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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 28, 2012 - 01:32pm PT
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Thanks, Steve. That's a different kind of song. It doesn't
follow a clear musical meter and was, in its first form,
almost improvisational. Then I got a sense of what I wanted
to do with it and recorded it. I was pleased with the initial
attempt, as it seemed relaxed and real. So I kept it....
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 28, 2012 - 08:36pm PT
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 29, 2012 - 02:53am PT
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Mary Oliver wrote a poem I like. The poem
conveys that fine stillness, that hair-line
that I'm able mostly to endure at. Maybe such a poem will be
appreciated if I share it here:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
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Studly
Trad climber
WA
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Aug 29, 2012 - 01:44pm PT
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Nice Pat. Heartman bump.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 29, 2012 - 11:08pm PT
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Sometimes it feels when I talk, that's when people go quiet.
I should probably not say so much.
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Beet
Big Wall climber
bonn, Germany
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Aug 30, 2012 - 11:51am PT
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thats the stuff^
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 30, 2012 - 12:18pm PT
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Just for inspiration,
let me tell you a story about Dave Rearick, one of my early heroes.
This is an excerpt from that book I have mentioned I was working on...
As a boy Rearick lived in Illinois, “a flatlander” -- as he describes it. He suffered from hay fever, and his parents entertained the idea of moving somewhere more conducive to his health. In 1944, because of the war, there was no gas. Thus they took a train to Colorado to see if its mountain environment would help the hay fever. It made Dave’s condition worse. Yet while in Colorado they visited Estes Park, and Dave climbed part way up Prospect Mountain – which later became the location of an aerial tram that carried people up in small cable cars. This short adventure on Prospect Mountain greatly affected Dave. He realized he loved to ramble and climb. He loved the mountains. His parents nevertheless moved to Florida.
Six year later, in 1950, Dave graduated from a Miami high school and began to attend the University of Florida where he studied physics.
Perhaps it was a sense of destiny, if not his good memory, that finally brought Rearick from Florida back to Estes in 1951. He applied for and was happy to be given a summer job at the YMCA Camp in the mountains just northwest of Estes. While he worked at the Colorado camp, he one day went AWOL with a companion. On foot they worked their way down through the mountains from the camp to the town of Estes, then through the town, and onward in a long ramble, in a direct line – the way the crow flies – toward Longs Peak. They could see the summit of Longs and knew what general direction to go on this amazingly long trek. They stumbled around in the rugged foothills, moved cross-country, over hills, through forest, around rocks, and at last found their way to Storm Pass, where Estes Cone and Thunder Mountain connect. They continued onward past Jim’s Grove to the Chasm Lake cutoff and, finally, up to the base of the great east face of Longs. Had they gone by car, along the road, it would have been about twelve miles just to the ranger station. Now, after the five or more miles to the base of the East Face, they began up the steep granite. Dave’s friend had a 50-foot length of rope, a few carabiners, and some pitons he had bought in Boulder. Dave had not seen a piton before. He had a hatchet with him and used it to hammer in a few of his friend's pitons.
The two men ascended Alexander's Chimney and arrived at the top of Longs at sunset. The summit, however, was far from the end of this astonishing trek. They then hiked the roughly eight miles down the mountain in the dark to the ranger station and were able to hitch-hike back to the YMCA camp, where they arrived at midnight! Dave got into a lot of trouble with the authorities at the camp, for this adventure.
(Would anyone guess he would make the first ascent of the Diamond, with Bob Kamps, in 1960)
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 30, 2012 - 03:30pm PT
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I decided my second to last post was too long
and kind of annoying, so I cut it just to share the
Mary Oliver poem.
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2012 - 06:12am PT
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I am so very grateful for the faithful who have
believed and contributed to this.
I don't know how to thank you the way I
wish I could, other than to do the best I am able
until I fight through and somewhere give back in whatever
creative ways I am guided.
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Beet
Big Wall climber
bonn, Germany
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Aug 31, 2012 - 12:02pm PT
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Sahib, you should be taking care of yourself and trying to get some sleep at 3AM.....
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ron gomez
Trad climber
fallbrook,ca
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Aug 31, 2012 - 02:17pm PT
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Just a couple days left to contribute to Pat's BIRTHDAY BASH! Open your hearts and wallets for Ament....this guy was a TRUE hardman with many spectacular routes to his credit. We all owe him and his generation a great deal for setting the path we all followed.
Peace
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2012 - 04:11pm PT
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Yes Beet you noticed I don't sleep much, often am up all night.
My body seems to be too awake, alert to trying to figure out how
to deal with these health issue....
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2012 - 04:42pm PT
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Happy birthday Pat!
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2012 - 06:31pm PT
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Thanks, Rick. That was a great day. Wasn't that the day
you and I did XM and finished with Outer Space?
(By the way, the caption says Outer Limits, but it's Outer
Space, of course). That must have been in 1978...
I remember I had gained weight and was not in great shape...
but we had fun.
What was with that hair of mine? Didn't I ever comb it then?
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Aug 31, 2012 - 09:43pm PT
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My hair grew wild in those days...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Two nights in a row I started to get a little sleep and then
woke up with a whole lot of stuff in my brain. Last night
it was the first act of a play, and when I wrote it down it
seemed original and really high quality. Tonight it was a song. A
full page of very good lyrics just appeared, and I could capture them
exactly. Even though my body has been under duress, at times
I reach a high creative pitch with my mind. But then other times
when I want to create something, feel the inspiration, the fatigue
destroys me...
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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Rick, Did you take any other photos that day? Or was that the only one?
I would like to gather a few shots from periods when I was not so
active with my camera.
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neebee
Social climber
calif/texas
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hey there say, pat....
happy early birthday fundraiser day, :)
so very glad to see some creative fun, by way of you waking up
and just 'knowing' what to do...
i get some of my best work, at night, too...
god bless...
:)
very sorry, i could not chip in anything in time...
but will sure pray for blessings, :)
edit:
dial up too slow to post a fun cake... and i need to sleep :O
also--perhaps i will have a little someething else to share,
around the new year... :)
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Rick A
climber
Boulder, Colorado
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Thanks for the correction on my error naming Outer Space. I have very fond memories of that summer of 1978; besides the great climbing, it was my first trip with Gerry, my future wife, and the introduction to Colorado, my future home.
None others I can find from that day; the only other ones of you from that trip are when we went bouldering with Bachar and he did this highball in Estes Park, with a spot from you.
Glad your creative juices are flowing again; that's got to make you feel better, even if the body is not cooperating.
Rick
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Patrick Oliver
Boulder climber
Fruita, Colorado
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I used to be a very good spotter. A number of boulderers
would phone me just so they could have me spot them on
a certain high problem they wanted to try. I had more or less
mastered the art of spotting. It may have begun when I was
a gymnast and spotted people on the highbar. The old C.U. gymnastics
room had windows at either end of the highbar, and if you flew
off while doing giants you could actually go out one of those
windows and drop a couple of stories to the ground. I saw that
happen once, where a guy flew off and went through the window and
just barely somehow caught himself at the last second before
dropping. I can't recall if I was spotting at that moment!
I hope not.
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