Ranting About Raving at Red Rocks

(story originally written in June, 2008)

So a couple of weeks ago Mrs. Short Fat Goalie and I had an interesting Saturday. We’ve been working the Philly Cheesesteak stand at Red Rocks Amphitheater for soccer fundraising purposes, and we were scheduled to be there together later that day.

For those of you not from around here, Red Rocks is a beautiful natural amphitheater for concerts. If you've ever seen the "Under a Blood Red Sky" video from U2, it was filmed at Red Rocks. There isn't a better venue in the country to see a show.

Anyway, before going there in the afternoon, my boy Mike’s soccer team was having a hike in the foothills early that morning. It was kind of a teambuilding exercise, where they could hike together, build some rapport, and get some conditioning at the same time. It was nice and casual, and the parents were invited. So we thought we’d just take a leisurely stroll on a nice summer morning, come home, rest a bit, and then head out to the Rocks in the afternoon.

Great plan, right? Well, not so much…

We should have hired a fuckin’ sherpa before we went on that hike. There was a lot of climbing on rocky terrain, and what was supposed to be a 90 minute jaunt turned into a three hour death march for us old people that brought little kids along.

The most fun part was coming down the hill. One of the moms, thinking like us that this was a stroller hike instead of an expedition, brought her baby along. I carried her up part of the climb (the baby, not the mom), but now she was back with her mother. Mom weighs around 68 pounds, and they were walking along an unstable path. I was kind of worried, so it was time for SFG to man up, take control of the situation, and carry the baby the rest of the way.

“Macho, Macho Man…”

Well, Macho Man takes about 10 steps and hits a patch of loose gravel. My left leg goes out from under me, straight sideways, and we go boom-boom. I could have put my arm down to break most of the fall, but the mom would probably get defensive if I chucked her kid to save myself.

So the baby never touches the ground, but I scrape a lot of the meat off of my left leg, from knee to ankle. At that very moment I swore revenge on Willie, Mike’s coach who set up this goddamn hike. You don’t know where or when, son, but vengence will be mine.

Now, why am I telling you all this? Bear with me- it will all come together soon. Just a few hours later, we have to report to Red Rocks to work an event called "Global Dance Fest". Annie signed us up for it, and tells me that it will be maybe some polka, some clog dancing, or perhaps some salsa. Old people, like me, would be there to watch the festivities. No biggie- we’d put in our 4-5 hours, and head home. We were both pretty worn out from the hike, the scrape on my leg looked like ground round and had a heartbeat, but we figured we could sack up for the shift.

When we got there, we discovered that my girl wasn’t even close. We were informed that Global Dance Fest is what’s called a “rave party”, and it would be unlike anything we’d ever seen before.

This just screams for a running diary, so here we go…

4:00- We check in, and head to our stand. When we get there, we find a new twist to the normal Red Rocks format. Our concession stand is at the top of the stairs, and usually all the music is on the stage below, and far enough away where noise isn’t much concern. We look, and there is a giant bank of speakers about 25 feet from where we’ll be. Some dickhead with a sideways hat (just hate that look, by the way) is setting up a turntable and some other sound equipment, so it looks like we’ll have music right nearby. Isn't that just bitchin’?

But what kind of music will it be? I’d ask Annie, but I think she’s still clinging to the clog dance notion. Dumbass...

4:15- One of the security guys comes over, and starts to brief us about how the evening is going to go. He goes over procedures concerning what happens when a fight breaks out, how to deal with a fake ID, how not to sell to someone who’s eyes are so dilated you can’t see anything but pupils, and who to call if someone overdoses, and starts choking on their own tongue.

Uh, excuse me- what the hell is about to happen here?

4:30- Sideways hat-boy fires up his sound system and puts on some tunes for us enjoy before the gates open up. We then find out what kind of music it is. Well, what do you know! It's techno!

Fuck....me...

