FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Surviving Testosterone Tour 2005

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

There was no Testosterone Deficiency (TD) evident Wednesday morning when Ron 
Harrington decided to test drive his Subaru Forester from US 19 up the near 
vertical road to the top of Brumley Mountain in Washington Co., Va.
Those of you who remember your frist scary adventure on this ugly mountain road 
on a hot summer day, are gasping at the thought of a winter drive to the top.

At the end of the state maintained right-of-way (where the VDOT snow plow 
stops) I was relieved that the road was covered with 3-inches of fresh snow on 
ice and not a single vehicle had been beyond that point.

Oh, man!  Ron was feeling it.  I was horrified.

The car nose rolled up into almost vertical postion like a rocket launch for 
outer space. I didn't even have a space suit on.  No helmet.  No parachute or 
ejection seat.  No oxygen mask or life support system.  Only my teeth grinding 
in my ears.  My knuckles white on the door handle and the dash.

Ron's eyes began to glaze.  He leaned forward shifting into a better gear.  
Both hands on the steering wheel and bent forward like he was taking aim just 
over a hood ornament.

"No, Ron!  You aren't going to do this ?  That road is a vertical sheet of ice! 
 We'll never make it.  There's a place.....there's a place.....right there, 
plenty of room to turn around," I pleaded.

He couldn't have heard me.  He wasn't even listening.  His eyes looked out into 
a vast winter scene of deep snow and manly challenge.  All he could hear was 
the motor softly purring as his Subaru began to crawl upwards.  His body 
flushed with testosterone.  He didn't crack a smile.  Even worse, he showed no 
apparent concern or caution.

"The manual XT turbo varies its 50/50 front-to-rear power delivery through a 
viscous coupling depending on measured wheel slip, but the active version used 
with the automatic uses an electronic continuously variable transfer clutch, 
varying torque depending on whether the Forester is accelerating or 
decelerating," Ron began to mumble.

My mind raced back to 1959 and my first years of birding, all the good days 
afield, all the good friends, my wife and daughter and other family.  I thought 
about the BBC members standing to applaude when news arrived I was never coming 
back.  Breathlessly I was thankful I had been good to Carolyn on Valentines Day 
and her birthday and Christmas.
I hoped she could take this well.

Ron never said anything about his wife, daughter and son.  He was really 
focused.  He didn't even say the 23 Psalm.  

"Alloy wheels and the Yokohama Geolandar G900 all-weather tires overlaid on the 
Subie's independent front and rear strut suspension," said Ron.  "The 
high-profile tires are made for cutting through snow and yuck and shedding 
water, but that doesn't mean the XT won't corner on them with considerable 
verve, turning all four of them with equal grunt."

It was a horrifying last will and testament from my good birding buddy.  What 
about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?  Never mind the pursuit of 
happiness....that is exactly to what I had fallen victim.  Ron was elated, 
happy and in a wild frenzy pursuit.  The Subaru continued to grind it out.

I had already prayed for the wheels to start spining while we were on the dry 
pavement well back down the mountain.  I couldn't be so lucky. 

Lord help us!  The Subaru made it to the end of the guard rail and now was 
slowly approaching the two, summer-dry-pavement, death-defying switchbacks.  
The ones that are so high on the cliff-side mountain that they give you 
nosebleed.  The steep hairpins that take your breath going up and your life 
coming down.

I grit my teeth, bowed my head and tried to organize my thoughts for a final, 
prayerful departure from this mountain and this life.  Ron's foot mashed on the 
excellerator.  

"The gearshift design is one thing that reviewers didn't like about the 
Subaru," Ron explained.  

The engineers never thought about a near vertical vist in a place where the 
bears are smart enough to sleep all winter and not take chances on running 
around and getting hurt on the slick slopes, trails, snow-covered roadways and 
sharp rocks.

I was thinking all about it.  I tried to get the horrors of this "birding" trip 
out of my mind and make small talk.  "Look, are those deer tracks over there?  
No, don't look, Ron!  Keep your eyes on wherever the road is!"  

My heart raced and I couldn't get my breath as Ron's hand let go of the wheel 
and he pointed to the deer tracks.

