spinach lasagna, or the traditional?"


George and Rachel exchanged quick glances. Rachel spoke up first.


"We'll try the traditional."


Agog, I had Pete hand the two plates of traditional lasagna to our guests, while the third I handed to Rodney. The two plates of Spinach lasagna went to Pete and myself. Our confusion was obvious, I guess. George offered an explanation.


"We went to a friend's house on Wednesday. He had been cooking ribs all day long and it had been so long since I had ribs. I said I would take a bite of one just to see how they tasted. All Rachel had to do was taste the BBQ sauce on the ribs and we were both hooked. I suppose I should have told you guys sooner, but it slipped my mind. We're not vegetarians anymore, by the way." His fork cut into his lasagna and he removed a bite sized piece. "Sorry." He emptied the contents into his mouth and his face lit up. "But if I hadn't gone back to meat on Wednesday, I would have now! This is incredible!"


"It is," Rachel agreed after swallowing her first bite. "I've GOT to get this recipe from you! I've never seen Lasagna look like this before. It's so... well, pretty!"


Before everyone finished eating their lasagna, I claimed to have some errand in the kitchen I needed to attend to. The smell of the Cherry Cobbler Cake wafted through the house when I turned off the oven and opened the door to allow it to cool.


The final touch was the Poached Pears. I'd never had poached pears before and I knew it sounded good, so I was curious. I threw together the ingredients in a sauce pot and got it boiling. While waiting, I collected the empty and polished lasagna plates. Had they been any more spotless I would have accused them of licking the plates clean. Then I returned to the kitchen where I peeled, cored, and boiled the pears, but while they were boiling, I garnished the desert plates.


The desert plates were garnished with Raspberry Syrup and Chocolate Syrup swirled in one corner around an orange slice and a raw apple slice. The cake went in another corner, the poached pear next to that. A single scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream finished the presentation, and it came out looking like a miniature work of art. When the desert was served, I got the biggest compliment of the evening.


"This is the best desert I've had in so many years," Rachael proclaimed.


"Everything has been so wonderful!" Pete said.


"Wow, Amanda – you've outdone yourself here. Wonderful." Rodney thanked me.


"I'm so full I feel like I cant swallow any more, and yet I cant stop eating!" George cut a slice of pear off with his spoon and tasted it gingerly. "Oh Wow," he said in a hushed tone. "This is the best desert I've ever tasted." George smiled up at me and then looked at Rachel. "Why don't you ever cook like this?"



Rachel's face fell in embarrassment and she refused to look at me for the rest of the night. She didn't say much after that, and it was clear that she was extremely hurt by what George had said. While I was openly embarrassed for her, inwardly I was stunned that my food had garnished such a compliment.


It was a crowning achievement; a great and horrible success, and an overall wonderful moment for me while also being a most humiliating moment for Rachel. If only the 8 people invited had showed up rather than just the three that did, maybe the comment would have been lost in random conversation.

There were certainly PLENTY of leftovers. To this day I've not made another batch of Vegetarian lasagna though. I know I probably wouldn't eat it if I did. It was good- very good. I just got rather burned out on it.


George and Rachel never came over again, and we never were invited to their house for dinner after that. We rarely saw them at all, and the few times we did, it was clear that Rachel still had rather hurt feelings. She hardly spoke to me.


Part of me wonders if she thought my purpose was to out-do her taco dinner we had at their house, but I know that wasn't the point at all. My only purpose was to make something I would enjoy making and that people would enjoy eating. I wanted to be creative and I saw my moment to try something new.


It was, in the end, a horribly successful dinner party that I'll never forget. I've got money on the fact that Rachel won't forget it anytime soon, either. I still feel bad for that one.

Rodney, Myself and George.

Gold Fever!

Gold Fever struck on Saturday, February 20th of 2010. Suddenly we were thrust back to 1849 and the Gold Rush of the early California Settlers. The dog with us was no longer a companion, but a guard and a hunter, there to watch over us. The intricate Native American scroll work on the rocks we scrambled over were no longer hundreds of years old, but made just yesterday. My jeans and sneakers became a calico dress and work boots as I traversed through the woods just off the trail. The rock formations that had fallen long ago and retained their original squared shape were no longer ruins, but a standing cabin, waiting to be explored. I had stepped slowly off the path and back in time.


When I was only a child, my Uncle Mike taught me how to go Gold Panning. I will never forget that day. We went into the mountains of Toole (pronounced Tu-ill-a) in Utah, about an hour or so from where my Mom and Dad lived. It was near a copper mine, and a small stream ran down the mountainside by the road way. We found a good spot to pull off and my Uncle pulled out his gold panning supplies. I remember the smell of mud under my feet, the gravel crunching as I made my way down the path to the stream. We found a good spot to dig into the water and started putting small amounts of the silt into the gold panning bowl. He taught me how to swirl it around, looking for the tiny flecks. Nothing turned up for the longest time. Just about the moment we had decided to pick up and move to another spot, something caught my eye. There in the aluminum bowl, among the ridges and dirt, sat a shiny flake. It sat atop the dirt in the bottom, just below the surface of the water. I called to my Uncle, who came over expecting it to be a false alarm, like we had been coming across that day.