On a 1-10 scale, I’d say he has the bass turned up to approximately 19. We don’t know it yet, but that’s the way it’s going to be for the rest of the evening. The music has a thumping, pulsating beat that my kids refer to as “oontz, oontz, oontz”. If I refer back to that, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

5:00- The gates open, and the early crowd starts to parade in. Hey, the Catholic schools in the area must have gotten a great deal on tickets, because about 300 teenage girls just entered in complete uniforms (pleated skirts, knee socks, etc).

Wow, the nuns must have relaxed the rules on the hemlines of the skirts since I was a kid. Not sure the belly-button rings and visible thong-ass are regulation either. I’ll have to check the manual on that.

5:30- The next wave comes in, and its just more knee socks, pleated skirts, and thongs. The one tiny wrinkle is- they’re dudes. Well, this is going to be interesting, now isn’t it? Somewhere, the Pope just shivered a little, and I’ll bet he doesn’t know why.

5:45- C’mon, kids, say it with me: oontz, oontz, oontz…

6:00- The Red Rocks staff just brought in a bunch of earplugs for the concession workers. I’m cashier-boy, so I can’t use them. I’m already straining to hear people, and using my fingers like Marlee Matlin to tell these fucklumps how much they owe for their munchies. We’re only two hours into this. At this very moment, I swear revenge on Annie, who signed me up for this shit. I imagine clog dancing on her lifeless corpse when we get home. It makes me smile…

7:00- Now the hardcore partiers start to arrive. The closer it gets to being dark, the stranger the outfits are becoming. Now we’ve moved on to nylons, garters and tiny undies. Plus a bunch of them are wearing those furry “Ug” boots that look like a yak died around their ankles.

And you should see what the girls are wearing…

7:15- A dude just walked by wearing blue nylons and a matching blue dress. Nice and clingy. Plus he had wings on his back. No shit- wings. I would have loved to be in the room when he passed his dad on the way out the door tonight.

“Don’t wait up, dad. Oh, dammit, I have a run in my nylon! And I have a crease in my wing! Hey, dad? Why are you putting a gun in your mouth?”

7:25- Okay, now this is getting ridiculous. A girl made a skirt out of a furry shower mat. Plus, she had another mat wrapped around her legs like the Ugs. Later tonight, her mom is going to break her goddamn neck stepping out of the tub, just so this little nymphette can be fashionable.

7:30- Now here’s something worth mentioning. A bunch of the girls, and some of the guys, are walking around sucking on pacifiers. Yep, I said pacifiers! This is already a degenerate’s dream with the schoolgirl outfits, and the stockings with garters. Do we really have to throw pacifiers into the equation? To put this in medical terms, it’s getting really icky around here…

7:45- Now, just to be different- oontz, oontz, oontz…

8:00- M.C. Sideways Hat just played a kicky little tune, not only featuring the never ending “oontz, oontz, oontz”, but five minutes of a girl making, let’s say, “orgasm noises”. Really loud orgasm noises. At least that’s what I’m told they were. I’ve never actually heard those sounds in person before. Is that bad?

8:30- The area where we are working is a mass of humanity. It looks like the barroom scene in “Star Wars”. Muscle shirted dudes with badass glares on their faces who look like they’re ready to throw down at any moment (selling them a ton of Red Bulls). The cross dressing fellas, that can really dance up a fuckin’ storm, by the way.

And I’m just not sure that some of these outfits that the girls are sporting are legal. They are almost all wearing thongs, or half-undies that might as well be thongs. The ones that are even bothering with a skirt have the damn thing hiked up so high, it looks like a belt.

Now, here’s the part where I know for sure I’m an old man. Thirty years ago, I would have been too dizzy to work, because all the blood in my head would have rushed south, camping out in my dork for the evening. Or maybe it’s because I have a daughter, because all I can think is:

“Girls, put some freakin’ clothes on, and for the love of God, could you please get that pacifier out of your mouth?”.

