The Ponderosa

My brother and me at the Ponderosa. Summer 1999

Dettelbach is a beautiful Bavarian village situated  near my mom's hometown of Kitzingen. My grandparents owned property there. Opa called it his ranch. Specifically, he called it his Ponderosa. Opa loves classic westerns like Bonanza. The Ponderosa was an acre or so on a hill. It's probably about a 30 degree slope up the hill a hundred meters. They built a nice little two room building and had a really nice garden on it. My grandparents spent a lot of time maintaining this property. A lot of sweat equity.

Opa at the Ponderosa. 1993.

I loved going to the Ponderosa. It was a small home tucked away in nature surrounded by vineyards and Christmas tree farms. Once a summer during my visit to Germany I'd spend the night out there with Opa. We really roughed it. Reclining lawn chairs, warm but not hot weather, bottles of beer and mineral water.  A bag of rolls and sliced salami. Until darkness forced us to light a campfire, Opa and I'd play the card game sixty-six. The part I hated about the Ponderosa was watering the plants. There was no running water. I had to fetch water. I held in each hand a 3 gallon bucket with no plastic cover on the handles. That is no relief from the thin wire handle. Hauling 25 pounds of water in each hand doesn't sound bad. But after a while my hands would get real sore. Why did the stream have to be so far away from the plants? It hurt so bad and I hated it. But my Opa had a way of motivating me.

“Come on boy!”

“You Americans are lazy!”

“I'm 65 and I can do it!”

It pushed me. It annoyed me and at the time I was mad at him. But at the end of a day's hard work when we rested I was thankful, and sore.

So one day at the Ponderosa it dawned on me that I could run really fast if I hiked to the top and ran down. It would be so cool to run so dang fast. So I walked up and up and up some more. I got near the top and tied my shoes extra tight. I turned my University of Michigan hat backwards (I have no idea why I had this hat other than it looked cool). Man, I was ready for business.

Me at the Ponderosa nearly 15 years after these events. 2008

I began by jogging leisurely. Simple enough. Easy to weave around any trees that were in my path. Time to pick up the pace, turn it up a notch. Let's do this! And I'm off.

Man, did I go! I don't think that I ever rode my bike this fast. I was zooming. Trees came at me rapidly. Still not a problem though, I still possessed the agility to dodge those fibrous wooden oxygen producers. I was in the zone. It was silent. The only audible clues of the existence of anything were my breath and my heartbeat. I felt with each step the earth send vibrating shock waves up to my knees. Something was amiss. I wasn't really running. In Toy Story Buzz Lightyear didn't fly. He was “falling with style.” Well, I wasn't running. I was stumbling with abandon.

I can best describe it like a baseball card in a spoke. A continual rigid flutter. A stiff picture forced into repetitive movement until completely worn apart. Perpetual degradation of integrity. That was my legs and feet. They weren't so much running as they were getting figuratively punched by the ground. I am surprised that the force didn't make my feet kick myself in the butt.

If an object reaches terminal velocity while in free fall it no longer accelerates. It maintains a constant rate of speed. I would like to create my own term for what was happening to me. As far as I know there is no label and I am inventing a problem and designation. While running down hill I reached the “point of static momentum.” That is, I reached a point where my motion was set. Ain't nothing gonna stop me. I was out of control. See Newton's first law of motion. I was not stopping. That led me to fear Newton's third law of motion.

I was running out of real estate. There was no nice plain at the bottom of the mountain where I could just run out my built up energy. Oh no. I was going to hit a tree, run off a cliff, smack a car, or end up on some unsuspecting person's roof and then subsequently land in their yard curled up in the fetal position with some broken bones. Point is, Newton's third law states that whatever I hit at 15 or 20 miles per hour is gonna hit me back equally hard. And that didn't seem like a good outcome to have happen.

With time running out I mustered up whatever strength I had left in my legs and kind of leapt sideways. It worked. I landed on my side and began rolling down the hill until I came to a stop at the trunk of some small tree. Nothing broken. Just some bruises and cuts.

My wife (then my fiance) at the Ponderosa nearly 15 years after these events.  2008

I had been bored and decided that it would be cool to run down a hill. I didn't think this through at all. I just acted on some kind of base desire to try something out. The consequences could have been truly dire. Somehow in the midst of this harebrained act I formulated a solution before it was too late. Fortunately although it would surely hurt, I had the courage to solve my dilemma before it became a true calamity. I had instantaneous clarity and the testicular fortitude to act on it. I didn't come out unscathed but was better off.

In life we constantly make choices. Most of these choices prove to be inconsequential. Many are more crucial than we realize. If we are fortunate we make the correct choice more often than not. If we are blessed we may have guidance along the way. It is when we screw things up that our wisdom is tested. Are we smart enough to recognize our oversight? If we realize the blunder will we have the poise to self-correct? Or will we falter?

I face this quandary constantly, particularly with my finances and my appetite. I know better but temptation mocks my efforts to do right by myself and my family. I am not perfect and prayer helps me some along the way. I know that He will help me, but I have to do my part. I am not foolish enough to think I can do it alone. Don't be a martyr. Even if you get yourself in a bind due to your own choices, ask for help . Asking for it is not a failure of character. Failing to do so when you need it is. Try and fix problems as soon as you see that you have one. Don't let the momentum of bad choices force you off a cliff. 

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Opa, Oma and me at the Ponderosa. 2008.

If I were to pick a single song to be the soundtrack to this post it would be....