This is what the cave looks like in daylight.

I’ll admit right up front that this may well be the stupidest, most insanely reckless, practically begging-for-death bit of lunacy I’ve ever committed in my life. It’s definitely in the top three, at any rate. Don’t try this at home, kids! And while I’m at it, here’s one further disclaimer… I’m going to tell this story the way I remember it, but that won’t necessarily be what really happened. It was a long time ago, and the events of that evening were so outrageous that they have become somewhat legendary (at least for those of us who were there). In some senses they are burned into my memory forever. Yet strangely, many details are simply gone, and although I have asked everyone I can remember for further details, most have only vague recollections. I can’t even remember everyone who was there, though you would think that such a traumatic experience would forge a lifetime bond of brotherhood, or something. At any rate, this is my version of what happened.

It was probably 1988, sometime during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, and it was probably around 9:30 or 10:00 PM. It was freezing cold outside, naturally, and although it wasn’t currently snowing there was plenty of snow all over the ground. Then completely out of the blue, my friend Adam Beason said “Hey, you know what we should do tonight? We should all drive down to that cave and go skinny dipping through it!” It wasn’t exactly a dare, but it might just as well have been. There was a moment of silence as everyone looked around at everyone else, trying to determine if Adam was just saying something crazy or if he was actually making a serious proposal. With Adam, it was often hard to tell. Perhaps there was a chuckle or two. How could he possibly be serious? The idea was clearly insane! Surely, I thought, nobody would be crazy enough to…

Ahhh, but I was forgetting that Tony Sorensen was there. “Sure!” he said. “I’ll go!” Then Todd Beason, who was Adam’s cousin and was crazy enough to go along with whatever crazy ideas Adam and/or Tony came up with, chimed in too. “Yeah, that’d be awesome!” At this point, I still felt reasonably safe, so I may actually have said something like “Yeah sure, why not?” But you see, I seriously doubted that anyone was really going to drive an hour down the mountain in snowy weather at night just to swim through a freezing cold pitch black cave in the nude. But then Ed Talbot, the supposedly responsible “adult” cabin owner and our former High School Youth Group leader, said “Sure, if you guys want to do that, I’ll be happy to drive you down there.”

So there we were — five or six guys between the ages of 16 and 19, with an absolutely crazy proposition on the table, and a respected adult giving at least tacit approval. I don’t think anyone really wanted to do it, but neither did anyone want to be the first to chicken out. I wish I could write the rest of this entry as a nice little narrative, but at this point my memory of events gets a bit sketchy. I remember driving down to the cave huddled in the back of Ed’s truck camper shell. I remember stumbling down the steep hillside in the dark, with no idea where the “path” was, my feet crunching through snow with every step, already getting wet and cold… I remember standing at the edge of the river, the black mouth of the cave barely visible in the moonlight, thinking “Am I really going to do this?” And right about then, crazy-fool Adam proved himself to be the wisest one of the bunch (which, perhaps, is not saying much), because he bailed out, deciding there was no way he was going to get in that water. But by that time, I guess the rest of us felt we were committed. (Indeed, we should have been committed.)

This is what the cave looks like at night.

I remember hurriedly stripping off my clothes and then putting my feet into the bitingly cold water, causing them to ache painfully for a few moments before rapidly going numb. At that point, standing around and mentally preparing for the challenge ahead just wasn’t an option anymore. The only options were to chicken out (which didn’t really seem like an option, despite Adam’s belatedly wise example), or get through that cave as fast as humanly possible… So I just decided to go for it, and jumped in. I can remember almost nothing of the swim itself, except that I had a tiny little mini-maglite clenched tightly between my teeth as I furiously dog-paddled through the icy blackness like a deranged lunatic. I couldn’t really see anything except an occasional glimmer from someone else’s crazily bobbing flashlight, but that did nothing whatsoever to light my way. I think the only way we could tell which way to go was some vague sense of echolocation produced by the sounds of our own splashing and gasping for breath. We might have been screaming, as well. The water was so unbearably cold that, literally, the only thoughts left in my mind were paddle-paddle-paddle and get out of the water! I instinctively dog paddled instead of using a proper swim stroke because I must have felt that I’d lose consciousness if my head got wet.