Much to my surprise, my Uncle practically jumped for joy. I had found gold, the real deal. He picked up the tiny flake with a pair of tweezers, filled a small glass vile with some of the creek water, and carefully let the gold piece go into the water. I watched as it swirled around in front of my eyes.


We took a break for lunch, which was my first experience with M.R.E.'s. They weren't as bad as I had been lead to believe, but they weren't that great either. My favorite was the crunchy freeze dried ice cream. Uncle Mike explained that it was Astronaut Food. My cousin Michael seemed to be used to the "astronaut food" since they often went camping and gold panning together.


After our meager meal, we went back to panning. Strangers walked past, curious as to what it was we were hunting for, none willing to ask. After a while, it was obvious that we weren't going to find anymore in that spot, so we cleaned up the gear and put it all away. Uncle Mike locked up the car and we decided to see if we could find the location the gold might have washed down from. That was when I learned about Sluice Trails.


As we hiked our way up a winding road that went towards the top of the nearest mountain, Uncle Mike pointed out the trails of rocks and debris that looked very much like a land slide that had nowhere to fall from. He explained to me that they were sluice trails, the rubble dug out of the mines and dumped down the hill when it was proclaimed that they had no value as a raw ore. They left pyramid shapes down the face of the mountain, looking like loose piles that rolled as far as the terrain would allow. At the top, almost always, was a mine that had been closed up long ago due to safety concerns.


The fence we came to didn't even slow us down. My uncle had been a smoker for many, many years. He huffed and puffed his way up behind Michael and myself, feeling the full weight of the altitude and humidity in his lungs. Finally we reached a clearing at the top of the mountain, where it opened out to the crest of the mountain. All around we could see wilderness, and off between two of the mountains on our west, Salt Lake City loomed in the distance. What brought us all to our full height and made the blood start pumping through our veins with the force of adrenaline was the timber lined entrance to an old Gold Mine.


Uncle Mike instantly forgot about the elevation and started to breath heavily, this time from excitement. He stood tall at six feet and almost 4 inches, and the mine was considerably smaller than that. He pulled a Mini-Mag from his back pocket and instructed us kids to wait where we were. This mine had not been closed like 90% of all others he had seen. Michael and I sat on the grass and waited. When Uncle Mike ducked his head and started to walk with bended knees with that tiny flash light in front of him, I asked Michael why we couldn't go in.


"Dad said that we should never go into something like that because there could be bears or wild cats inside. He said it could be easy to get lost in there too," he explained. My uncle was always a dare devil, but that didn't stop me from worrying about him. Those were possibilities I hadn't even thought of before that moment. On pins and needles I watched as the light in the back of the cave faded in the darkness, finally disappearing around a turn to the right. Uncle Mike was nowhere to be seen.


A good ten minutes passed and I started to get nervous. Finally that familiar weak beam of light from the Mini Mag became visible again and Uncle Mike emerged from the man made cave. He stood to his full height for a moment, stretching his back, leaning to and fro, getting things back where they needed to be. He didn't say anything for a long time. Finally, he turned off the flash light and put it back into his pocket.


"It was an old mine, but there's nothing left. Looks like nobodys been in there for years." He almost looked relieved. "I didn't go too far in. There were too many branches going off. Didn't want to get lost." Something inside told me that he had, indeed, gotten lost and that the relieved look on his face was due to the fact he was back in the sunlight once more. "Pitch black in there," he mumbled to himself. "Pitch, tar black."






As I stood just off of the trail looking at the base of what had once been a cabin in the woods while patting Muggsy the dog on the head, I talked with Sarah about which way we should go next. For some reason the image of my Uncle stretching out his back came to me. Like he did that day, I put one hand on my hip and leaned way over, cracking the bones on the right of my back in place before repeating that on the other side.

Sarah and I decided that we would follow Lou back towards the established trail. We walked past a tree with the exposed roots, I snapped a picture of the green glade with bare trees while Muggsy paused to sniff the air, and we stumbled upon a small section of the dry river bed where rocks sat under a felled tree at a cliff. We would have to walk the length of the tree to make it up the cliff, or walk the long way around. Always up for an adventure, we decided to try the climb. Muggsy ran ahead of us, bounded up the tree and leaped onto the grassy edge just beyond. He sat there panting, looking at us and wondering what was taking us so long.

I climbed down the edge towards the rocks in order to begin my climb and lost my footing. I feel on my hands and knees into the mud and silt at the base of one of the rocks on the down stream side. When I picked myself up to wipe the mud off of my hands, I froze. My hands glistened and shined like I had thrust them into a pile of glitter.