9:00- Now this is really bad. There is an old man standing right in the middle of the party, drinking a beer and just looking at the girls. He’s sticking out like a sore, perverted thumb. Somehow, I don’t think he’s here for the music.

I get the feeling I’ve seen him before, but I can’t tell because he has his back to me. Wait a second, he’s turning around now. Let me get a closer look.

Oh, hell no. Dad?

9:45- Just to review- oontz, oontz, oontz…

10:00- Going into hour six of our fun evening. Let’s take a quick inventory, shall we? I’ve controlled my heart rate, so that my scraped leg is throbbing to the beat of the music. By the way, the music has not stopped, even once, since 4:30. The bass has penetrated my body to a point that I think I may be sterile, so I can now ignore that court order to get a vasectomy. Plus any kidney stones I may have had are all dissolved by now.

Between the mountain climb earlier and standing on concrete for six hours, my knees feel like they’re going to explode. Plus I’ve already made plans to enroll in sign language classes, because there’s no fucking way I still have my hearing at the end of the night.

10:30- A kid just came up to me and asked if I wanted to see his “Prince Albert”. I told him tobacco wasn’t allowed in the park. He laughed, asked exactly how old I was, and then explained to me that a Prince Albert was a piercing on a part of a dude’s anatomy that should never have a giant needle go through it. Thank you, son, I’m going to have to decline your nice offer.

Uh, I’m a little lightheaded. Can I please take my break now?

10:45- While we have a moment, let’s review some of the messages that have been written on the half-underwear of the girls tonight:

“Juicy”
“Perfect”
“Yes”
“Bad girl”
“Dora the Explorer”

Okay, I made that last one up. Geez, when I was a kid, having the day of the week on underwear was as daring as it got. Come to think of it, I used to date a girl that wore underwear like that. Except it said, “September”. That probably wasn’t good. Let’s just move on…

11:00- There are a bunch of guys that are carrying neon glowing lights at the end of strings, and spinning the lights around their bodies like nunchuks. Pretty fascinating, but some passer-by is going to take one upside their head soon, and then all hell’s going to break loose. I’d call security, but I think they’re all partying with the girls by now.

11:30- Still going strong, and selling lots of bottled water (at $3.50 a pop, they should make me wear a mask while I’m selling it). The crowd has been surprisingly well behaved and polite, considering there are more pharmaceuticals here than at the Bristol-Myers factory.

Here’s the only problem I have with this group. Everybody is giving me money wadded up in a sweaty ball- I imagine it’s from all the dancing. I have to almost wring it out before I can put it in the drawer. With the lack of clothing around here, I'm sure I don’t want to know where they stored the money before they gave it to me.

I’m positive I have a case of the Rave Cooties. When I get home, I’m going to dip my hands in battery acid, just to be safe.

12:00- Eight hours. This is lasting so long, I’m starting to feel the same way as when I play hockey with Marty Richardson. Just wanting to look around for something to plunge into my goddamn heart. If I wasn’t looking so forward to killing Annie when we get home, I would have offed myself by now.

1:00- Hey, we have a special guest DJ that is supposed to close out our night. I didn’t get his name, but let’s call him M.C. Pottymouth, shall we? The first thing he says is, “Somebody scream!!!”. That is officially the 1200th time I’ve heard that phrase tonight, and I go ahead and scream for the first time.

Pottymouth then proceeds to actually turn the volume up on the speakers (I was sure we were at full throttle), and then rattle off 30 minutes of sewage that includes some words that embarrassed me, and I’m a hockey player. His favorite appears to be that 12 letter phrase that starts with “mother”. I know it’s his favorite because he says it 453 times.

At this very moment, I swear revenge…aw, fuck it. I’m too tired.