And now let me really emphasize how PROFOUNDLY STUPID this whole undertaking was… I truly believe that it is only by the grace of God that we didn’t all drown in that cave. It’s one thing to go swimming in icy water when you can see where you’re going, and where other people can see you and attempt to help if you get into trouble. But in that cave, it was pitch black. If one of my friends had succumbed to hypothermia and started drowning just 10 feet away from me, I almost certainly would not have known — and even if I had noticed, I probably could not have helped at all. The walls rise straight up out of the water for most of the 120 yard length of the cave, and there are few handholds (not that we could have seen them, in any case). Adding to the danger, there are several submerged rocks lurking beneath the surface. There was really no possible way for anyone to have helped anyone else if there had been any mishap whatsoever — and in those conditions, I think that any mishap whatsoever could have resulted in death. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Yet, God was merciful, and we all managed to survive.

As I was preparing to write this, I had some email correspondence with a few of the other people who were there, to help jog my memory. Todd wrote:

I do remember and consider it at the top of the list of the craziest/stupid things I have ever done. I remember all climbing in the back of Ed’s truck having no idea what I was getting into. The idea seemed very bad at the time but I figured I would do it if everyone else did. We parked on the side of the road and stumbled down the path in the dark. We sent Ed and the girls to the other side of the cave with our clothes. Adam did not do it, he did chicken out (just confirmed this with him). I jumped in and lost my breath instantly. I had one of those big mag lights that took 4 D cell batteries, which made swimming even more difficult. I did not think I was going to make it, it took all I had not to panic. I remember being so relieved when I could finally see the end. I was the last one out of the water. It was a true miracle that no one drowned.

And Ed had this to say:

It was quite an adventure!  And one we will remember for the rest of our lives. It was risky, but then so was riding bikes down the coast…and down from lake Tahoe…and tubing on the Stanislas and backpacking and everything else. God blessed us richly on all those adventures and the fellowship we shared (and continue to share!) is sweet.

While I certainly agree with the part about God’s blessing, I must differ about the level of risk. Ed didn’t get in the water! To my mind, this was many orders of magnitude more dangerous than speeding down the mountain passes of Tahoe and Yosemite on our bicycles. Floating down the Stanislaus river in an inner tube isn’t even in the same category. But Ed also wrote:

This from Elizabeth Barrett Browning comes to mind…

Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees takes off his shoes – The rest sit ’round it and pluck blackberries.

I’ve no regrets that we decided to take off our shoes (er, clothes…) and experience heaven crammed into earth firsthand. The laughter, the memories, the friends and the feelings will be with us for eternity. Let others sit ’round and pluck blackberries!

I wouldn’t have missed it for the world!

I suppose I can’t disagree with that. But I certainly wouldn’t do it again, and if someone told me they wanted to try it, I’d smack them upside the head until they thought better of it. What a stupid idea!

4 Generations on the 4th of July - Carolyn & Elizabeth with Grandpa Hucker and Great Grandma Upton

It was a great joy to introduce our little girls to more of their extended family. And of course everyone loved meeting them! Grandma’s party was on Saturday and quite a few people dropped by the open house style party to congratulate her. Sunday evening we took the girls and went downtown to see the fireworks display. Elizabeth watched the fireworks. Carolyn mostly watched the people and the cars.

Ooh! Fireworks are fun!

The family taught the girls some new things while we were there. The girls learned to blow kisses and “give me five.” They are becoming more and more interactive and social. They’ve begun to reach when they want to be held. They hand me things and smile in satisfaction when I take it from them and say “thank you.” They’re developing physically as well. More and more we see them let go of things while they’re standing. I know their first steps will occur in the very near future.

I, Dan, take you, Janet, to be my wife. I join with you to share all that is to come. I will be faithful to you as long as God gives me life. All that I am, and all that I ever hope to be, is yours. I accept you without reservation as my wife. I promise to love you and honor you, be true to you always, in sickness and in health, in poverty and in wealth, in my thoughts and in my speaking as long as my life shall last.

Countless blessings of immeasurable value have come to me through Janet. She is my friend, my lover, my soul mate, my beloved wife. I cannot imagine my life without her, and I will be eternally thankful for her.