I gasped. Sarah thought I had hurt myself and rushed over to help. Muggsy ran down the tree and bounded towards me. Instantly I shot my hands up into the air to stop them both from treading on what I had found. There in the dirt before me, bright as the sun, tiny flecks of yellow stared up at my face.

I yelled loud enough for Lou to hear, and his head appeared over the cliff. As he looked down from the top, the disbelief was apparent on his face. Sarah, however, squealed with delight. We looked for a long time for a piece big enough to carry out with us, but I knew that there was no way we were going to find an actual nugget. It didn't stop me from looking though. Long moments passed where I rubbed the gold flakes into my hand, watching the soft metal blend with my skin.

"Come on, it's just Fools Gold" Lou said from above.

"Iron Pyrite is a hard stone, Lou. This is soft, malleable. There's no way this is fake. This is the real deal!" Excited, I continued to stare at the surface of the ground near my hand print for a long time. Finally, after a failed attempt to find something in which to store the precious substance, we gave up. We mentally marked the spot and reluctantly climbed to the tree. As we reached the end of the tree and started to scramble up the cliff side, Sarah turned to me.

"Look at this," she almost whispered, her eyes glowing as brightly as the gold we had discovered. She had set her hand into the dirt on the short cliff in order to find purchase and saw the entire hillside sparkling in among the dirt. She held up her hand to me to show that her hand now resembled mine, shining in the sun light with tiny golden flecks.

Sarah gouged out a hand hold in the hillside and balled up what she had removed into a large, smooth, round lump of earth. She tossed this up to Lou, who reluctantly caught it as gingerly as a little girl would grab a hold of a worm she had been asked to hold. The mud kept it's shape and we climbed the rest of the way up the hill.

Sarah was a trooper that day. She carried her mud ball prize all the way out of the mountain, a good two miles from where we had found it. Right now that mud ball rests inside a sandwich bag at my home, just waiting for me to "pan" the gold out of the earth and take it to a jeweler. I have no doubt in my mind that what we found that day was indeed gold. Separated and saved properly, that small lump of earth might be just enough to make a very nice necklace pendant in the shape of an "S" just for her, and that's just what I plan to do with it.

Yes, there is still gold in the California Mountains, if you're lucky enough to stumble across it.

Lost in Prague

For many, many years I had a terrible sense of direction. I would get lost walking from my house to the bus stop. It didn't help that the house was situated at an odd angle on the corner of a 5 way intersection. I wouldn't know my North from the West if my life had depended on it. I knew how to get home and how to get to school, but for all else, I depended on others around me. In the middle of the night, in a foreign country where English was barely spoken, I had a rude wake-up-call at 23 years old and to this day I have a hard time realizing how lucky I am to be alive.

Bill and I had gone to Germany for Stefan and Barbara's wedding. It was the first time I had been back to Germany since we moved away in 1982. I hadn't remembered anything about the beautiful Country in which I was born except for the briefest of flashes during that moment I found myself reminiscing over my life with my grandfather while stuck in that layer between death and life. Even then it was too limited to really know anything about where I had been born. All I could tell anyone was that I was born in Kaiserslautern.

I had dreamed of going back to Germany for many years. For my 16th birthday my parents bought a VHS tape about tourism in Germany and took me to the only German restaurant in Ogden. It was a birthday worth remembering. So when I found out that there was a chance to go see where I was born, I jumped at it, eager to see the world.

We flew into New York City with the aspirations of seeing a Broadway show with some other people who were also headed to the wedding over seas. I couldn't believe it - this trip was going to give me two of my greatest dreams! Next to Germany, my other top item on my 'bucket list' was to go to a Broadway show!

Unfortunately things happen and my dreams of seeing the show were dashed upon the rocks like a ship lost in a storm. With Richard and Gloria, things often "came up" at the last minute, so that trip we never made it to Broadway. We had a quiet dinner in a restaurant with a 2 hour wait for a table. All I kept thinking was that we could have spent that 2 hours at Broadway, Damn the meal. The next day we were boarding a flight to Germany though, so I didn't let it dampen my spirits.

We flew into Frankfurt on a 14 hour flight with me stuck in a broken seat that wouldn't recline. Gloria's snide condescension drove me up the proverbial wall. I'd never truly liked her very much anyway, but I had always been good at being 'pleasant' to her in social situations. I grabbed out my ear buds and popped them in when the movie started with the intention of drowning her out. My in-flight head set didn't work right for the movie though, and by the time we got there I was so bored with word search puzzles that I never wanted to see another for as long as I lived and it was all I could do to restrain myself from knocking Gloria unconscious - but we were THERE. We had made it to Germany!

My nerves were a bit frayed at this point from lack of sleep and the occasional condescending blast from Gloria. Society cant pin that many people into a cramped space with screaming kids and falling hat boxes without expecting those who know one another to be cranky with one another. We're constricted by social graces to be kind to strangers, but with people we know, we can be our cranky selves. By the time we loaded up in the rented diesel station wagon, the four of us were snapping like bears in the salmon run. We were each out for blood and we knew it.

