Half Past Awesome

The Aftermath

The image, like the flash of a lightning strike, is both instant and gone.

He stood there, stooped over, head in hands, looking over what remained of his possessions among a pile of rubble, a pile of what used to be his home. He stood alone, on the slab of a foundation, and I don’t know what he was looking at amongst the detritus. A family heirloom? A photograph of his parents? The last place he saw his wife? I’ll never know.

He was there alone in that moment, and as our fire engine rolled by on the way to another search, I caught a glimpse of him. I caught a glimpse of his personal toll, his destruction, his world collapsed. He looked sad and lonely and broken, an old man with little time left on this planet; his place, his history, his world, now destroyed like everyone else’s living in the path of that deadly torrent of wind and rain and fury.

I don’t know his name, I never will. I don’t know the name of the street, and it doesn’t matter, really. As a fire response unit assisting the victims of the tornado that touched down in Joplin, Missouri on May 22nd of this year, our job was to try and help locate victims and recover bodies of the deceased and whatever needs the command structure deemed prudent. The EF-5 tornado has claimed at least 132 lives as of this writing, and the final toll won’t be known for quite a while, if I had to guess.

There is no way to describe the scope of this furious outburst. I’ve been down there a few times now, and once you cross the line from normalcy to the path of the tornado, you feel as though you’ve stepped way out of the bounds of reality. Google “Joplin tornado” and see if the images can bring an idea of the chaos into comprehension for you; then know that the images aren’t even close to what it’s like to drive for miles with nothing but shredded homes, trees, lives as far as you can see. I cannot compare it to anything I’ve ever encountered. Overwhelming in it’s presentation, depressing in it’s effects, it is a stark and saddening reminder of the frail grip we have on control of our lives. We may hold dominion over all sorts of creatures great and small, but in the end we’re links in the chain ourselves, our position no more assured than that of any other. And that’s of little comfort to those who’s lives have been ripped apart in one angry swipe of furious winds.

Silently, with lights flashing so as to help us navigate the traffic snarls a little faster, our fire engine hastened from site to site whenever canine units got hits on the scent of human flesh, each an exercise in futile optimism. We scoured the high school, an empty and shredded cavern of what was supposed to be a safe haven from the troubles of this world, natural and otherwise. We fruitlessly searched several commercial establishments, trying to locate what may have been missed in the moments and first hours after the rage.

But I kept coming back to him in my mind. The old man there, on the foundation of his home. His eyes, in the moment that I caught them, glassy and confused and lost. What good are three firemen in a yellow truck going to do him? We can’t bring back his house, his life, maybe a loved one. We aren’t going to be able to rebuild a lifetime of memories with brick and framing and new windows. We can’t even stop to offer him solace as we’re in a hurry to get to the next call; it wouldn’t matter anyways, since people were lingering around each and every remnant of a home, each taking stock in their losses. Something about him really hit me hard, though. I wanted to stop the rig and throw an arm around the guy. I couldn’t rebuild his life in that day, nor any amount of time. I’m not from Joplin, I won’t be there months from now when he’s still trapped by the memories of that destruction, helpless against the storm. I don’t even know what he was looking at, or for. None of that matters, though….in that moment, he’s another broken human, maybe in need of comfort and solace, and I wanted to give that to him. It reminded me of why the fire service is such an incredible vocation. For the briefest of moments, we can help make a terrible situation just a little less terrible, we can connect with people who need help, need comfort, need a helping hand.

Maddeningly, we couldn’t help this man. As we sped off through the intersection, and I kept my eyes on him, my soul ached for him slightly. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry you have had to endure this, sir. There’s nothing I can offer you except a heart that’s willing to offer some solace, and even that’s limited – they’ve called us over there, and you’re over here, and I have to go. I’m sorry. Later on, back in Springfield, when no one is around and life is seemingly normal, I’ll wonder about you and be overwhelmed by sadness for your loss. I’ll hope someone has thrown that arm around you and comforted you and helped you to begin to pick up the pieces. I wish that someone was me, that we’d been able to stop right there for you. I’m just so sorry.

He Who Ages Right

It happened the other morning; while taking in my craggy visage in the morning mirror, I was shocked more than usual at what was looking back at me. There, beyond the fog and crow’s feet and self doubt lay one of two possibilities; either there was a tremendous prom-night special zit growing there or my first gin blossom had bloomed. Panic, either way. Panic.