2:00- Well, the party finally ended in the park, and now they’ve all retired to the parking lot. I’ll bet they’ll have to bring in the National Guard if they want to break this thing up. What matters to me is that I get to go home and ice my knees. This may be the longest day of my life- scaling the Matterhorn in the morning, scraping my leg to the point that it’s currently oozing some kind of mystery fluid, and then dealing with the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen for 10 solid hours. And it’s going to take a week before I get this sound out of my head:

Oontz, oontz, oontz…

Late Miracle Gives Dawgs 6-5 Win

During the Dawgs I recent run of success, including a record 20 game unbeaten streak, there have been several times where the boys have come back late to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

But it's never happened quite like this.

Down two goals with three minutes remaining, the Dawgs exploded for three scores, and then held off a furious late power play surge to snatch a remarkable 6-5 win against the team that broke their streak, the Ice Pack.

The Dawgs, now sitting at 12-3 and riding a new four game winning streak, control their own destiny in their quest to win the first regular season winter EAHL title in team history. They hold a two point lead over the Sublixators, who improbably lost Tuesday night to the Misfits, and also have played one less game than any of their nearest competition. If they can win three out of their final four games, they will clinch the top seed for the EAHL playoffs.

"Defenseman" Tito Pijanowski, who missed the Dawgs game at Pepsi Center due to a mysterious non-hockey injury, had a huge night with two goals and two assists. Matt McGarvey and Shaun Hollis, reunited after Hollis' brief trip down to the minor leagues, combined for three goals and three assists. And Captain Marty Richardson tipped in the late game winner to cap off the giant comeback.

The Dawgs opened the scoring around the middle of the first period, when Pijanowski tapped in a rebound in front of the Ice Pack net. Though still "technically" a defenseman, the position Pijanowski plays now has been changed to "freelancer".

In didn't take long for the Ice Pack to answer. Defenseman Chris Henrichsen's shot from the point glanced off of a Dawgs defender, and baffled goalie Al Sterner to level matters, and then a couple of minutes later forward Brandon Cleveland took a centering pass in the slot and beat Sterner again to give his team the lead.

Before the end of the first, Hollis stuffed in his 20th of the season past Ice Pack keeper Scott Megan to equalize again. It was easy to tell that this was not going to be a defensive struggle. There would be lots of goals before it was over.

Just a few minutes into the second, a routine shot came towards Sterner that he tried to deflect to defenseman Ben Ziff. Instead, he placed the puck, along with an engraved invitation to score a goal, right onto the stick of Ice Pack leading scorer Kyle Gramley. Gramley one-timed the gift into the net, and the bad guys had the lead again.


Sterner

Later in the second, after Ben Ziff was called for an infraction, the Dawgs were getting ready to go on the penalty kill. At that very moment, defenseman Rick Zimmat's medication wore off, and he had one of his patented Vietnam flashbacks. Thinking that the referee was "Charlie", he fired the puck right at his head. The surprised and understandably pissed off referee then sent Zimmat to the box, or "Hanoi Hilton", leaving the Dawgs to kill a five on three for two full minutes.


What Zimmat saw

During his entire time in the box, Zimmat kept saying over and over, "Zimmat, Richard. Rank: Private. Serial number: 546251. You won't break me, you Commie bastard!" It scared the living shit out of fellow prisoner of war Ziff, who spent the two minutes trying to claw his way out of the penalty box.

The Dawgs survived, but before the end of the second, the Ice Pack threatened to double their lead. After Sterner shockingly made a save on a tough shot, the puck was desperately cleared out of the Dawgs zone. It looked like it would be an icing call, and a faceoff in front of Sterner.

But instead, there was Matt McGarvey camping out in his "office", at the Ice Pack blue line, patiently waiting for the other Dawgs get done playing some defense. He gathered the loose puck, cruised in on Megan, and slotted it home for his 12th of the year to knot the game at 3-3.

McGarvey, playing that shutdown defense

The Dawgs had several chances to break the deadlock early in the third period. Dan Pham, given another opportunity to play forward because he hurts the team so badly on defense, had several breakaway chances on Megan. Every time, he gagged like he was trying to perform oral sex on Secretariat. He then went to the bench in shame, and sat for several minutes with a real stupid look on his face.