Even the ever-patient Richard grew testy. I was ready to claw Gloria's eyes out with just one more snide comment about how I was too young to know about this or that, or that I didn't know about a particular social grace because I didn't "grow up with money" as she put it. I couldn't help but think to myself that she most likely didn't either. Due to the way she spoke to those around her, I guessed that I had more class, dignity and grace in my little finger nail than she possessed in her entire body. There were certain things I'd never understand according to her because she was a nurse and I wasn't. There was something about Gloria that I truly despised. Later on I discovered what the underlying reason was for her condescension and knew that I was justified in my dislike of the woman. I'll save that story for another day.

Gloria had been rude each time she thought even for a second that it couldn't be overheard by the men. I wasn't the type of person to complain, so when some of her remarks were overheard inside the car, Bill started to realize there was something going on. He knew me well and could tell when I didn't like someone, but he didn't say anything to me about it. He thought it was all in my mind, most likely. She proved that it wasn't all in my mind, Gloria really did NOT like me. She made that trip almost unbearable for me, but vindicated me at the same time.

We drove from Frankfurt through East Germany and straight in to Prague, only getting lost once or twice on the way. We got there late at night and settled in to a Bed and Breakfast where we would be staying for the next few days. Before even 10 minutes passed, we were settled into bed for the night, exhausted from the long journey. Each of us felt as though we either had a plane or a car growing out of our buts.

The next day we found ourselves wandering Prague. We visited the famous sights, took tours of castles far removed from the city and purchased typical "tourist" items like watercolor paintings of the famous clock tower. We watched the fire eaters and sword jugglers on the Charles bridge, we peered in awe at the blue glass in the shop windows along every street. The church was stunning. Prague was one of the most beautiful cities I'd ever seen in my life. By the time we stopped into the bar for a quick meal though, we were starving and tensions were high once more.

We drank fresh Pilsner beer, marveling at the massive difference between that and what we get in the States. With the beer, lips became loose and we all began to have words. Gloria had pushed me to the limit, and when Bill said something to me, I took in a negative way. Honestly I don't even remember what he said, but tempers were flared and I was more frustrated than I let on.

Without warning, I snapped. I walked out of the bar leaving the three of them sitting there. Gloria huffed behind me, complained about my being so immature because of my age, and sighed in complete impatience and ignorance.

Bill thought I would be right back. My own stubborn pride refused to allow me. I stayed outside for a few minutes, but Bill came out and I couldn't handle a discussion right then. He strode out with purpose and told me that he wanted to talk to me. He didn't sound happy and I really didn't want to start screaming at him in the middle of the crowded street. I walked away into the crowd and didn't look back.

If I were to guess, I would estimate the time was around 5 in the evening. I was hungry and angry, a dangerous combination for a redhead. Had anyone messed with me right then, they would have had the fight of a lifetime on their hands. I didn't stop walking. I walked past familiar shop windows, my face steaming. I practically sped across the Charles Bridge, striding with purpose past the stunt performers and street dancers. I blazed past the musicians with open guitar cases. When I passed the station, I dug into my pockets. I had no money so I couldn't take the train anywhere - I just kept walking. By the time the sun went down, I strongly wished I hadn't left my jacket at the table. It had been hours since I walked away from the table and my hunger was getting the better of me. I told myself to remember the Saltine crackers, and I just kept walking.

Dark, shady cars filled with dark, shady faces slowed down to look at me. Taxi's offered me a ride, but with no currency there wasn't much I could do. I ignored the young men making eyes at me. When the three men carrying hand guns down the middle of the road with the large, scary guy carrying an assault rifle walked past me, I refused to make eye contact. Prague turned out to be a little frightening at night.

I tried to tell myself that I was going the right direction, but I wasn't really sure. Some of the streets I wandered down started to look familiar, like I had seen them once or twice before. I walked past the Prague clock tower at least three times. I walked back across the Charles bridge no less than three times, too.

The smiling faces of the flame throwers became the grimacing mugs of tattooed fire eaters as the sun set. The sword jugglers became the night's assassins, out for my blood. The shops with the lovely blue glasses were suddenly dark and empty recesses filled with sinister shadows. Around every turn I found something waiting to swallow me into this strange world.

When finally I found the main street leading out of Prague, it was nearing 11 at night. I was all alone on the streets of a foreign country where I didn't even speak the polite words like please and thank you in the native tongue. Even if someone were to attack me, I couldn't beg for my life properly. Not that I would do something like that. I couldn't cry out for help. I didn't know the streets, so I couldn't even run away. I had no allies. I was stranded and alone in the dark night of a dangerous land.

In the year 2003 the Czech Republic had some of the highest crime rates for several of the surrounding nations. When the sun goes down in Prague, girls get kidnapped and sold as sex slaves. I couldn't believe as I wandered the frightening streets of Prague at midnight that I had once again put myself into that position.