See, the timing was somewhat fortuitous. I turned 37 the other day, and graceful it was not. Unlike George Clooney, who quipped “I’m kind of comfortable with getting older because it’s better than the other option, which is being dead”, I’m really not all that great with the descent to 50 and mortality itself. In fact, I really have nothing at all in common with Clooney, so this isn’t that surprising at all.

Panic itself blossomed into hyperactive screeching at myself, as an enraged chimp might at the sight of a perceived enemy in a mirror, and after a minor fit of smacking the sink and howling at the sky “whyyyyy? whyyyyy???”, I came to my senses and calmed down. Okay, the pain indicated that despite the fact that I’ve only taken to drinking gin for, like, a week or two, this was most likely a zit, a throwback to days of yore, when most of your worries centered around getting carded. I was joyous and in pain all at once. My body, in all of it’s creaky lumbering towards the pine box, was still capable of creating oily messes known and reviled by teenagers worldwide. Enraged screeching was replaced by victorious thumping upon my chest, which led to shooting chest pains and a coughing fit. Victory, nonetheless.

The morning’s episode led my to contemplate other, more ominous signs of my impending doom. I’m not talking about the obvious choices, like having someone pre-chew my meals or watching “Murder, She Wrote”, but rather, more insidious and subtle hints that I’m growing long in the tooth. Over a heart-healthy breakfast of bananas and a piece of whole grain cardboard, I realized I was wearing gray socks to the gym. No, I didn’t just stutter that last line. Gray socks. Not the gray socks your pappy wore with sock garters and polyester and hair tonic. No, no, these are athletic socks, designed to wick buffalo-style sweat from your ankles and propel you to run even faster. Or something like that.

I realize that the athletic advances one might gain from a pair of socks is the equivalent of sporting a goatee to distract from your multiple chins: sure you may not see the layers of turkey waddle at first when sporting chin pubes, but believe me, everyone knows what you’re up to. Same with these socks. If I’m a fantastic lard-ass in knee high tube socks, I’m no less the hairy hog in these awesomely airy and sleek gray numbers, and I’ll run no faster. But I’ll feel it, my friends. And isn’t that really the key to better living through denial? The perception, in your own mind, that you’re not really getting older, that clearly it’s a MISTAKE that they’re playing Nirvana on the “classic rock” station, that some people might be referencing you as “that kid” as in “that kid sure has his stuff together! He even has his own house at age 37!” Reality is best left to accountants and youth should actually not be wasted on the young.

As breakfast wound down, and I commenced to stretching out in order to be able to slip on my shoes, I couldn’t help but smile. I smiled at the thought that despite my best efforts, I’ll continue to trip and fall into the sunset years of living. I smiled at stupid sayings made up by middle agers, like “40 is the new 30″. That’s a bunch of bull. Sure, not too many generations ago, people barely made it to age 40 if they were lucky, but let’s face it, when you’re 40, you’re still 40 and halfway to the graveyard on a GOOD day. And smiling because I feel kinda lucky to have made it this many years so far. No more proms for me, even if prom-like harbingers such as acne and crippling insecurity plague my existence now and then. I smile about that, too.

And, as I hobbled out the door in my overpriced running shoes to spend another hour at the gym giving the Reaper the single finger salute, I smiled as well. Good times they await all of us. Even those of us old enough to wear gray socks in public.

Rep Number 36 Goes Up / photo courtesy Christi Clark Photography

Three days ago, I participated in the CrossFit Springfield’s 2nd annual Guns & Hoses Team Competition a fund raising endeavor aimed at benefiting the Wistrom Family Foundation, a truly worthwhile cause aimed at helping children with cancer. ALMOST as important, though, was the chance for military service members, cops and firemen to compete against one another, a chaotic stew of testosterone and nerves and borderline projectile vomiting. At age 36 and years of bad choices behind me, the concept of competing in athletic endeavors (outside of ice hockey) holds little appeal; I’m too old, the NHL ain’t calling, I gotta work tomorrow, my kids have beaten the spirit out of me, the list of excuses goes on and on as to why I don’t take up the chance to compete in much of anything anymore, outside of an ongoing chess match with my liver.