"Yes, big buck...see where he is dragging his hind feet," he said as he looked 
back over his shoulder.

I tried to look out over the dash and hood.  I couldn't believe this had 
happened to me.  Why me ?  What had I done to offend the gods of birdwatching?

We had reached the gap.  Thankfully.  

I looked down into a white sea of rhododendron and laurels ahead with just a 
snaking vehicle-wide path decending to Hidden Valley Lake.  Ron was going down 
into the valley of the lake!

Ron began to recount the time he and Larry McDaniel nearly died on just such a 
road at Laurel Bed Lake one winter.  A time when his old car had no traction.  
They were sticking in the snow.  Wheels spining.  They were out pushing his car 
to make it go.

It was a time when Ron knew they would die there on the mountain and warm 
weather hikers, seeking spring wildflowers, would stand and stare into that old 
car at thier frozens bodies found clinging to binocurlars, birdbooks and a 
checklist of birds seen.

I didn't want to hear this.  I knew we had almost no chance of getting back.

Lucky for you.  As a reader of this pathetic testostarone adventure, you know 
we both lived to tell this.  So you can let go of your white knuckles clinging 
to the computer's mouse.  You can sit back in your comfortable chair and sip 
warm coffee.   Even more morbid, you will not get a chance to applaude my 
departure from BBC.

Of course, Ron didn't mention a word about our nearly dieing from his bad 
judgement and horror-moan disaster in his birding report on Bristol Birds Net:

"Hidden Valley Lake (Washington Co.)

Ring-necked Duck (Immature male):  1

It was 21 degrees and 3 inches of snow, but some open water."

That summed it up for good ole Ron.  My jaw dropped when I read that casual 
accounting on Bristol Birds.  What about risking my life to his tour and to see 
that one Ring-necked Duck in such an arctic environment ?

It had been no relief that it was time to head down the mountain and leave the 
beautiful winter lake scene.  

It was a relief that Ron took my advice and didn't press on to the dam at the 
far end of the lake.  I assured him we could see everything from the parking 
lot at the shore's edge.  Right where we were. 

In my mind, I could imagine Ron wanting to drive out on the top of the 
ice-covered, snow-blanketed dam.  I could see us sliding into the nearly frozen 
water.  I could see the bubbles coming from Ron's body.  I feel myself fighting 
the door handle trying to escape -- trapped underwater at the foot of Hidden 
Valley Dam. It would be years before they drained the lake and found us.  Yes, 
Chris O'Bryan.  Our bodies eaten by the turtles.  Awful, isn't it ?

My heart couldn't stand any more of this.  I didn't tell Ron I couldn't endure 
any more.  I still have enough testosterone not to admit that.

We were back to the gap and Ron went over the top like an olympic skier on a 
jump in the Alps.  Down we went towards the cliff edges.  My body was trembling 
as I tried to feel for traction between the high profile Yokohama Geolandar 
G900 all-weather tires and the bed of snow and ice beneath.

This was beyond my wildest worst dreams.

Ron turned to me and finally smiled.

"They should have built some of those escape ramps so you could slide back up 
the side of the mountain, when you begin to slide out of control," Ron said 
with a little laugh.

"Oh, no.  This a bobsled track, Ron."  

They don't have escape ramps on a bobsled run, I explained.

The reality hit Ron.  

"Don't talk like that.  That is not funny at all," he remarked as his voice 
cracked.

One hairpin turn after another.

Time:  2 min. 16.4 seconds.  One hairpin to make.

I burried my head and listend to the ice roaring beneath us as I hung on to the 
back of the Subaru bobsled.

We sped out onto the dry pavement below into the bright sun, beneath the trees 
down, down, down, down to U.S. 19.

"What do you want to do for lunch?"  Ron asked.

"Let's go to Lebanon and eat chineese,"  I said with a sense of Thanksgiving in 
March.

Ron turned up Bluegrass music on his radio.  We sped over the crest of Clinch 
into Russell County.  

Of all of Ron's "disfunctions,"  Testosterone Deficiency is not one of them.

Let's go birding........

Wallace Coffey
Bristol



 





 


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