I was certain that by now Bill had gotten Gloria and Richard to agree to look for me. I was lost, cold, alone and frightened. I was hungry and tired. But I knew that since I was finally on the main road, it was only another 2 hour walk back to the Bed and Breakfast just outside of town. I could see a possible shortcut in front of me to cut about an hour off of my travel. The scariest part would be having to walk parallel to the railroad tracks, trying to avoid eye contact with the street bums. I was no stranger to that tactic, so I decided to go for it.

The industrial section of Prague spewed black smoke into the air, making the dark night even darker, enveloping the stars in a thick soot that settled on everthing around me. Flames spat into the air from the chimneys, allowing brief glimpses of my surroundings. I stumbled once and fell on my hands and knees. When I stood up to dust myself off, I looked to see what it was I had stumbled over. There behind me was a leg poking out from under a blanket. It was cold to the touch, like ice. The blanket wasn't wrapped around the body at all, but rather just tossed on top. I wondered if the body was even alive. The chimney vomited more flames and black soot, and under one corner of the blanket I saw the face.

His eyes were dark, hollow shells. He stared off into nothing, vacantly resting on a pile of broken wood and shattered bricks. Even staring straight into his face I couldn't tell if he was alive or not, but I strongly assumed he wasn't.

I bolted. I ran for all I was worth, tearing up the ground beneath me with each foot fall. I clinched my teeth together to avoid screaming. Bones were littered here and there; I couldn't help but wonder if they were human or not. The chimney kept belching out black, ominous clouds over bright flashes of evil flames. The world had never seemed so dark.

I shivered, partially from cold but mostly from fear. I stumbled my way down the tracks. Dogs howled and barked in the distance and I suddenly had flashes in my mind of running from a pack of German Shepherds as they tracked me down and ate me for trespassing. I splashed through an open sewer and up the side of the embankment, scrambling and clawing at the hill side for something to pull myself up. The dogs sounded closer with every second. I grappled my way over the chain link fence and fell in a heap on the other side.

An hour later, I realized I was damn lucky I made it all the way back.

Bill was rightfully angry at me when he found me at 3:30 in the morning snuggled up in bed after a hot shower, sound asleep, I don't remember what was said or for how long he said it, but looking back on that frightening night, I'm sure I deserved every moment of it. What I had done was incredibly impulsive and ridiculously dangerous. I don't know exactly what I was thinking that day, if I was thinking at all.

I had been so scared and cold that night wandering around in a strange city thousands of miles from home that I didn't care how long he yelled at me, I was just happy to be back.

Until now I never told a soul about the train yard of Prague. Not even Bill.

 

.

The Sea Doo

Mom liked to brag about me when I was a teen, telling her friends at the Post Office about what a daredevil I was. I obviously got it from her, and I think that's why she enjoyed it so much. Her Utah co-workers enjoyed the days she would stop in at work on her day off to pick something up and she would happen to bring me with her. We would stop and chat a while at each of the carrier cases and I would watch them laugh together like the old friends they were. Wendy and Jo Ann were my favorite carriers other than Lynn, otherwise known as "Pee Wee" at 6'5" tall, and Dale. They weren't just my mothers friends. When I went in there, they were MY friends too.

They all decided to have an office picnic one year out at the lake. Mom and Dad had a boat that they brought out with them and we spent a day eating hot dogs over an open fire, going for boat rides, slathering up with the sun block and playing in the water. When my mother found out that Dale would be bringing his SeaDoo though, she told him ahead of time that I was her little daredevil.

"Scare her, Dale. Scare the $hit out of her," she said to him without my knowledge.

"Really," he asked. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, scare her as much as you can. She doesn't get scared of anything. Just have fun out there and abuse her a bit."

"You're sure?"

"Dale, just do it."

"Ok, Beth - you asked for it." He thought for a moment. "Just don't be mad at me for it."

Dale saw me coming up the beach and asked me if I'd like to go for a ride on the back of his Seadoo. I had never been on one so I jumped at the chance. It sounded like a lot of fun to me! For a few years I had been the only one in my family able to get up on the knee board. I had jumped many waves in the inner tube. I'd mastered the art of getting up on the water skis. I loved water sports in any form and this was one I'd never had the chance to try but always wanted to.

"When are we going," I asked Dale, ready to spring into action like a dog eager to go for a walk. I nearly pranced with excitement.

"Let me finish my burger," he mumbled through a very full mouth. Bits of honey oat hamburger bun fell out onto the sand only to be quickly snatched up by the Utah State Bird, the California Sea Gull. I always have laughed at that fact, the Utah State bird being from another state entirely.

He finished eating and it was all I could do not to drag him to the water monster waiting on the sandy strip below. We climbed on board with my mother shouting "Hang on, 'Manda," over behind me. I barely heard her. I hooked my hands into the back of Dale's life jacket and away we went.

