From: RDJT76A@prodigy.com (MR RICHARD J LIMACHER)
Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 03:08:09, -0500
To: ULTRA@caligari.Dartmouth.EDU
Subject: Legend of Pecos Phooey at WS100, Part 16

[Author's Note:  Here's two things you never asked about that I wanted to
share with y'all.  (Sorry, just got back from Mississippi.)  First, I just
got done writing about Devil's Thumb--in "livid" color somewhere toward the
beginning of the Great Western States Trail--and then I just so happened to
go down to Mississippi (did I say that already?) where I was proudly
wearing my WS100 t-shirt, and (wouldn't ya know?) somebody asked me what
the hell this image of a red thumb was doing in the middle of the otherwise
mountain trail-type design on the front of my shirt.  I looked, stopping
everything else I was doing in order to look at it.  (I was eating.)  And I
looked again.  And I couldn't believe it:  There was spaghetti sauce all
over my shirt!  (Go right on to the next paragraph.)

No, actually, yes, there was indeed this "thumb" stuck up the middle of
this mountainy, foresty-type scene.  I go, "Hmmm.  Imagine that.  A thumb
stuck up my shirt."  No doubt about it.  It must surely be there to
represent Devil's Thumb, the very same incredible canyon climb I just took
about a half-a-year to describe.  So, notice it next time you attend some
ultra pre-race meal and some proud-ass dude is strutting around with a red
thumb stuck up his shirt.  (Or is it the other way around?)  Point this out
to him.  Tell 'em your ol' Phooey sent ya.  That'll entitle you to a 10
percent discount off your dessert.  (Go right on now, again, to the next
paragraph.  This is supposed to be only a short "Author's Note," but I'm
afraid it needs to be divided up into shorter paragraphs because it's
slowly getting completely out of control.)

OK, so the second thing I wanted to share with y'all is what happened at
the front desk of my Mississippi hotel when I checked in.  I signed my name
on the registration, and this guy next to me leans over, reads it, and
says, to my surprise, "Blue shorts."

"Huh?" I go.

"Blue shorts," he says again.  "In that, uh, story (?) you're writing.  You
know, on the Internet."

"Well, I'll be damned, somebody's actually reading it" is what I DIDN'T
say.  "Gosh, uh, thanks!" is what I did.

He then introduced himself, but I've since forgotten his name.  (My
apologies to you, sir, if you're reading this now.  Send me an e-mail and
allow me to come back later and rewrite this paragraph.  So, now, go right
on to the next one.  Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.)

Sorry about that.  This is actually the end of my "Author's Note," but I
don't know how to segue smoothly into my next topic.  Except, ya see that?
Ya see how EVERYTHING (eventually) always comes together?  Western States,
red thumbs, Mississippi hotels, and blue shorts?  Give me a few more pages,
and I'll even reconcile our President in here--along with HIS thumb, the
state of "The Big Lewinsky," Washington hotels, and HER shorts!!!

Go right on to the next paragraph.]


                    The State of Michigan's Bluff


Well, the thing about Devil's Thumb is, when you finally GET there and feel
like you oughta be done about now, you're not done.  You're not even close.
 You're not even half way!  Heck, I figure, not even hardly a third.  What
you really need to do is get to Michigan's Bluff.

But first (you guessed it): another CANYON!  [By the way, did you catch
that, what, e-mote there-->  ):  ?  Cock your head the other way.]

This would be El Dorado Canyon, and I remember thinking, "Oh sh*t.  Here we
go again."  (Actually, what I was thinking was, uh, much worse.  But, never
mind that.  Go right on to the next paragraph.)

Going down El Dorado Canyon, I remember thinking, "Hmmm.  It's still broad
daylight.  Michigan's Bluff is next, and Chuck told me that maybe I should
have a light at Michigan's Bluff.  But I didn't put a light in my drop bag
there, and it's still daylight, so...wow!  I must be ahead of schedule!"

