March 04, 2003

an even trade

i would like to comment further on one happening this past weekend. and it has nothing to do with booze, girls, or scandelous behavior. in fact it happened during the daylight, in relative sobriety, and while doing constructive, physical labor.

well, strike that one comment, it does have to do with a girl...

my dad stayed at our cabin friday night, over a sirlion dinner at jack's steak house in logan, woody and i agreed to come to the cabin to help him cut firewood the next moring. woody is a good friend, and has always helped me and my family. i think he is also my friend because he finds enjoymnet and solice in things like working outdoors, using his hands, chiansaws, four-wheel drive, ropes, chains and sleds, and would likley do it even it it were not for the benefit of others. so after a solid night of debachery which left little room for sleep, he, perez (you can fill in the same thoughts for he as woody here) me, prada and his dog kiaya went to the cabin to cut some wood.

after pulling several sleds full of cut logs across the lake from 2 fallen red oaks up on the east hillside, we all decided that our time would be better spent if we could fall an old dead tree that had lived just off the bank of the lake much closer to the cabin. it was smaller around and was still standing, so it was drier and could feasilby be cut to fall out onto the ice where handling it would be much easier. while it was smaller, it was still easily 80 feet tall and well over a foot in diameter at it's base. it was leaning up hill so dad had to notch is severly to get it to fall over the lake rather than up the bank. in addition, perez, mike and i had to tie my old climbing rope around the tree as high as we could and, standing some 100 feet out on the lake, dug in our heels and pulled like hell. eventually pulling changed to repated tugs as the tree began to bounce back and forth. dad had notched the tree just short or falling, and as we timed our pulls with the giant moaning and swaying of the dead oak, it started to crack and scream it's last dignity as a standing tree.

it's mass was emmese. i am not good at math but since this expierence i have looked into just how much weight fell that day. i think the answer can be found here if i ever become so inclined to find out. we weren't exaclty sure if the ice was thick enough not break on impact when the beast fell, or if the tree were to fall on the ice at all. but given all of our attitudes that morning and the events leading us to be pulling on a tree with a rope towards us while standing on ice in the middle of the woods, no one seemed to care much. finally the momentum cracked the base and our rope fell slack. everything became silent as gravity took over. we all stood in awe as that relic of the landscape came falling out onto the frozen lake.

as we watched it's descent we all suddenly had a feeling of sickening terror catch the corner of our eye. kiaya had walked out onto the white frozen field of ice to see what all of our yelling and straining was for.

sometimes i feel like things happen that are so close to having very different outcomes that they must be deliberate. like they must serve some purpose. sort of like when i was younger and played mercy with my freinds. there was always something about being taken to the brink of pure pain that kept you feeling real.

"kiaya" woody called out... she looked at him innocently. she was just standing there. not even facing us. she was facing the tree and just standing still. she never moved.

100,000 variables made that tree fall on that day. 100,000 more made it fall where it did, and an infinite amout beyond that said a young golden retiever would be standing right where it was to fall. was it how dad cut the notch? was it how we were pulling just so on the rope? was it a hardened spot in the grain from some beaver's teeth at the beggining of the last century?

no matter what, it fell where it did. my stomach throbbed with a nausous gasp. the tree pummelled into the ice with a thunderous explosion that made 6 acres of ice cringe below us. and there was kiaya. she never moved.

i dont think i blinked. but maybe my body made me. all i know is that when i could see again she was standing there. the battered tree was entombed in a deep gash in the upper half foot of snow and ice that lay 6 inches to her right.

for a moment no one moved. not even her. suddenly she wimpered away as the echo roared through the valley. her foot prints were less that a hands width from the last 10 feet of the tree that fell out onto the lake. i dont know alot about physics, but i do know the the top of the tree fell with expontially more velocity than the base, and even at the very top the tree was still easily a half foot in diameter. and i do know that all of us felt complelty helpless as the giant tree fell right towards the little dog.

sometimes life comes so close to changing in big ways. next time when i just miss on the lottery, or just lose out on my next big break, i will remember that near misses are often much better than they are bad, and i will call it even.

Posted by Todd Roeth at March 4, 2003 01:17 AM