What a boner...

Then rookie Michael Heaton got his own breakaway. He also missed, but was hooked from behind by an Ice Pack defender. The referee had no choice but to award a penalty shot.

Having never taken a penalty shot as a member of the Dawgs, before the attempt he skated to the bench to seek advice from the closest teammate he could find. Unfortunately, that teammate was Matt McGarvey. Heaton didn't realize that McGarvey's last successful penalty shot was in 1990, when he was in Mites, and the opposing goalie had just crapped her Wonder Woman panties. Heaton would have been better off asking for guidance from the high school girl running the scoreboard.

Needless to say, Heaton never stood a chance. It wasn't even close, and the score was still tied at three.

The game stayed level until around seven minutes remained. Because of Zimmat's earlier antics, the referees were calling every possible foul they could against the Dawgs, and they were once again on the penalty kill. During the power play, a shot came in from the point, and was tipped on goal by Ice Pack forward Cleveland.

Sterner made the first save, but the puck bounced away from him and right back to Cleveland. Sterner could have gotten back in position to make the second save had it been 1998. But since it is indeed 2009, Cleveland easily put the puck back in while Sterner flopped around on the ice like an old, arthritic walrus.


Sterner

A couple of minutes later, Ice Pack forward David Rodgers broke away from the Dawgs defense, and skated in alone on Sterner. Sadly, Sterner still hadn't been able find the energy to stand up from the previous goal, and was beaten like a Saudi woman with an opinion. It was now 5-3, and the good guys were in big, big trouble.

The referees must have thought that the game was out of reach, because with four minutes left, they actually called the Ice Pack for a penalty, and then another. Now the Dawgs had a five-on-three advantage, and one last chance to make a game of it.

With seven seconds remaining in the first penalty, McGarvey found a loose puck and banged it home to make the score 5-4. Since the goal came during the five-on-three, the Dawgs remained on the power play.

Thirty seconds later, the Dawgs gained possession in the Ice Pack zone, and the puck was fed back to Pijanowski at the right point. He launched a wrist shot that went through several defenders, past the right skate of Megan, and into the net to tie the game.


"Tito make score. Tito do good."

There were still two minutes left, and the Dawgs, who moments earlier were staring at a costly loss, were now actually thinking about winning the game.

But they'd need a hero. Someone with great hockey skills and instincts. Someone with so much talent that he could take a team on his shoulders, and come through when his mates need him most. Who was this hero?

Marty Richardson? You've got to be shittin' me...

With just over a minute left, defenseman Mike Abdella, still sporting that faggidy soul patch, fired a limp-wrister towards goal from the left point. Richardson was standing just left of the cage as the shot came in. The puck was knee-high for most players, which made it chest-high for the diminutive Richardson.

Richardson closed his eyes, and stuck his stick out. The puck somehow tipped off the blade, and past a stunned Megan for the game winner. It was what the French describe as "chance du toilette", which loosely translates to "shithouse luck".


Richardson, finding a nut

Now the Dawgs remarkably had a one goal lead, but the referees weren't going to let the boys get away that easily. With a minute left, they called Abdella for a holding penalty, and the Ice Pack had one more power play chance to even the contest.

They spent most of that last minute putting major pressure on the Dawgs goal. At least 5 of their 40 total shots for the game came in that last 60 seconds, and caused an exhausted Sterner to have a small conniption. The last three shots hit his lifeless body, but stayed out of the net. The Dawgs had their incredible win.

"Heart....not....beating...."

This week, the Dawgs have a chance to take giant steps toward the top seed in the playoffs, as they play the Skanks on Tuesday and then their Pepsi Center pals Cobra Kai next Monday night.

In other Dawgs news:

After months of negotiation, this week defenseman Ben Ziff was able to enroll his daughter Little Ziffer into his former school. Said Ziff, "It's like a dream come true, my baby going to my alma mater."


