adventurelog The Old Man and his Gold By Shawn Thomas #91122
HIS NAME WAS John. He lived in South Carolina and was a snappy dresser. And he was in trouble. That's pretty much all I knew. How to help
him was anyone’s guess. We were on tour, traveling the
country teaching people how to ride Adventure Motorcycles. At the behest of BMW, my brother Lance and I had been on the road, off and on for the better part of two years. It was gruel- ing work: wake up at 5 a.m., travel to the training grounds, figure out how to mold the landscape to our needs, put on clinics for five to fifty people, pack up and drive 200 miles to our next event site. Then start over. Usu- ally we had around five events back to back, though in this instance it was more. On the upside, the job was supremely rewarding. In just a few hours we would turn off-road novices into confident adventure riders. To be certain, they weren't ready for a "Long Way Round" trip, but they knew enough to be competent, and they exuded gratitude for what they learned. Very rewarding work. We had just finished event seven
and were making our way north to a nameless hotel in the Carolinas. It was hot, the kind of heat where no amount of air conditioning was enough. But we blasted it anyway, sweat-sticking to the buffalo hide seats of our Ford transport rig. Yuck. At about 4 p.m., as the back roads
wound us along a rural path, we came across a construction zone. Heavy machinery busied themselves, caus- ing a solid stretch of standstill traffic. We were caught in the middle, lazily waiting for the man with a sign to
60 BMW OWNERS NEWS May 2016
indicate our turn to move. I looked around. The landscape was studded with hills, their tops shrouded in a thicket of trees so dense they could not be penetrated by sight. The road builders of old had blasted a path through these hills, carving a road much as Moses parted the sea. We were at the base of two foothills, or
rather a single hill that had been cut to make way for our road. Rough rocky innards of the hill were exposed, rising up 50 feet on either side of our rig. I stared, marveling for a moment at the result of an amazing engineering feat that lay before me. I smirked at the notion of being put in charge of the dynamite that had been used to blast this path; I would have blown myself to bits before doing any good with such power. Just then, I caught sight of something
amiss. Outside my window, rocks and peb- bles cascaded their way down the hill, com- ing to rest at the roadside. Soon, another flurry of rock came down, again stopping just underneath my door. Curious. I rolled down my window. No longer held at bay by the tinted glass, sunlight and heat poured in. My brother let out a groan of complaint. "Dude. It’s HOT. Close the window, will ya?" I muttered something and looked up, searching for the source of the rock slide. Whoa. At the top of the hill, a man sat clinging
to a sapling. He was old, easily 80, and looked confused. "Dude. There's a guy up on the hill," I said to my brother. I turned back and caught eyes with the elder man. I raised my voice and shouted, "How ya doing up there?!" The man looked down at me, wide eyed. "I-- I'm not sure." "Are you okay? Do you need help?" “I think so." I turned to my brother. "The guy needs
help. I think he's stuck up there." I slipped on my footwear and hopped out as Lance voiced incredulous protest. "Find a spot up
ahead to pull over, I'll sort this out and come to you," I said, and closed the door. Looking up, I saw the severity of my
challenge. The man was at the top of the hill, about 50 feet up. There was no path to him, and the sides were far too steep to allow for an easy traverse. "How in the hell did he get up there?" I mumbled, perplexed. It was as if he had fallen from the sky, land- ing at the sapling he clung to. There was no easy way to him that I could see, save for straight up. I started climbing. The ascent was steep and challenging,
and it became painfully clear that I was not prepared for the task. At the completion of our training I had slipped on some cargo shorts, a t-shirt and sandals, perfect attire for navigating a long drive on a hot day; for mountain climbing, not so much. The climb was steep and shale-covered, my san- dals filling with edgy pea gravel at every step. Thick tufts of foliage sprang out from the hillside, which I used as grab points and footing. Slowly I zigzagged my way up, huffing and puffing as I closed the distance to the mystery man. Soon I was upon him. He was clinging to a pine sapling, about four feet down from the top of the moun- tain. He was old and frail, easily 80-85 years old. He was dressed in a suit befitting a man of stature, the kind you might see with a top hat and cane in those old timey mov- ies set in Roaring Twenties New York. His shoes were glossed to a sheen, defiled with patches of dust. We locked eyes. "Hiya, I'm Shawn," I said, as if I were selling insur- ance. I learned long ago that the response to fear and pain was, in part, casual non- chalance. No need to further anxiety with an intense demeanor. "I'm John," he answered, his voice thick
with age and exhaustion. We shook hands. "Well John, you look like a guy with a
problem. What brings you to this corner of the world?" "I was trying to climb down, and I lost my footing. Can you help me?"
discovery
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