Dale took it easy at first. He asked if I was ok, and I would shout back that I was fine and that so far it was fun. Each time that exchange of words took place, I could feel the gas revving a bit more. Pretty soon I felt like we were doing a whole 15 miles and hour. It was a very mild ride.

My Dad went screaming past in the boat and I shouted to Dale that I just knew we could catch up to him. Suddenly the challenge was on. Dale slowly started to increase speed and within a minute, we were doing around 30 miles an hour. I was squealing with delight, fully ready to go faster and overtake my Dad.

Dad killed the motor to the boat ahead as one of Mom's coworkers climbed over the side and prepared to try water skiing. Dale and I went speeding past and kept on going. We turned around just in time to see Dad taking off, creating a wake behind him. Dale goosed it, I held tight to his life jacket, and we hit the wake at around 35 miles an hour. The jet ski soared into the air higher than I thought was possible. We sailed with nothing under us but air, finally landing with an abrupt sputter and jerk as we took off through the water once more. I squealed with delight, screaming at Dale about how much fun that was and that I wanted to do it again.

He took wave after wave, increasing speed each time I squealed with delight. Finally we wiped out and both of us tumbled in a syncronized cartwheel formation over the surface. We splashed into the water and I came up laughing. The jet ski was close by and we both swam over to where it rested.

"Ok," Dale said to me when we managed to climb back onto it, "I think I'm going to let you take it out on your own for a while."

We cruised at a low speed back to the shore where Dale made a direct line to my mother. Talking with animated hand movements, I knew he was telling her the stories of our hour long ride. He asked her if it was ok for me to take it on my own for a bit, then walked over to show me how it worked. I couldn't wait to get it out in the open.

What I didn't know was exatly what they had talked about.

"I tried, Beth. I really tried," he said to my mother. "I even scared myself a few times, but I couldn't seem to scare her at all. When we wiped out, she came up laughing and I came up thankful to be alive! She's a tough kid, Beth. I don't think you have to worry about her."

"That's what worries me," she said to him. "Without being afraid, how far will she push it?"

I took the jet ski out for hours that day. I went all over that lake on a motorized vehicle - the first time in my life I had ever had something with power completely to myself. I didn't have to answer to anyone or listen to directions. There was no "Go here" or "head there" or "you're going too fast" that I expected to hear the first time I ever drove anything with a motor. I didn't have a back seat driver - it was just me and the open water of Pine View Dam. What glory!

I flirted with boys, I cruised into the docks, I wandered from finger to finger among the many that made up all of Pine View. I coasted through reeds, watched for fish, jumped boat wakes and had a glorious day.

"Hey," one of the boys of a passing boat shouted out. "Can I have a ride?" I looked around. I didn't see anyone from my group close by, so I told him to go for it. He lept over the side of his family boat and dove with grace and ease into the murky, dark water. When he surfaced, I told him that I wouldn't take him anywhere unless he was wearing a life vest. His brother tossed one in the water beside him and he pulled it on. He was very fit and was probably a basketball player in High School, tall and lean. He pulled himself onto the jet ski with ease. He wrapped his arms around my mid section and we took off like a rocket. I felt him as he smashed his face against the back of my shoulder and hung on for dear life.

"You ok," I shouted back to him after a little way out.

"Yeah," he said quietly. I slowed down.

"Seriously, are you ok," I said, turning to look at him. His face was white.

"I've never been on one of these things before," he admitted sheepishly. "I didn't know they would go that fast." I didn't dare tell him I'd never been on one before that day, too.

I took him around at a lower speed for a while, jumping wakes and exploring the lake. After about an hour I took him back to the boat and he thanked me with a kiss on the cheek.

I never really thought of myself as a tough kid before that. I was certainly adventurous, but to have scared a High School jock when I was only 15 years old by driving a Sea Doo over water - water! That substance that gives when you land on it! - really drove home a point to me. I guess most people just can't handle the adrenaline rush of it all.

I never stopped looking for that adrenaline rush. I love Zombie movies and haunted houses. I love pretending to be the toughest person in a group no matter how frightened I really am.

Mark Twain once said "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."

My story is not to say that I didn't feel fear. I wasn't numb to being afraid - but the fear made the ride more fun for me. In certain moments of extreme danger I'm smart enough to get away when needed, wise enough to protect others when that's more urgent, and determined enough to stay until I see it through to the very end whenever possible.

I wondered for the briefest of seconds if I would break my neck as I tumbled end over end, turning somersaults and cartwheels over the water beside Dale. As my feet dipped into the wave and my body twisted its fall to follow, I knew that fear had no real meaning. I would be fine, even though I had bruises on my body for weeks.

The fun outweighed the fear. The adventure outweighed the pain. The determination outweighed the danger.

That's how I live my life, one wave at a time.



.

Uneven Bars

On my way to work this morning I heard a song that reminded me of my childhood. The singer mentioned something about calloused hands and I looked at my own now dainty and feminine hands. They weren't always that way. My nails weren't always long and could never keep a coat of red on their surface. They were once the hands of a tom boy, and then the hands of a gymnast, and finally the hands of a roofer before they became the gentle hands they are today.