Best. Decision. Ever.

]]> http://flinksnorph.com/2010/06/love/feed/ 3 http://flinksnorph.com/2010/05/twelve-angry-men/ http://flinksnorph.com/2010/05/twelve-angry-men/#comments Fri, 28 May 2010 00:15:13 +0000 Dan http://flinksnorph.com/?p=1204 In January I was invited to be part of my church’s production of Twelve Angry Men. We have a drama ministry known as The King’s Players, and over the last 20+ years we’ve done dozens of productions, including Ben Hur, Steel Magnolias, and It’s A Wonderful Life. In recent years I’ve had small parts in [...]]]> In January I was invited to be part of my church’s production of Twelve Angry Men. We have a drama ministry known as The King’s Players, and over the last 20+ years we’ve done dozens of productions, including Ben Hur, Steel Magnolias, and It’s A Wonderful Life. In recent years I’ve had small parts in a few plays (for some reason, two different times I was cast as Judas in I Am The Vine), but I haven’t had any significantly large roles since I was in High School, when I was in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and Release.

Anyway, the two young ladies who were co-directing the play asked me to play Juror #8, the lone dissenter portrayed by Henry Fonda in the 1957 film. It sounded like a lot of fun, and although I’d never had a leading role before I was pretty sure I could pull this one off. (In truth, the character is not that much of a stretch for me, and a few of my friends even commented that I was just playing myself and wasn’t really acting at all. Heheh, fair enough.) The only thing that I was sorta concerned about was how much the rehearsals would impact my work schedule and how Janet would feel about sacrificing any and all major weekend plans until the end of May. But Janet was quite supportive of the idea, so I decided to go for it.

It should be noted that although Fonda’s role in the film certainly seems like the “leading” role, the play is really an ensemble piece. There are a couple other characters whose parts were comparable to mine in terms of size and importance to the story. Thus, I was very pleased that we had such an excellent cast filling the other parts. These guys were so much fun to work with! I had an especially fun time in the confrontation scenes with Juror #3, played by Brian Herrington. Unlike me, Brian really had to act to portray his role, and he’s very good at it.

How did I do? Well, I wish I could say each of our performances went off flawlessly, but of course that’s not the case. On Friday night, I actually got completely, horribly stuck on one line for several seconds. In fact, it was a rather critical part of a scene where my argument was finally winning a solid majority of the votes on the jury. I’m afraid it was rather obvious to everyone that I just blanked out and momentarily forgot the line. (Sigh…) Oh well. Eventually I got back on track and finished the rest OK. I felt embarrassed, but I didn’t beat myself up about it, and I didn’t let myself dwell on it too much. There’s just no point in that, right? On Saturday night I think I did much better, but still had a bit of trouble with a few lines (different lines, at least). Fortunately, this time my mistakes were the small and inconsequential sort that were probably transparent to everyone in the audience. Finally, on Sunday, I think I more or less nailed it — at least, I think I nailed it as well as I could, so that felt nice. I’m glad I got to finish the play on a positive note rather than a disappointing one. Here are a few pictures from one of our dress rehearsals, taken by Paul Hara:

Juror #8

Tell me what the facial characteristics of a killer are!

How come you believed her? She's one of them too, isn't she?

Look at it! It's the same knife!

Guilty... Guilty... Guilty...

Down the hall?! Are we to send a boy off to die because it's down the hall somewhere?

You don't really mean you'll kill me, do you?

He had to get up out of bed, get his canes, walk twelve feet, open the bedroom door, walk forty-three feet down the hall and open the front door -- all in fifteen seconds.

Look out!

To say this boy is guilty, you have to toss his intelligence like a pancake!

The cast and crew

I just wish I had remembered to wear a belt to rehearsal that night. (Sigh.) Oh well.

