An Application to the Moonlight Madness Run

Preface or Preliminary Words of Questionable Elucidation.

Holding on desperately to small root, my feet dug into the crumbling red dirt, I looked out on the opposite wall of the valley glowing in the early evening light. It was somewhat disturbing to see only ferns and rock extending endlessly downward, the valley floor lost in mist. How far down, how much more we needed to descend was uncertain. The stream could be heard but not yet seen. The waterfall that had recently come into view as we edged our way down a subtle ridge fell from the heavens and dropped toward the center of the earth. We clung there, my hiking buddy and I, breathing hard, wondering what course to take. There was no question of climbing back out; we had already slid down too many dirt slopes, dropping to catch hold of dwarfed trees or roots like the one that now afforded me so precarious a hold. The unspoken question was when would we find the same sheer cliffs I gazed out on beneath us, blocking our decent, trapping us in a nightmare with no particularly pleasant exit. I looked into the depths of the valley feeling absolutely no confidence in finishing the day in even poor health.

Fighting a growing terror, I tried to ignore the vertigo mixed with a need to evacuate, and a tightening in my gut caused by the fleeing of my testis to a point around my kidneys. I suppressed the urge to just whine and cry to God that if he got me out of this I would never be so damn stupid again; for I knew that God, if called on to look down at my hopeless predicament, would simply burst into a thunderous rolling laughter and fall of his throne amazed that yet again man had proved stupider than he was ever created to be. No, God need not know about this I thought to myself as I looked out and down seeing fewer and fewer trees in my projected path to the bottom. I’d likely be facing him soon enough, no need to draw attention to myself just yet.

There was no reason to wait for help. We were so far back in the bush, so isolated that even if people decided to look for us we would never be found. The only thing to do was to continue to slide downward, hoping to beat the night, hoping to find a way to the stream before darkness made it impossible to get off the valley wall; betting our failing luck against the growing probability of coming to a sheer drop or some missed foothold that would tumble us toward the unseen valley floor.

30 years later I still wake up at night clinging to that root, staring out at the sheer drop of the cliff across from me; the sweat still forms on my brow, the panic lurking like a goblin in my mind. I get a queasy feelings while trail running when I happen to gaze across a ravine and see that unmistakable pattern of fern and crumbly black rock that forms on the high cliff walls of tropical valleys; and I find myself once again clinging to that steepness wondering how I will get my ass down.

I have a firm rule I follow now. I never ever go into a valley on a path that I have not climbed up; I never leave a ridge trail for the uncertain future of a slide into the darkness of lush tropical canyons. I believe have some honestly sound reasons.

Now, given my blatant fear of reenacting the nightmare trek of my youth, I have to say that I am putting a great deal of trust in the organizers of this little bit of hiking insanity, and I am assuming we are all aware of the potential perils of even the most peaceful of tropical valleys, and they, the schemers, given that awareness, have attempted, as best as possible, to secure us from such true perils.

I am not however, so naïve as to believe that the same organizers do not have a very sick sense of humor, a dark side, that will be more than willing to place me in the most miserable of circumstances, that will take unmitigated glee in directing me into places and predicaments that leave me wet, muddy, bleeding and generally worn out. In fact I expect this, and to some extent welcome it, for I believe this is my one chance to actually win a race; aside, of course, from that one occasion where I was the only one dim witted enough to turn out for the annual Waimea to Hilo Na Alapa Mohala run.


The Application--or Words in No Particular Order or Meaning.

Until recently I judged my life on the assumption that as long as one kept moving one was in the process of finding success. I spent years traveling from one side of the mainland to the other. A human ping pong ball, so to speak. All in the name of success. After all the assumption was that if the I was traveling, moving, then I must be doing something right. However in the end the only real skills I acquired by this rapid motion were the ability to walk into any pitch dark motel room, and find my way to the bathroom based solely on the chain of hotel which I had checked into, and the athletic ability to contort myself into a sleeping position on two seats, not three, of any airliner.

This all changed when I realized I had developed a liking for airline food, and had begun to hoard the tiny bags of peanuts and mouth fodder distributed while a-wing. Of course it may not have been these particular facts that set me on my course, but they were the indicators of a life gone bad.

The actual incident, like many such changes in an individual’s life, was actually a minor event.

I was on a flight from Abilene to Lax in the company of a cretin who believed himself my superior. We had settled into to one of those hoping kind of flights that bump endlessly across the west from one worthless city to the next.