Callouses used to line the edges of my palm, just at the base of my fingers. I would spend hours climbing trees as a kid. I thought I was half monkey in all honesty. I wanted to be half horse, graceful and beautiful, but I was never a graceful child, and I couldn't have been farther from beautiful. I would play in the mud and always have mud caked under my nails. Mom would spend long periods of time trying to clean under them with a brush. When I was around 5 years old, she painted my nails pink after my begging her for what seemed like forever. All the other little girls in the neighborhood had their fingers painted pretty colors, I wanted pretty hands too. The first thing I did when she finished was go dig up worms with the boys out in the pumpkin patch.

I used these hands to punch a hole in a glass window once. I've used them many times to defend myself, to place shingles on the roof of many houses, to build towers with blocks and to escape miraculously from impossible situations. They were damaged, worn and bruised most of my life, up until just recently.

I used to play on the uneven bars at school when I was in the 5th grade. The playground was a lonely place for me back then. I didn't have many friends. When I discovered the uneven bars, I saw the things other kids were doing on them and wanted to learn how. Instantly I jumped onto an empty one and tried to swing around it by my legs. I fell, landed in a heap on the ground, brushed the sand out of my hair and tried again. The first time I made it all the way around the bar by hooking one leg over and one leg under I was amazed. I learned how to swing my momentum to get me around more often at at a faster pace. I learned how to stop swinging around and swap legs. Then I learned how to swing around the bar with both legs over the bar and using my knees and hands. The callouses ripped open on my hands and I would be in pain trying to write in class, but it was worth it. The adrenaline pumped in my veins and I felt like I was learning something I could be good at.

It took weeks and months to get to where I could transition my hands from one side of my body to the other. I eventually tried swapping legs in mid swing on a continuous cycle and got quite good at that. Another kid dared me to do the Cherry Drop, so I tried. I fell on my head and again brushed the sand out of my hair with my dry, calloused hands. Then I jumped back up and tried it again. I learned which bars were too close to the ground by smacking my skull a few times on the dirt, but I never forgot those lessons.

The Cherry Drop was a challenge. I would hang upside down on the bar from my knees and swing back and forth. When I felt that I was swinging out widely enough, I would unhook my knees from the bar and flip around. I was supposed to land on my feet, but that took a while to get. Most of the time I landed on my butt. Finally one day I got it. I landed on my feet and felt like I was on top of the world!

I had gotten so good on the uneven bars that other kids began asking me how I did it and what my secret was. Feeling proud of myself for having mastered something so well, I started to push myself harder. I wanted to not only be good at it, but I wanted to be the BEST at it! I worked harder and harder. One day, as I swung around the bars with both knees hooked on, I swapped hands in mid swing. I would put both on my left, then both on my right, then both in the middle. Again I heard a dare. Someone dared me to take both hands off of the bar.

The world whizzed by in a blur as I swung wildly by just my knees. I saw the sky race past, the swings behind me, the sand below me, the brick wall before me, the crowd of kids beyond that, and then the school off in the distance. I grabbed the bar again with both hands and went around once more before stopping. My heart raced. I had done it!

Kids everywhere were asking me how I had done it. I didn't know what to say, other than I had just tried and somehow it worked. Others began trying and several were sent to the Nurses office for head injuries. I just kept on.

Each day I would practice at recess. Kids would come from all over the soccer field, the 4 square and tether ball areas and kick ball practice area way off in the distance just to watch me. I felt like I was on stage. Each day I grew more brave. I would start to swing around and do a complete show, always changing things for the 'performance' and always wanting to push myself just a little farther.

One day I decided to incorporate the Cherry Drop with my routine. The kids all knew not to stand too close to the bars in case I lost hold and went flying out in front. Knowing there was a clear space in front of me, I began flipping backwards around the bar and let go with my hands. I rolled around backwards on the bar using nothing but my knees for a full 12 rotations before I picked up the courage, and when the timing was right, I let go. I launched out in front, soared up into the air, and landed squarely on my feet. The other kids applauded and ooohed and ahhed. I had done something nobody else had been able to do and it was coined the Death Drop.

The Death Drop became my signature move. Other kids wanted to copy it, but they were too afraid. One day a boy came and asked me to teach him the basics on the bars, and so I began to mentor the 6th grader. He was a year older than me in school, but he wanted to learn so I started to teach him. In no time he grew to be quite good and we would give dual performances at school during lunch. Within a few months, he landed a Death Drop and amazed everyone. I couldn't be more proud - my Student had gotten to be as good as I was. In due time, kids started asking him to teach them. Pretty soon we were teaching side by side. We would have anywhere from 5 to 20 kids a day we would work with together. We worked as spotters, making sure they didn't fall. After having learned the hard way myself, I made sure none of them ever got on a bar that was too low to the ground so that they didn't skid to a halt grinding their heads through the sand.