• Janet and I recently put our heads together to calculate how much milk she has produced since the girls have been been born. We didn’t keep exact records, but in the last 11½ months we figure that she has pumped or nursed over 15,000 fluid ounces, which translates to around 120 gallons. My first thought at hearing this was “Wow, that’s a TON of milk!” Actually, it turns out to be only half a ton, but still, that’s a lot of milk! Janet’s thought was “No wonder I’m always hungry!”
• The inevitable corollary to the observation above is that we have changed well over 1000 pounds of diapers.
• Bottle feeding both girls simultaneously for these many months has made me very aware just how often some part of my body itches. Almost without exception, as soon as I’ve managed to get the girls settled and both of my hands are busy holding bottles, something starts to itch. Insistently. So, I’ve had a lot of practice improving my mind-over-itch control. On the plus side, the girls can now manage to feed with about 50% efficiency while holding the bottle themselves. It’s not good enough yet to just let them handle it completely on their own, but progress is being made.
• Elizabeth is now in full crawling mode. She wants to explore everything and everywhere, and is not long content in one place. And our house still needs a lot of childproofing before I’ll feel comfortable letting them crawl around without watching them every second! Carolyn is sorta crawling, but she still reverts to scooting or rolling sometimes. In another week or so she’ll probably have it down.
• There are a ridiculous number of Oxi-Clean products scattered around our house. Just off the top of my head, I know of at least four spray bottles, two bottles of gel stick, and one six pound tub of powdered stain remover.
• Carolyn’s inquisitive little fingers are fascinated by my comparatively big fingers. When I least expect it, her tiny little razor sharp fingernails unerringly seek out my cuticles, and then they dig in. Apparently she wants to completely peel open my fingertips and expose the root of my fingernail. It is quite painful. Elizabeth does this too, but it seems to be not as often.
• Carolyn has also learned to whistle a few notes, which makes her just about as good at whistling as I am.
• I’ve been practicing with the girls trying to get them to say “mama”.  I guess those M-sounds are a little tricky to make, so developmentally they tend to come later than D-sounds. They’ve been making D-sounds for a while, and often say “dada” — but I don’t think they’re saying it as a name for me… You see, they also say “dodo” quite a bit.
• It’s hard to believe we’re coming up fast on their first birthday! But I don’t look back on the last year and wish that they could stay this age longer. I know that each developmental stage brings its own set of challenges, but I’m really looking forward to being able to converse intelligibly with them. I can see some advantages in not having to carry them everywhere too. But we’ll do our best to enjoy each stage as it comes.
• We feel so very blessed by these wonderful little girls!

The Siemens Twins

This view is looking south toward Calaveras Reservoir

We started our hike up near the top of Welch Creek Road and then hiked one way to the far end of the park where we had a second vehicle waiting. Our route included climbing to the top of the highest peak in the park, and altogether I managed to find 10 caches, putting my total just over 3,300. I hiked around 9 miles total, and I can tell I’m sorta out of shape. I can think of only one other semi-long hike that I’ve been able to do in the last year… It was a great day!

This rock was just begging to be climbed...

My parents were more than happy to care for the girls while we were out, of course. For Janet, this was the first time she had left them with anyone other than me, and it was the first time we’d gone out together without the kids since Elizabeth came home from the hospital about 7 months ago. The only question was which showing of Avatar would we go see — 3D or regular old 2D? I like the theater here in Livermore much better than the one out at Hacienda, and it’s obviously much closer and more convenient, so that would seem to be a natural choice. But although the Livermore theater was showing Avatar on two screens, both of them were 3D showings. Hacienda had several 3D showings, but also had a couple screens that were displaying in nice old fashioned 2D.

Here’s my dilemma. I was really curious about seeing it in 3D, really really hoping that it would be extra fantastic. But frankly, I’ve always thought that the current 3D film technology is still woefully inadequate. I guess you could say I was skeptical and curious in equal portions. I know a great many people think 3D movies are super cool, but I just think it looks super lame and gimmicky. The system uses polarized light and glasses to produce a stereoscopic image; this does produce some sense of depth in the image, but it’s a far cry from the kind of 3D vision produced by our eyes. Every time I’ve seen a 3D movie in the past I have hoped that maybe the technology had advanced enough that it was actually worthwhile, but I’ve always been disappointed. The system seems especially incapable of handling fast action sequences. Inevitably, I end up wishing that I’d just seen the film in regular old 2D. Rather than adding anything new or extra to a film, the lame and gimmicky look of 3D effects simply ends up distracting me from enjoying the image onscreen and the story as a whole.

