There’s a simple explanation for how I fell off a mountain and found myself eating a cheeseburger with mayoral candidate Pust.
The story begins five weeks ago, when I attempted to climb Mount Rainier with a group of Olympia Mountaineers and strained a back muscle that had apparently become what physicians like to describe as “the consistency of beef jerky.”
My idea of a reasonable treatment plan for this condition was a couple of soothing massages. Let me stop the column right here and warn you that if the masseuse suggests “deep tissue” work and towers over you with hands the size of a small automobile, it is probably Satan in disguise.
They say, “No pain, no gain,” but it turns out that if you squeeze a muscle flat it gets very, very angry.
The day after the devil laid his hands on me, a sunny Sunday, I decided to hike up to Camp Muir as a conditioner for another Mount Rainier summit attempt in four weeks. This time with a group of Rotarians who had raised money to bring clean water to 13 Guatemalan villages.
As a well-trained mountaineer, skilled in the 10 essentials and more safety precautions than a demented Boy Scout, I climbed up to Muir alone while my entire family was out of the country and without telling anyone where I was going. It’s a burden to be so smart.
On the descent, about 20 minutes from the Paradise parking lot, the aggrieved muscle struck back, creating incapacitating spasms that took me to the edge of consciousness for about 15 seconds every minute. I know this because a rather insistent RMI guide who found me on the trail kept holding me down and telling me so. After a few hours of this, five national park rangers got me into a sled and expertly slid me down the hill and eventually to an ambulance where the medics gave me a nice cocktail of drugs, and later politely asked me to stop talking.
I spent the next week on a blissful all-painkiller diet and had a nice chat with my doctor who seemed more concerned about discovering that somebody has been siphoning red blood cells out of my body, causing me to become anemic. He boldly suggested that after spending the last 40 years of my life evolving from a strict vegan to a consumer of light meats and fish that I needed to start eating red meat.
And that’s how I found myself with a cheeseburger in my hands waiting for Pust.
The former radio host suggested we meet at McDonalds for an interview because it’s a place where he likes to hang out and often planned out his daily radio show. I got there early, and thinking about my doctor’s advice, well ... what better way to break a 40-year-red-meat-fast than with a cheeseburger?
Describing the experience later, I mentioned that it didn’t taste too bad, especially because they had put that special red sauce on it, which I later learned was ketchup. Who knew? Someone also pointed out that after the cheeseburger, it was possible I still hadn’t eaten any actual beef.
Epilogue: Four weeks after falling off the mountain and without eating any more cheeseburgers, I reached the summit of Mount Rainier last Saturday morning. More importantly, I came down on my own two feet.
ET CETERA
Recently retired Lacey city manager Greg Cuoio, Art and Carolyn Folden, Eileen McKenzie Sullivan and Rudy Wagner were named the newest Living Legends of Thurston County at a concert by the seniors’ group, Entertainment Explosion. Board member Scott Schoengarth says 27 “legends” have plaques hanging at the downtown Olympia Senior Center.
George Le Masurier, publisher of The Olympian, can be reached at 360-357 0206 or glemasurier@theolympian . com.