Little Ziffer, right

The team finally revealed this week why Tito Pijanowski was unable to play at Pepsi Center last Sunday afternoon. While having sex with his new girlfriend, he got overly excited, went much too fast, and left painful skidmarks on his penis.


"Tito hurt pee-pee. Tito need better lube..."

Playing on Dawgs II last Monday night, team captain and former gonad gobbler Marty Richardson got into his first fight ever, tangling with six-footer Sean Lieske of the Swarm. Drawing inspiration from Karate Kid III, he flipped Lieske like a cheese omelet, and pinned his face to the ice until referees could pull him off. Getting his ass kicked by a much smaller man didn't sit very well with Lieske.


Lieske

Richardson encountered more problems this week, when he discovered that there is a warrant for his arrest in Orlando, Florida. He is being charged with animal cruelty following a "date" with a cartoon legend during his vacation. Said Richardson, "It was consensual- I swear to God!"


"Uh, garsh, my ass still bleeds when I fart."

Monday, the team found out that Shaun Hollis will miss at least the next several games. During a practice session, he took an errant puck to the face, breaking his jaw, and pushing back his front teeth. Though it's an incredible loss for the team, there is one silver lining to Hollis' injury: it will be easier to make sweet love with Matt McGarvey.

"His teeth fold back now? Thank you, God!"

Don Cherry with a Special Message for Shaun Hollis

Can I Thanks-give That Weekend Back?

So the family and I went up to Steamboat Springs, Colorado Thanksgiving weekend for my boy Sam's hockey tournament, the Ski Town Invitational. We got up there on Thursday afternoon, because we caught a great deal on a condo, where we got a third night free when we bought two nights.

Let's get the hockey part out of the way first, okay? Trust me-it won't take long. We went 0-3-1 for the weekend- pretty disappointing considering that we had been playing much better lately. We outshot Ft. Collins 29-9 in the first game, and they got two goals on crappy bounces to tie us, 2-2.

The next morning, we played really hard against a good Littleton team, but just came up short by a 3-2 score. After that loss, we really mailed in the rest of the tournament, losing our last two games. So that sucked, but we still had a nice time with the family, except our two little kids were both sick with a bad cold and fever. It's really pretty in Steamboat- we'd never been there during the winter before.

Now, we had been cheating the odds all fall, because we had been up to the mountains three times for either hockey or soccer, and hadn't run into any bad weather. Well, boys and girls, as most of you know, the other shoe dropped Thanksgiving weekend. We got quite a bit of snow up there during the first three days, but Mother Nature saved the worst for our drive home.

I guess the one upside to getting our ass handed to us in hockey was that we got to come home early on Sunday. If we had made the final, we would have played in the afternoon, and there would have been no way to get back, with the amount of snow that was falling at the time.

Our problems started right away back at the condo. We were done with hockey by 9:00, so we went back there to pack and check out. We had heard the weather forecast, so wanted to get our asses out of there by 10:00, and try to beat the traffic on the stretch of I-70 coming home from skiing, or the holiday weekend. That was usually shitty at the best of times, because of the normal weekend volume. Under regular circumstances, it was a 2 1/2 hour trip, but we knew it would be longer because of the snow falling.

Well, after we packed all of our crap into the van, we discovered that we couldn't even get up the hill that led us out of the condo complex. That didn't make me feel very good about our chances of getting up both Rabbit Ears and Loveland passes. We saw some other vehicles getting up the hills, and wondered why we couldn't. Crap, we have decent tires on the van. We then figured out that we had too much weight on our back end, because we had Sam's hockey gear on one of those carriers that attaches to the hitch on the back of the van. It looks like this:

So we decided to put the gear on top of the van, and see if that helped a little. It turns out that it did, and we got out of the complex without too much more trouble. Too much stuff on the back apparently took the weight off the front, and we needed all we could get up there for traction. So we kept the carrier on the back of the van empty.