Anyway, I finally made up my mind to see a 2D showing at Hacienda at 11:40 AM with Janet, and figured maybe in a couple weeks if I still felt curious I might go catch a late show in 3D. We got everything ready, we dropped off the girls, we drove out to the theater, we dashed through the rain to get up to the ticket line, we waited for our turn… And then we found out that the showing of Avatar that we had planned on seeing featured Open Captions, meaning that there would be text at the bottom of the screen throughout the movie. Now, I don’t really mind watching subtitled films if it was shot in a language I don’t understand. But when viewing a film in English whose major selling point is the visual effects, I really don’t want to be constantly distracted by printed dialog that I understand perfectly well and notations like “bomb explosions” and “creature roars”. Needless to say, the fact that this showing featured captioning was NOT mentioned in the theater listing that I looked at. And needless to say, that pissed me off! I think I will probably NEVER see another film at Hacienda. They have disappointed me for the last time.

The next showing in 2D that wasn’t captioned was 3 hours later, and we couldn’t make that because I had to work in the evening. We had a pretty narrow window of time in which to see this 2 hour 40 minute movie, and we were already going to be pushing back Janet’s next appointment with the breast pump. I knew there was a 3D showing in Livermore at 12:30, so I gritted my teeth and resigned to seeing a 3D showing after all.  We hopped back in the car to drive back to Livermore, and made sure that my parents wouldn’t mind the extra hour. They didn’t, of course.

The movie was pretty much exactly what I expected, and I enjoyed it. The CG visual effects were absolutely magnificent, and the 3D effects were lame and gimmicky, and I wished my original plan had worked out. I definitely would have enjoyed the movie more in 2D. But despite the distraction of the consistently lame 3D effects — and even despite the overly politically correct storyline — I have to say that it was a very entertaining film. Yes, it made me want to be a giant blue skinned alien, running and flying through the beautiful jungles of Pandora. I may even still try to go see it a 2nd time if I can find a theater other than Hacienda showing it in 2D. And I don’t think I’ll bother with another 3D movie until the next generation 3D technology gets invented. Polarized light and glasses just aren’t good enough to be worth it.

• When the girls were in the hospital for the first six weeks of their lives it was a challenging time. I so desperately wanted them to be home with us so we could be a family. (They were a couple of weeks old before we were able to hold both girls at the same time, or even be able to see them side by side!) But as much as I wanted them home, I wanted them to be healthy. And I learned that I must treasure each day and not wish their lives away.

• I’ve had a chance to see how willing our friends and family are to help. We received emotional support, lots of prayer, and practical help — and there were several times people volunteered to do something before we even recognized that we had a need.

We have MUCH to be thankful for!

These two little girls bring such joy and wonder into my life. It doesn’t matter how tired I am, when one of them smiles at me I can’t help but smile back. They went to the doctor two weeks ago and their current statistics are:

• Carolyn:  13 lbs; 24 1/4″
• Elizabeth:  13 lbs; 24 3/4″

Their weight is now in the 10th percentile for 6 month old babies, which is up from the 5th percentile at six weeks. They’re doing pretty well considering they were impatient to begin life outside the womb. When their age is adjusted for being 8 weeks premature, their weight is closer to the 75th percentile.

We had a fun time celebrating with lots of family. I hope you all enjoyed your holiday too.

Happy Family

Anyway, a few months ago we posted an article titled Four Weeks Of Health Care, in which we tried to estimate the health care expenses that the girls had incurred so far. We hadn’t seen any bills yet, so we really didn’t have a clue; but based on rumors we picked up from the nurses, we guessed it was somewhere between $5,000 to $10,000 per day. Each. That sounds rather ridiculously expensive, right? About what you’d expect? WRONG! We had seriously underestimated. The final results are now in, and the total cost was quite a bit more than the most generous amounts we had been considering.

First of all, the total cost for Janet’s delivery and all the doctor visits throughout the pregnancy came to around $57,000. Valleycare billed $7,000 even though Janet was transferred to John Muir after only a couple hours. The ambulance ride was about $1,300. The delivery itself was $2,800, the epidural was about $1,400, and Janet’s three day hospitalization at John Muir was almost $27,000.

