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hafilax
Trad climber
East Van
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When I dove into Lake Louise.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Melissa, wrongggggg....you are cool gal !
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noshoesnoshirt
climber
dangling off a wind turbine in a town near you
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'96 to '99.
Living in my car, guiding in the summers and crawling the desert in the winters. No bank account, no address, no safety net, no cares. Scarfing off tables in restaurants, crashing in the dirt on out-of-the-way roads. I actually lived for close to a month off of about a thousand airline peanut packets I found in a dumpster. I was on a (pay)phone with my dad one January discussing my plans for the future and all I could come up with was "Ummm, I have to be at work around May".
Now I have a degree and a house and a whole lot of shite inside it and I can't quite figure out where it all went awry.
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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Any time now,
Till then, I may have to settle for this;
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Classic, Jaybro.
I've just never been cool. Oh well. . .
maybeinanotherlife. . . .
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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I don't know if anybody said this yet but if you have to ask, or think you're cool, you're prolly knott kewl.
Besides,, what is cool? Sometimes raising a family and being a parent is cool when others think you're a nerd.
Dingus is cool in that regard, and Jaybro, and others too.
Cool is really beyond definition, it varies, it's dynamic and undefinable.
Just be cool. Be yourself.
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dogtown
climber
Cheyenne,Wyoming
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noshoesnoshirt, Dirtbagg=en is no longer cool. Not working and having money is.Welcome to the New World. Wish I had some!
LOL Ha!
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hobo_dan
Social climber
Minnesota
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Topic Author's Reply - May 1, 2009 - 10:18pm PT
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I'm not saying that parenthood, or teaching, or being there for someone isn't important and satisfying- BUT is it cool?
I love my life right now as a Dad and being Mr. Hobo but thats not what I was thinking when I started this.
I had one of the best winters skiing ever but it still pales in comparison to that wind that was blowing through my hair
60 being the new 40-maybe so but thats not what I was thinking.
Still, its what you're feeling that determines it.
Cool being that which is in the eye of the beholder
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Jaybro
Social climber
wuz real!
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You spelled out my point, Steve Dub, it's cool to have never been cool, high Five!
Parenthood is one of the things that brings Bluering into the club. sticky foot charles, nails it! with a point all of us parents can relate to.
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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I hear ya, Hobo Dan, but talking about cool just ain't cool. I know where you were going and I think this is a COOL site unlike other climbing sites, that's why I hang here. I consider myself somewhat 'cool', but the people here are what make this site cool. Everybody. Once you know you're cool, you've lost it!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Skully, that's cause you keep smackin' that noggin' of yours around, you wouldn't remember if you were ever cool or not.
Your still lukewarm though...
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Captain...or Skully
Social climber
North of the Owyhees
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No guts, no glory.
It is a good day to die.
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Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
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Skully is coool, as well as Jaybro and all my Taco friends. Sheeee, cool is being cool.....making the cool life happen for the friends. Which yo all have done foe Lynee. Peace to all my dudettes and dudes....Love Ya...
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HJ
climber
Bozeman, Montana
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HObo Dan, I met you when you were at you're coolest, IYHO...but, you are still WAY COOL now. Your truck is dead, and so is my van, but dreams don't die as easy as 4 cylinder engines.
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hooblie
climber
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thumbing around the west in '70, northerly inclined, i splilled over the divide up in glacier and hooked a left at the chief, slipped across the border and absolved myself in the waterton lakes.
off to banff, i found myself on the trans-can where a couple of girls were holding court at a campfire surrounded by a dozen hopefulls. passing by, i overheard "la honda" which was my well known dirt bike turf and site of the kesey enclave noted in the acid test. the blonde and the brunnette were each quintesential prototypes of their kind.
openers are not my forte, but these were neighbors in a foreign country and i uncharacteristicly ignored their intimidating beauty for the brief time it took me to elbow my way into the crowd. i wasn't trying really, and that must have been the key.
the next ten days could fill a volume, the details of which my wife never pried out of me no matter how she cajoled to be told about the "angels." i will confide that her imagination outstripped the actual in terms of lurid debouchery. i am at heart a gentleman and romantic with a penchant for savoring every increment of anticipation, plus a devilish knack for ratcheting up the stakes and i suppose, tension. they were perfect foils, and flawlessly cooperated to suspend me at the midpoint of their forcefield. it was their spiritual maturity and foresworn complexity, this bathed in exquisit appreciation of His handiwork, that prompted me to be resolutely demure when pressed to unwrap this gift.
now on to the trip report. after rollicking about in the embrace of forests and earthy conjugation upon succulent meadows behind the hot springs, we ascended to the alpine realm. high above valley of ten peaks behind lake louise, we happily overstayed our vittles, so snug were we in their little pup tent.
then, upon hearing my tales of riding the rails along the yellowstone, thru the redwoods along the eel, over the tehachipe's in bloom, they gushed when i proposed a freight ride over kicking horse and rogers pass. little did i imagine that their curves would be parlayed into upholstered seats in the second engine. we were honored with guest visits by each of the fawning crew members as the lyserge brought into vivid clarity the structural geology i so adored studying back at ucsc. recumbant folds, upthrust faulting, the rockies revealed their suffering and i empathized. hydrocarbon infernos raged both against and through this throbbing electro-mechanical bohemith that i leaned out of to better lavish my repect upon the lucent river. it cheerfully obeyed every nuance of hydrodynamic law with panache. riparian freshness enveloped the ferrous, rolling, unimaginable burden that strained on each coupling. the girls were linedriving a beaming admiration from vibrant bright faces, our grins tight as chrome. surely god agreed.
after we each were escorted up front for hornblasts at moose and goats and the shackles of conformity, evening fell along with a steady drizzle. walking distance short of revelstoke the whole train came to a halt where the boys knew of a dry bivy in a hay loft up a dark slope. hugs all around, good bye to the crew. as much as i admired their life, it felt like they admired mine.
well the next day we snagged a ride in a painted bus full of assorted souls that had been gathered up along the way. there was room for us on top where a big partialy inflated raft was lashed to the roof. like a magic carpet, it was remarkably unwindy, devoid of engine noise and most traffic commotion. enjoying panoramic mountain views, i layed back in the sun as my portrait was sketched into a journal.
at a gas stop we heard that emergency hiring was underway to fight a fire that was sending a column into the sky to the south. able bodies with good boots seemed to be the job requirement and my funds were low. the girls seemed to be in good hands.
what strikes me as quaint about this easy parting, now years round the bend, is how sure i was that something just as sweet lay ahead just around any corner, because clearly things were unfolding just how "it's sposed to be."
well, yes women have been good to me through the years, but i call these the angels because they knowingly, compassionately escorted me to the epiphany that the earth was my mistress. even as the lovers have come and gone, each giving their poignant best in human terms, it has been the planet that has always sustained me, always let me in, impassionately tolerating my crawling about and laying on of eyes from every possible vantage. and when i screw it up big time, i shall return to her.
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adam d
climber
CA
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hooblie, you win! (but where are the pics?!)
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Karen
Trad climber
So Cal urban sprawl Hell
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I tend to agree with Camus's definitions of life's endless striving for things, love, work, play and in this instance, "coolness" as being absurd.
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