We got out of town, and came upon our first hurdle, which would be Rabbit Ears Pass, just outside of Steamboat Springs. It wasn't too bad, but started to get real hairy as we climbed in elevation. The snow got harder as we got higher, and by the time we reached the summit, it was getting really slick. But there wasn't too much traffic at that time, which was important because if we had to stop going up a steep hill, we were going to have a situation. But we took it easy and got through that part okay.

It got better as we went down the other side of Rabbit Ears, and we made the 60 miles into Silverthorne without too many problems. The roads were a little bit snowpacked, but nothing I couldn't handle.

We stopped off at Wendy's when we got to Silverthorne, and prepared for the 12 mile trip up to the Eisenhower Tunnel, which we already knew was jammed with cars. There was a sign by the highway entrance that said it would take around 90 minutes to go the 12 miles. But there was no other way to go, so we just got in line with all the other assholes that came up there for the weekend.

I knew it was going to be fugly when it took around 20 minutes just to get on the ramp that leads up to I-70. But we were all pretty patient- we thought that as long as there was a bunch of cars on the road, the conditions would be stay okay.

Uh, wrong.

The higher we climbed towards the tunnel, the harder it was beginning to snow. But as long as we kept moving, we weren't getting stuck. We crossed our fingers, and hoped that we could make the tunnel. Once we got to the other side, we knew we could come down the hill all right. We'd just take it real slow and easy.

Our luck ran out three miles from the tunnel. The climb was too steep, the snow was falling too hard, and the traffic just wasn't moving fast enough. The van stopped, and we couldn't move. Uh-oh.

I thought maybe if I could push the van a little, I could get us moving forward, and get some momentum up the hill. So Annie and I traded places, and I got out and pushed.

It worked for awhile. I would get us moving, Annie would gun it, and we'd make some progress. I would run and jump into the van on the passenger side, and we'd go a little ways, until we'd catch up with the traffic. Then we'd lose our momentum, and start the process all over again.

Now boys and girls, there's funny, there's really funny, and then there's a 50 year old fat boy chasing a van up a mountain at 10,000 feet, trying to jump in the passenger side. If Annie got on a roll, she would drive the van one or two hundred yards, and my chubby ass would be trying to catch up, so she didn't have to stop for me. Plus I was running in snow that was past my ankles.

Not good times.

Needless to say, it didn't take too many atttempts for your hero to run completely out of energy. So we stopped on the side of the road for a bit, so I could get my heart back to hummingbird speed. I figured maybe if the older boys helped push, it might help, plus their weight would be out of the van.

The problem was that the goddamn carrier was still on the back of the van, and the boys couldn't find a spot to help push. So we made an executive decision to take the carrier off,and leave it on the side of the road. We had no place to put it, so we flushed that $60 down the toilet, and took the bastard off.

This is the point in our saga that we made a really, really bad move. Annie asked me if I thought she should put the transmission in low gear. Maybe that would help with the traction. I thought, what the hell? Let's give it a try.

Stupid idea, kids. If you never listen to another thing I say, please pay attention to your Uncle Al for a minute. Never, ever, put your vehicle in low gear and gun the engine. I'll tell you why in just a little while.

She gunned it, the tires spun just like before, and we didn't make much progress. In the meantime, the van started to get exceptionally hot, and made an odor that I'm having a hard time describing. I think maybe if you set fire to a bunch of tires, but dipped all of them in shit first, that might be closest to an accurate description.

Again, not good times.

Well, we pushed as hard as we could, but we weren't going to make it. We pushed the sonofabitch to the side of the road, stopped the engine so it could cool off, and we could ponder our next move. We have AAA, so we could call a towtruck to get us up the hill. The question was, how many hours was it going to take for a towtruck to get to us? It was really getting bad up there, and there were a bunch of cars that were just like us, stranded on the side of the road.