But let’s skip to the really big ticket items — the girls!  You’ll recall that Elizabeth was released from the hospital first, after spending 5½ weeks in the Intensive Care Nursery. Carolyn was released a week later, spending 6½ weeks there. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Elizabeth’s hospital bill was $596,000, and Carolyn’s was just over $705,000. In other words, they were running up over $100,000 per week, or $15,000 per day. EACH. Also, the doctor bills for the girls are separate from the hospital bills, and totaled about $20,000 each.

So here’s the bottom line — altogether, having these twins resulted in bills amounting to just over $1,400,000.

Well, except that’s not really the bottom line. First of all, before you get all alarmed for us being buried under a mountain of debt for the rest of our lives, rest assured that Janet and I are responsible people, and so of course we have health insurance. We have a maximum annual family deductible of $2,000, and since there were a few doctor visits in 2008, the total cost we’ve paid (in addition to constantly paying for our health insurance, that is) is about $2,300. All things considered, that’s not so bad.

Furthermore, it has been interesting to note that, in most cases the insurance company has only paid about 50% of the billed amount on each claim — and apparently, the hospital is OK with that. Apparently this is normal for health insurance payments. This means that when we talk about the high cost of health care, we need to be clear that the billed amount is almost never the amount that gets paid, and the actual cost is roughly half that. Even so, half of $1.4 million is still a huge chunk of money.

– — –

If anyone is still reading, be warned that I’m about to climb up on my soapbox for a minute. You see, I have at least a few friends (probably several) who would point to my story and say, “See?  This is exactly why we need Obama’s health care reform!” But my feeling is exactly the opposite. Yes, there are instances where insurance companies act despicably and cheat the people they’re supposed to help, but this case is a clear example of the system working fairly well.

Here’s the main problem, which I’ve never heard Obama (or any supporter) address. The number of doctors in the US is growing at a much slower rate than the general population, and the number of nurses hasn’t been growing at all for years. (Some stats I’ve seen predict a 60% increase in the elderly population over the next 15 years, with a 17% increase in the overall population. Unfortunately, the population of doctors is projected to increase only 6% over the same time period.) So even if we do nothing at all, health care is going to be harder and harder to come by. Obama’s plan will immediately inject almost 50 million new patients into the system with no commensurate increase in health care personnel. At the same time, he wants to cut medical fees by dropping Medicare reimbursement rates, which will only serve to encourage many doctors to retire and discourage others from entering the profession, thus making the problem even worse. All this means THERE WILL BE RATIONING, and inevitably it will be the elderly who suffer most.

One more thing… I keep hearing Obamacare supporters saying that there will be no such thing as “death panels” because the term isn’t used anywhere in the bill. Of course words like “death panels” aren’t written into the bill. But because Obamacare will definitely result in a massive shortage of health care providers and make rationing a necessity, it is simply inescapable that at some point, some government bean counter will end up making decisions about who gets their health care authorized and who gets denied — and once you have that, the elderly will always end up getting the short end of the stick. In one fell swoop, the elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free health care to being the group with the least. I hear they’re turning away from the Democratic party in droves these days, and it’s hardly a surprise.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sad for people who don’t have health insurance. I’d love to find ways of changing the system that would enable more people to get their own private health insurance. It was encouraging to hear Obama finally acknowledge the need to establish better controls on malpractice lawsuits and the obscenely expensive malpractice insurance that doctors must carry — even though, in the same breath, he downplayed the importance of this step. Obama claims his plan will come to the rescue of 50 million people, and that sounds really good and noble — until you realize that it will in fact PUNISH 300 million people, especially the elderly, by lowering the quality and availability of care for everyone.

No thank you!

– — –

Anyone still reading? If so, you may also be interested to check out these insightful and informative blogs by ambassador Alan Keyes and political analyst Dick Morris. I respect Keyes quite a bit, and it saddens me that he can probably never succeed in politics because he’s too good, too honorable, too principled. At times I’ve considered that Morris is so politically savvy that might be the devil himself; but he’s usually spot on with his analysis.