In a society where death and natural forces seem like stubborn obstacles in the way of modernity and technology, where we are pampered and protected from the elements in our high tech hospitals, air conditioned homes, dual airbagged cars…the question is..how do we, or should we respond to the death of a friend or loved one?
This entire past weekend, I spent mourning and in fellowship with Tyler’s family and my church family in Columbia trying to sort it all out and seek a way to feel peace about the sudden death of a guy who seemingly died way too soon at age 22.
| The Adventure of the Biggest Tree in
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| Remember Danny Glover's overused catchphrase in the Lethal Weapon movies? I'm too old for this shit, he'd say in exasperation to no one in particular as everything blew up around him like a Mr. Wizard experiment gone wrong or while running a red light in a squad car at 120 million miles per hour. That's a little of how I felt Saturday night at the "biggest tree in So, I grudgingly put my hat into the ring and said I was in. Collin, you see, is all about going on adventures. And I don't mean like adventures in picking up girls or party hopping. I mean he's sort of like a overgrown punk rock version of Huck Finn. And lets just say there are warrants for his arrests in two different counties. So, it's 11:15 p.m. and we jump in Collin sister's nice white Jeep Cherokee (foreshadowing alert!) to drive 25 minutes south down to a little nowhere town called McBaine, Missouri, population: 100 (60 when the nearby cowboy bar is open). Moments later we reach this desolate stretch of rural road down a long bend. On the side of the road, with nothing but a dried up beanfield surrounding it, stood the Biggest Tree of Missouri. My first impression was this: Man, this is freakin scary. Now, this tree wasn't the biggest in a classic Sequoia sense of being 10,000 feet tall, it was actually fairly short and squat. But it was probably 30 or 40 feet in circumfrance and had gnarled old roots everywhere poking out of the ground. The tree looked like it was dying or dead - limbs very skeletal and misshapen, as if leaves wouldn't even dare grow there. Granted, it is midnight in late November on a dark night, and most things look scary in similar circumstances. But we are further freaked out when Collin begins telling story about the tree. In the late 1800's, early 1900's, the tree had been the site of many lynchings and hangings of blacks. We could see a stone monument five feet to the right of the tree to indicate that very thing. Collin also told us not to yell because apparently the owner of the property didn't like people there, especially at night, and was known to chase people off. One night, as the story goes, the guy even snuck up through his field on some people hanging out at the tree one night and shot his shotgun in the air and chased them around. Add that to the fact that rednecks are known to love to screw with people (insert your own joke here), and we were a little bit nervous as we strolled around the tree. We suddenly saw beams of light from headlights of a coming car and it didn't take much provocation for us to jump back in the Jeep and speed away. Collin, who seems to be empowered by being back behind the wheel, lays on his horn for 10 seconds as we pass the car. The car doesn't stop, and so after about 30 seconds, we turn around and jet back towards the giant tree. But for some reason this time, instead of parking by the tree, Collin screams the car around it and starts off-roading into some puddles and small ditches. It was exhilariting for about five seconds. Then, all of a sudden we see that the next puddle is a little bigger. Much bigger. And we fly straight to it. The jeep is airborne for a split second and then the front end lands with a thud into the mud. The next action the car takes is almost rolling over on the right side. My side. But with a sploosh, it falls back to the left on its wheels. Now the car comes to a dead stop, and we finally let out a breath. We look around a bit and survey the situation. Only one of the cars tires, the back driver's side, is on the bank of the huge ditch...barely. The rest of the jeep is in the water and mud, especially my side. At this point, by the way, Collin is driving his sister's car, I'm in shotgun position, Luckily, Collin had his cellphone with him. He called our friend Andy who was none to happy to hear about our predicament but agreed to come help us and bring his truck. But he was still a good 40 minutes away. In the meantime, we were back to being a little scared. Not only were we hanging out at some huge ugly tree at midnight with the threat of angry residents or the cops being called on us, but now our only hope of immediate escape was half-sunk. Then a car begins to drive by... so we quickly decide to hide behind the Biggest Tree of Missouri (hey, at least it did provide a lot of cover) as it drove by. This was getting a little dumb, so that's why we told I'm think we're becoming some kind of horror movie cliche when This time, though, its our hero Andy... so we jump up and sprint towards him. Anyway, to cut this a bit short... all went well. Andy hooked up some climbing ropes to the truck and hauls it out. Collins sisters Jeep looked like it had just got done mud wrestling. And we were ready to go home. Except for one problem. Sometime during our adventures, Collin had lost his cellphone. So, of course we ended up spending the next 30 minutes unsuccessfully scour the beanfields and near the tree looking for the phone. To make matters worse the phone was on vibrate, not ring (I joked that if we were Indian trackers, we could press our ear to the earth and listen for the phone vibrations). But alas, we were not. Eventually we gave up looking and Collin decided that we did save the Jeep from destruction so we still ended up ahead on the night. And that's about it. As I said before, I know what Danny Glover would of said in my position. As for Collin's sister, she comes home tomorrow. | |
