Snakes and Spiders and Rats, oh my.

‍What can be said about Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? I love this movie. This was my Indy growing up. We had it on VHS until we had it on laserdisc until we had it on DVD and then blu-ray. And would I still watch it if it came on HBO? 100%. 

‍But I didn’t just want to watch Indy, I wanted to be Indy. I wanted to wrap the end of my whip around a branch or better yet, a gargoyle hanging off the edge of an Austrian castle, and swing over a deadly drop. I wanted to do it so badly that when I was about 8 or 9 years old I decided to give it a whirl. 

‍I climbed a tree in our yard with some bailing twine. I balanced myself on a thick branch and threw it across the yard into another tree to try to get it caught so I could swing from one tree to the next, leather jacket and all. When I realized that the twine wouldn’t grab anything without something more substantial at the end of it, I tied a loose stick to the end of the twine. I took that stick and threw it up as far as I could into that tree. Sure enough, on the first try, it stuck! I gave it a good hard tug to  make sure it wouldn’t come loose.

‍Once I was sure that I had lodged the stick in the opposite tree, I took the twine that was attached to the stick and wrapped it around my right hand. One, two, three, and four times I looped that orange plastic rope around my rugged adventurer’s hand. 

‍I know what you’re thinking, and it didn’t even enter my mind. All I could do was envision myself swinging into the other tree as I held my hat tight with one hand and John Williams’ score swelled all around me. 

‍I leaned forward and sure enough, stepped one foot off the branch, and trusted all of my weight into that piece of bailing twine. At it did not disappoint. That twine held. It held so well that as I dangled helplessly by one hand, it began to cut off circulation first to my pinky, then to my whole hand. It dug into my skin like a vice as my heroic swing quickly transformed into a desperate dangle.

‍I screamed for help as I flailed and writhed to get out of the twine. That thick twine, meant to hold 50 pound bails of alfalfa, was not going to give way to a skinny sixty pound third grader, but as luck would have it that loose stick sure would. With a crack, the stick shattered and before I could thank my lucky stars I was flat on my back with a loud thud. Every ounce of my wind was knocked clean out of me. No John Williams score for me that day. Just a seriously lacerated hand and ringing in my ears that lasted until that night.

‍And what did I learn? That I was just going to have to put a whip on my birthday list.