So when I was approached by some younger firemen from Station 2 about putting together a team for this competition, my first instinct was to duck and cover and pretend I didn’t hear them. But there’s only so many hiding places in a firehouse. Eventually, I had to give them an answer, and after several rounds of me saying “really? What, you need a John Candy-type on your team?“, I relented and made them promise to give me a decent burial when I inevitably died on the competition floor. As the days ticked down to competition time, my nerves begin to fray and unravel at a record pace. I’m old, man, and there’s really no need to humiliate myself any further in a public forum, especially as I do it on a regular basis just fine.

And then it was time. This was the time where Rocky theme music was supposed to cue up in my mind, shadow boxing in the mirror as I took one final shower before the event, setting my mind right, right? No. Clearly, I’ve watched far too many movies, and the reality of the whole time leading up to the competition was absent of motivational music, save for the screaming torrents of Dropkick Murphy tunes cranking in the bathroom. It’s a quiet desperation of sorts, really. I’m not in the best shape in the gym, knowing that I’m a relatively weak link on the team, and about to risk some real injury, both to my body and what is left of my self esteem. That sets up a morose cloud of doubt lingering over your personal skies, but, then, what are ya gonna do? Backing out at this point is the equivalent of backing out of a house fire: that shit will follow you for the rest of time.

As the events were described and teams assigned heats, I began crawling out of my head with nervous energy. These guys were serious, Marine Corps guys strutting about, cops from different towns all giving the eye to one another, firemen nervously joking about needing an ambulance on standby (okay, that was me), and a general tension that always precedes competitions of strength and stamina. I just needed the thing to start, already. Get me in the game, and this sensation of dizzy nausea may pass. Too soon, the race had begun. I’d describe the various events, but if you’re not familiar with the CrossFit lingo it’s just gonna come across like the cult mumbo-jumbo that it is. The exercises consisted of lifting of heavy weights, swinging of other heavy things, jumping up and down and over, lunging with random heavy objects over your head and tossing heavy sandbags over tall bars. You know, stuff you might never, ever encounter in your life. Ever.

To sum it all up let me just say this: in all my life, in whatever endeavor I’ve ever undertaken, I’ve never been pushed so hard physically to the point of a breakdown. It was set up as a team effort, so to quit or give up was to force three other people into forfeiting all of their efforts. I can insert all types of trite, catchy athletic “dig deep”-style phrases here, and you know what? THEY WOULD ALL BE TRUE. To force yourself to continue when all logic and reason demands you give up defies the physical imperative of the body, and it becomes a war of wills. To confront that wall and slog through the marsh of oxygen deprivation robbing your body of rational thought is a scary, and emotionally draining experience. This competition demanded slamming into this wall repeatedly to the point of sheer exhaustion and near collapse.

It sucked. Plain and simple.

Each time I reached down to grab that bar for another lift, when my back and legs and arms and lungs screamed for sweet release, my teammates, the people who’d come to cheer people on and the sheer force of will were driving forces compelling me to continue. I wish I could say that I was mentally strong enough to conjure up images in my mind of continuing in honor of some hero, or a sick kid or that bully in third grade who pretty much ruined my grade school experience, but I’d be lying. At some point there was no more room for thought, no more room for cliched imagery to motivate. Nothing was left but that most basic of drivers: instinct. The voices in the background were muffled, eyesight was clouded by sweat and chalk, and it was a lonely place to be left. Instinct to finish what I’d started was the only push left. Ridiculous faces and ridiculous amounts of sweat and stupid grunts all in the name of instinct.

Countless hours (or, like, two) later we staggered across the finish line, somewhere in the bottom of the rankings of the ten teams that entered. That didn’t matter. Three friends and I finished. We went to the bottom of our wells of will and extracted every last bit. I’m so proud of them, so proud of us for laying our guts and souls out there on the floor. I’m thankful to the coaches and staff and volunteers from CrossFit Springfield who offered their free time to guide us through the pain. I’m grateful for ThunderChicken who had the dubious honor of being my assigned coach, dutifully counting out the reps, vocally shoving me further and further out of my comfort zone, just like he has since the first day I set foot in the box. These people showed us, showed me, what was possible if you push yourself over the edge.

It’s a hell of a place to find yourself, at the bottom of that tank.

It’s quite another to crawl back out of it.