It was our fortune that on one particular leg we were greeted with that Flight Attendant mantra ‘Chicken or Pasta’. Knowing the foibles of the airline we traveled I chose the chicken; for the pasta, penne pasta at that, was coated in a viscous sludge that could work its way through a human gut at rates faster than a speeding bullet. My superior, and I use the term most loosely, as one might call a Pekinese a dog, chose the pasta. However when the trays arrived, and the attendant had fled, he insisted he was the one who had chosen the chicken and I the pasta.

“Its penne pasta! Farfalle or fusilli perhaps, but not penne,” I said amazed at the man’s lack of understanding of what pasta was truly suited for the imitation sauce being served.

“ I ordered the chicken, you get the pasta. Tough luck. Here have a few extra bags of nuts, ” he snickered in reply.

“I don’t want the nuts, you can eat them,” I said tersely realizing how angry I had to be to pass up three mini bags of Lightly Salted Planter’s Dry Roast.

“Whatever. The chicken’s mine. Gimme.” Said the dwarf as he scarfed down brown green flecks of rotted leaves that passed for the salad.

“And the nuts you want the nuts too don’t you.”

“Nahh, jus gimme da chicken.”

“Here,” I said passing him the little oval foil wrapped plastic dish. “Here’s the chicken. And the nuts too.

“Don’t wan the nuts. Jus da chicken. Gimmie. You eat da nuts, eh?” he giggled as he tore the foil from the plate and began chugging the small pieces of dead brown poultry.

I stared at him, then slipped the buckle on the belt, and with a practiced move raised the lap tray with one hand while sliding my tray into the vacant seat between us.

Just what happened in those brief seconds is unclear to me. I remember holding the three mini bags of Lightly Salted Planter’s Dry Roasted Peanuts before his face, I remember insisting that he eat them. I may have said more, I likely did, but I can not remember. Shortly thereafter I found myself sitting in my seat, my associate staring at me wide-eyed a mini bag of Planter’s light salted dry Roast still hanging out of his mouth.

The lady across the isle from me shook her head in agreement.

“I saw him steal your chicken,” she said. “You should have shoved the pasta down his throat too. Serve the bastid right, the pasta is the pits. I’ve rid this one before.”

It was a small victory at the end of long hopeless war; and shortly thereafter I found myself once again washed up on Hawaiian shores having been riffed in favor of men whose primary qualification was that they were ‘Wisconsin Natives’; white puffy dull witted fellows of somewhat inbred German heritage who believe that putting foam replications of cheese wedges on their heads is the height of hilarity.

Anyway, arriving back in Pairadice I was determined that life would change. I would no longer spend my time moving fast in no particular direction. I would cease to get nowhere fast. I resolved that if I was stuck on the hamster wheel of life I would at least move slowly; that getting nowhere at a much reduced rate of speed was a much preferred reality.

Now I’m sure you are wondering what all this has to do with an application for a place in the night sojourn being planned. I realize that I can be accused of spending a great deal of time addressing issues of no particular relevance to the coming night madness.
However I do, in fact, have a purpose

The Hypothesis is Stated-- Or Meaningless Drivel in Scientific Attire

The evening outing promises to conform to the long term goals I have set for myself. That is to say that it likely involves moving over a short distance at a very reduced rate of speed. It fulfills my life goal of going nowhere very slowly.

Secondly, given my historical intimacy with the lesser attractions of the valleys and ravines we frequent, I am hopeful that my reticence to engage in suicidal journeys will be viewed as a positive aspect of my personality. After all, it is easy to direct us all off a cliff in the dark of night, and not so easy, given the type of fellows I have recently associated with in HURT, to find individuals unlikely to jump into a ravine simply because that’s the way the ‘arrow’ points.

Finally, I believe that my stubborn, ox like, temperament, and relative thickness of skin will aide me achieving the questionable goal of a finish in this race. I believe I can go all night if that’s what it takes; and I am stupid enough to think the mosquitoes and thorns are an acceptable part of any night time jaunt.

The evening entertainment is likely a race where speed, athletic ability, agility and quickness of thought, will be subjugated to brutish determination, pig headedness, and a dull awareness of one’s dismal surroundings; that rare instance in racing where the qualities of the ox rise above those of the rabbit; where the hare meets his match in the tortoise.

If I am accepted then I believe that not only can I finish, but I have a very good chance of winning because I am convinced that I am the most ox like, brutish and pigheaded applicant for the honor of entering this midnight madness. Therefore Victory may be mine because I may simply be the last one to realize how miserable a venture it has become.