Once or twice we had a kid fall off the bars, but with the other kid there to help me, nobody was hurt. The kids that refused help and wanted to do it all themselves often ended up in the Nurses office by the end of recess. The audience grew, and the school threatened to either add more uneven bars or to remove the ones out there due to the danger and attraction they provided.

I was still the best at what I did. My first student and then co-teacher was very good, but there were certain things I wouldn't teach him. I was selfish. I wanted to be the best at what I did. To some degree there's still that competitive side to me, I want to be the best.

Mom came out to the school one day for Parent - Teacher conferences. I told her there was something I wanted to show her on the playground, so she followed me out there. She was thinking I was going to swing across the jungle gym or go really high in the swings. She was unprepared for what followed.


I went through my very best routine, and she stood back in awe. She had no idea I was able to do all of those tricks on the bars. Finally, in my moment of grandeur, I performed my Grand Finale with the Death Drop.


She screamed.

She yelled and screamed at me. She made me swear I'd never do it again. She threatened to go to the office and ask what they were thinking by allowing me to perform such stunts at recess.

That was the end of my pseudo-career on the bars at school. In two years I transitioned to 7th grade soon and didn't have the bars at recess, or even a recess at all. Lunches were spent from then on eating food alone until we moved to Utah. I had no friends in Jr. High and had a hard time for the first time in my life forming new bonds with total strangers. Nobody liked the little nerd girl with too many freckles, a stick figure for a body and crooked teeth. The other girls had begun to blossom into young ladies and I was still just a kid. I became a wall flower. It was a hard transition to go from being a Bar Celebrity to being nobody in an eager sea of strangers.


As I sat on the grass alone eating my lunch one day, I looked out into the lawn between buildings and saw a kid off in the distance. A crowd gathered around him in a long line. There was a ton of room behind and in front of him, so I watched. I was curious to know what was going on.


The young man suddenly sprang into the air and did a series of back flips and front flips and amazing stunts I'd only ever seen performed on television. He had a full Olympic routine memorized from the looks of it. I completely forgot about my sandwich and went over to watch...


When he finished, the crowd clapped for him. I looked close and knew he was familiar...


The Student had surpassed the Teacher.



.

Haunting Blue Eyes

Originally posted to Myspace Feb 23, 2004


The first time he came to visit me was in a dream when I was only around 7. I had met a boy at school I developed a crush on. For a long time that boy wouldn't pay any attention to me. Finally one day he smiled at me. We started to talk, and eventually, Travis decided he liked me back. The day he admitted to it, I was floating on cloud 9. I was a homely child - it was the first time a boy I had liked actually felt the same way back.

That night I went to sleep, peaceful and happy. The dream that followed haunted me for many years.

I was standing with a flag in my hand. It was a black and white racing checkered flag. Far off, in the distance, stood two people. One was Travis, the boy I liked. The other was a complete stranger. Somewhere in the distance, a shot rang out and the two of them suddenly bolted. They were close for a while, Travis gaining at one point, the stranger at another. As I watched, they made a great arc across the ground, and came running at the white line I found myself standing over. Travis sped up and looked like he was about to win when the stranger suddenly picked up speed and beat Travis by a foot fall.

The stranger walked calmly up to me as though he had not just run a challenging race. His black hair was long and some of it was hanging around his eyes. Still, through the midnight color framing his face, I could see his stunning blue eyes. He reached in, looked me in the face, and opened his mouth to say something. That was when I woke up sitting straight up in bed. It was too late, though. I couldn't see Travis in the same light after that. I started to look into the faces of strangers for the blue eyes that haunted me.

For months I had that dream every time I fell asleep. He never got to say anything because I always woke up. Eventually the dream stopped comming all the time, and started to only come whenever I started to date someone new. Those blue eyes would always come back to haunt me after the first date. It was the new guy in my life and him, always in a race, and he was always the winner.

The dream finally stopped comming all together when I hit about 18. That was 6 years ago now, and for a while I actually tried to have the dream. I tried to think about it as I fell asleep. The dream wouldn't come.

Until 2 nights ago.

It wasn't the same dream, but it was close.

At the end of the dream, the man I had fallen in love with was sitting in a chair, getting ready to leave. His blue eyesstared straight ahead, his black hair framing his face. He had a 2 day growth on his face, and I'd never seen anything more beautiful. 

"I tried to leave you once," he said. "I coudn't stay away. Please, you must find me. I'm here, just waiting for you." 

Once more I woke up.

Those eyes have haunted me ever since - both sleeping and awake. I cant seem to get them out of my mind. I search in the face of strangers once more as I did when I was a kid, looking for the blue eyes that are waiting for me - always reaching for me.

Perhaps I'm too much of a romantic - and perhaps not. Part of me wonders if the man from my dream actually exists. I've heard people express themselves by saying "He was the man of my dreams," but in all reality, how many were of true dreams rather than an idea they had in mind? I venture to guess not many.