In the meantime, while we were waiting for the van to cool, we started pushing other cars to maybe at least get them going. I mean, what the fuck? We didn't have anything better to do. Those poor suckers were trying to get home just as much as us.

Our savior came about fifteen minutes later. A CDOT (that's Colorado Dept. of Transportation, for those of you not from around here) vehicle was towing cars up the hill to a wide spot to get them the hell out of the way, and he made his way down to us. I thought maybe I could talk him into taking us up to the tunnel, but there were so many cars to move, he didn't have time.

So he hooked us up to his truck, and off we went. About three hundred yards. It wasn't much, but we took it gratefully. At the time, I thought we were a lot closer to the tunnel than three miles. It would have taken us all night to push that bastard up the mountain at the rate we were going before.

But when we got up there, we discovered that the road had been plowed a little bit, and that most of the traffic was still down there where we were before. If we could get the van back on the highway, maybe we could negotiate the three miles?

The truck had taken us off the side of the road, where the snow was piled up about a foot high. The only way we were going to get back on the highway was if I backed down the hill, went through the high stuff, and then started back up again once we got on the main road. That was going to be tough, because there were still cars coming up the hill, and I didn't want to make them stop completely. They'd get stuck again, start calling me names, and that would hurt my little feelings.

So I waited for a good gap, threw it in reverse, and backed onto the highway. That was the easy part. Now would the bastard move when I tried to climb the hill? I rubbed my lucky testicle for good luck (it's the left, by the way).

It moved. Once it grabbed a little pavement, we started moving pretty well. I was determined, one way or the other, that I wasn't going to stop again until we made the tunnel. Fortunately, all the crappy traffic was down the hill, and we got a straight shot to the top of the pass.

So we made the tunnel, and limped the rest of the way home. The van cooled off, but there was that lingering smell that I described earlier, and it stayed with us all the way home. Plus I breathed a bunch of smoke in while I was pushing the sonofabitch up the mountain, and I couldn't stop coughing. The spot I was pushing was right above the tailpipe. I'll bet my lungs look like I've been working in a coal mine.

Wouldn't that be ironic? Never smoked a cigarette in my life, and get a case of the Black Lung from my goddamn van.

We found out a few days later the source of the smell. It was the stench of burning transmission fluid. When we stuck the bastard in low gear, and then gunned the engine, we taxed the transmission to the point where it cooked some of the gaskets. I won't tell you how much it cost to repair, but let's say that's an ouchie that's going to linger for awhile. I had to sell my liver to pay for it. Did I need that?

When I'm coaching baseball, after every game I always ask the kids, "Okay, what did we learn today?" The answer is normally, "Well, we learned that you don't know shit about coaching baseball". And that's from my own kids.

Now it's time to ask the same question about our Thanksgiving trip. What did I learn?

1) I learned that I will never, never, ever drive in the mountains again after September without a set of chains in the van. I've never put them on before, but it can't be that tough, can it?
In the worst case, I could attach them to my tennis shoes, and get better traction pushing the van. I wiped out several times pushing that prick. I think I heard the people laughing in the cars behind me.

2) I learned that while I'm packing extra shit, I'd better throw in a defibrillator along with the chains. My heart just resumed beating normally last week. I'll bet that if I had collapsed, my family would have left my frozen body on the side of the mountain, like they do when someone croaks while climbing Everest. I'm fairly certain about that one.

3) I learned that I should have married a big girl, instead of that scrawny little thing I'm with now. Why? My kids would have grown bigger, and they would have been out there pushing instead of my sorry ass. In retrospect, it would have been worth the expense of having to always bring a sack of flour to bed.

(Take just a moment- you'll get that one...)

4) I learned that I need to modify the shift lever in the van, so that we can never put that fucker in low gear again. That may have been the stupidest thing ever.

Wait. The movie "St. Elmo's Fire" is the stupidest thing ever. But this was really close.

Matt McGarvey's Last Shootout Attempt