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WBraun
climber
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Aug 31, 2007 - 09:50pm PT
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That means you can still cut loose.
Send one for the gripper.
Send one for you and your family.
And send one for all humanity.
Cheers brother and happy birthday Pat and many more good years for you.
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rgold
Trad climber
Poughkeepsie, NY
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Aug 31, 2007 - 10:37pm PT
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As someone who was always a few steps behind, I get to be just a bit ahead on this one, closin' in on 64 at the end of November. Since you have just a tiny taste for the lugubrious, you may enjoy the observation that this will be my last power of 2 on this earth.
Nowadays, I'm fond of Garrison Keilor's sign-off on The Writer's Almanac:
Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.
Happy birthday, Pat.
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2007 - 11:34pm PT
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Pat,
Great to have you here and so glad to hear your health is improving. I didn't come up with this metaphor, and I don't recall the author to give him credit, but it seems fitting:
Maybe by blowing on the embers of this virtual campire, we may be able to rekindle some of the flames of our youth.
Happy Birthday.
Rick
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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I hear tell that 128 is the new 60?
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2007 - 02:36am PT
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The greatest birthday of all is to have as many friends as I do, though many no longer alive: Chuck Pratt, Bob Kamps, Don Whillans, Pete Williamson, Jim Madsen, Baker Armstrong... to name a few. I cherish the memory of those and all my friends. Our time together is precious.
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Raydog
Trad climber
Boulder Colorado
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yes, cheers and happy birthday Pat!
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426
Sport climber
Buzzard Point, TN
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When you figure the average 100 year old lived 36,500 days...
Happy Birthday. I feel lucky to have lived longer than Gullich or Osman...."It's a 5.10 mantle into heaven, brother"...easy enough for a pusher like yerself...
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 1, 2007 - 09:00pm PT
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a pusher? What does that mean? In chess, it's a bad player who thinks he's good. Or are you talking about pushing strength in manteling?
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bob d'antonio
Trad climber
Taos, NM
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Congrats Pat...enjoy your birthday and thanks for all you have done for climbing.
A climber, husband, father, friend, writer of words, film maker, chess player and more.
A good life...one worth living.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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I am sure that 426 guy meant "Pusher" in an uplifting way, seriously.
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Ouch!
climber
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Living to 100 might just be a cool thing to do if one still has a full sack of marbles and can get up and down to shoot them.
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Anastasia
Trad climber
California
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Happy, happy birthday! Thanks for being here to be such a good friend to all of us little people.
Sending Love,
Anastasia
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WBraun
climber
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Well you can live a 1000 years and if you don't know why you're here then you've just stood there that long like a tree and accomplished nothing!
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Ouch!
climber
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"It is a truly wise man that knows his worth"
Thorefin Ropje
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Curt
Boulder climber
Gilbert, AZ
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"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams."
John Barrymore--I believe. Happy birthday, Pat.
Curt
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2007 - 03:16am PT
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Werner, who says trees don't know why they're here? It reminds me of Nemerov's great poem about trees. I don't have it in front of me right at the moment, but maybe I'll post it tomorrow.
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mingus
Trad climber
Grand Junction, Colorado
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When I was in high school, skipping classes to go climbing in Eldorado, "Swaramandal" was my bible. I viewed it as sort of the climbers version of Kerouac's "On the Road." My climbing buddies and I passed it around so much that the binding gave out and there was a requisite red rubber band wrapped arount it. When ever I saw freight trains in the Great Basin I thought of you...when ever the dishes didn't get done properly in the Valley I thought of Robbins advice to you. That picture of you holding the picture of Dylan influenced the musical tastes of three scruffy kids...much to the dismay of our parents.
Happy birthday, good health, and I hope we get to meet sometime. I'm just down the road in Grand Junction. Eric M.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2007 - 01:56pm PT
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Eric,
You are a good man. Thanks for those thoughts. I have been told by a lot of people that Swaramandal was their favorite climbing book, including such notable individuals as Jeff Achey. Most of them had trouble with the binding. It was the first book published by Vitaar, and they were learning (didn't use good glue on the binding). I was falling apart in those days, so it didn't seem unreasonable that the book should be falling apart. Among varied acquaintances, I've seen literally hundreds of copies of that re-sewn or drilled with holes, with string fed through the holes, to make a kind of binder, and keep it together. A few have even had it re-bound. Come visit me anytime, or we can meet for lunch somewhere...
Werner, here is the Nemerov poem. You will understand this, I know, as well as anyone, since you are so wise and initimate with those wonderful Sierra trees...
Trees (by Howard Nemerov, poet laureate of America)
To be a giant and keep quiet about it,
To stay in one's own place;
To stand for the constant presence of process
And always seem the same;
To be steady as a rock and always trembling,
Having the hard appearance of death
With the soft, fluent nature of growth,
One's Being deceptively armored,
One's Becoming deceptively vulnerable;
To be so tough, and take the light so well,
Freely providing forbidden knowledge
Of so many things about heaven and earth
For which we should otherwise have no word--
Poems or people are rarely so lovely,
And even when they have great qualities
They tend to tell you rather than exemplify
What they believe themselves to be about,
While from the moving silence of trees,
Whether in storm or calm, in leaf and naked,
Night or day, we draw conclusions of our own,
Sustaining and unnoticed as our breath,
And perilous also--though there has never been
A critical tree--about the nature of things.
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Jaybro
Social climber
The West
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Happy almost birthday again, Swaramandal was my favorite of yours till I had Master of Rock. Indeed the binding was a disaster, it lies in an orderly stack on my shelf.
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Oli
Trad climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 2, 2007 - 08:34pm PT
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When Swaramandal was being printed, I was asked to help with the coalating. There were any number of signatures (sheets folded into 8 pages), each in a pile on a round table that turned by a motor underneath. I and a woman who worked there would sit as the table moved around in a circle, and we would collect each one of the signatures, as each passed by, and create a full stack ready for binding. I kept looking over and seeing that she would miss a signature, if the table was turning too fast or she was going too slow. I'd point it out that she missed one, and she'd reply, "Oh it doesn't matter." Hmmm. Again and again, and I'd have to get her stack and go through and see which ones she missed, and it was a real pain. So a few of the books not only had bad binding but a few missing signatures, to make it all the more interesting. And all to make a priceless book...
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