Ha ha ha.  Ho ho ho.  The senses of false security one can assimilate in
states of near delirium.

I looked for buzzards.  No buzzards.  I looked for blue shorts.  SHORT blue
shorts.  No shorts.  Blue or otherwise.  In fact, NOBODY!  Was I (gasp) all
alone in the canyon?  Gasp!  Better pull out the Advil.

All right, here's the thing about Advil.  Man, if you ain't takin' 'em, and
y'all plan to do 100s, man, y'all had better be Superman or Jesus--'cause
you ain't gonna make it any other way!  I took lotta Advils that day, I
gotta tell ya.  And it helped.  I never hallucinated once!  Oh, well, NOW
maybe.  About those shorts, I mean.  Even Jesus knows NOBODY could ever
actually wear shorts like that (and get away with it).

Actually, you take the pills for the pain, not the pulchritudinous visions.
 And--I'll tell you this much--you want to pop the pills IN ADVANCE of the
pain.  Or the visions.  If you start to hurt--or hallucinate--you're too
late.  Remember that.  It's what Chuck told me.  Chuck's my hero and
mentor.  I can, on good days, manage to keep up with him.  Of course, he's
spotted me a 20-year handicap.  (I suppose--in light of all these recent
sex scandals; to wit: the 36-year-old female teacher who "raped"(?) and got
pregnant by her 13-year-old pupil--that, really, Chuck could be old enough
to be my father, huh?)  Anyway, Chuck knows that I'm certainly no match for
guys MY age.  So, he's consented to let me run with guys his.

Chuck also told me about Michigan's Bluff, as he calls it.  He said that by
the time you go though the afternoon's HEAT of all those CANYONS, by the
time you get to Michigan's Bluff it'll look like a M*A*S*H unit.

"You won't believe your eyes!" he exclaimed to me, time and time again.
"You'll think you're in a war zone!  Every runner there will be on a
stretcher!  They'll have I-V bottles hanging from the trees!  Everybody
standing will have a white coat on!  Hell," he said, "Blue Cross and Blue
Shield has a branch office there!"

(There's a thought.  How many times when you're about to run an ultra do
you remember to take along your insurance coverage card?  Hey, Carl Malden
wasn't kidding:  "Don't leave home without it!")

Well, guess what?  By the time I eventually did climb up out of El Dorado
Canyon, I discovered, to my horror, that CHUCK WAS RIGHT!  Wow!  Heaped
stacks of burned bodies!  Veins hanging out!  Tongues hanging out!  I-V's
in 5-gallon containers!  Hanging from steel-reinforced beams!  Bodies under
them looking up.  Other bodies in white coats standing over them looking
down.  "How many fingers?" I hear one of them ask.  "Duh, eleven?" comes
the answer.  Wow.  I gotta get my fluid, get weighed, grab a PB&J and get
the hell out of here, just like Chuck said!

Yes, Michigan's Bluff is a medical checkpoint.  "Get up on the scale," the
nice nurse lady says.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Hmmm," she says.  You've gained a pound."

"Advils," I say.

"HUH???"

"Never mind, ma'am.  Can I go now?"

"Well, I'm not sure...OK, sonny boy.  Scram.  Have a nice day."

This time, unlike Robinson's Flats, I did NOT ask the volunteer with the
clipboard how far I was ahead of the cutoff.  I was deathly afraid--stands
to reason; I was surrounded by death--that he'd say something like, "Welp,
son, let me put it to ya this way.  We gave 'last call' on the I-V's
fifteen minutes ago.  These folks here are just waitin' for the coroner."

I took Chuck's advice and grabbed my piece of sandwich, my boiled potato,
my one M&M, and got the hell out of there!

I never looked back.  I was afraid the corps men were chasing me down with
a stretcher.  Overhead, I look:  helicopters!

No.  They're buzzards.

[Back shortly--how can you stand the suspense?--with Part Umteen.]

Rich Limacher
RDJT76A@prodigy.com
THE ULTRA NUTTY TROUBADOUR