We need collapsible hang gliders

When I was a kid the only French word I knew was “alibi.” That’s because I had to think up so many of them. These days kids are a little more cosmopolitan. There isn’t a kid alive who doesn’t know the word “rappel,” not to mention “climbing rope” (English), “carabiner” (German), and “Gramicci” (Italian).

My kids, who didn’t grow up here, are still impressed by the sandstone cliffs where we live now in Dry Fork Canyon. One Butterbean child observed a few years ago while we were hiking in the Canyon, “You could just stop anywhere around here and rappel.

Just look at all of these cliffs!”

“Ya,” I reply. (I did grow up around here.)

“In fact you could hang glide off that cliff we just were climbing on.”

“Oh yeah, and how are you going to get a hang glider up there? In your pocket?” (I should encourage pursuits like this?)

“They should make collapsible hang gliders.”

“They should, but they don’t.”

“They could fold up and fit in your backpack. Maybe I’ll invent one.”

“Who’s going to be your test pilot?”

“I’ll find someone so drunk he’ll be willing to try it.” (Ever the practical one.)

“Oh, and how are you going to get a drunk up there? You better find a suicide candidate instead.”

“Yeah, I was just going to say that.”

“How are you going to find one of those? Go around and ask people if they are depressed?”

I was not trying to discourage the kid from developing innovative ideas, but I was trying to point out the extreme difficulties and dangers inherent in an occupation of that kind. He already had a non-working (whew!) ultralight sitting way down below in the back yard that he was working on, and I could still remember my brother’s experiments with flying machines when he was about that age.

So, I think the would-be inventor is beginning to get the point, but he can wisecrack as long as I can.

“I could just put an ad in the paper (presumably this paper): ‘Wanted. Suicide candidates. Position temporary. No guarantees. No benefits.’”

“That might work, but then why don’t you just simply scale that cliff or rappel from it.? Those are two perfectly good ways to address a cliff.”

“Okay, I’m up with that. Let’s go buy me some climbing shoes.” (Just who is in control of this conversation anyway?)

In order to reassert myself there, I informed him that my brothers and I used to climb that same cliff without the benefit of ropes, carabiners, climbing shoes, or even a pair of tennis shoes. If our leather soles were too slick, we took off our shoes and tied them around our necks or threw them down to the ground. We didn’t practice on a climbing wall first either.

I didn’t tell him, that lots of times I had to use my French connection when my mother wanted to know if I had sand in my shoes because I was out climbing on those rocks again.

“Who me? No, I was just out in the sand pile (our term for a natural deposit of fine sand that washed down from the hills during a cloudburst) using my shoes for buckets.”