On a weekend trip to Nashville, 250 miles from home in Atlanta, my eventual wife and I took our dogs to play at the Steeplechase, a huge horse racing course and park.
We met a friend with horses, and ran around, dogs chasing horses, picnicing, and had a nice day. Went back to the car, and she’s lost the keys. In the grass. Somewhere in a 1/2 mile radius in that great pasture/field area you see there.
It’s miles from civilization, years before cell phones, and in a rarely used part of a huge park.
Horse gal rode home, so there will be no help.
There is a spare set in her purse in the car. Luckily, an old school buddy, a park ranger rolls by. No Slim Jim, but he’ll send someone. 3 hours later, no someone. That was about 1987, and I haven’t spoken to that asshole since then!
Anyway, it’s getting dark, and I’m deciding which window will be the cheapest to replace when I get looking at the antenna. I was actually able to unscrew it! Sweet! I bent it into a hook, and was able to use it to pull the door handle open and open the door! It was great, but I wish I had thought of it 3 hours earlier.
Non-car rescue.
July 4th after graduating from high school. My GF, her BFF and another guy and I decide to picnic on top of a mountain with a sheer cliff facing west. This land belongs to X, but our friend - a 50-something friend of the family - knows X, and said it would be OK for us to be on the property. This is the country, and one does not usually hike on a stranger’s land w/o permission. We parked on a lonely dirt road, and carried food, watermelons, fireworks and more through the woods up the back of the mountain. Perhaps a 2 or 3 mile hike.
At 1 or 2 in the afternoon, it was a nice hike. We had our food, messed around for a while as unsupervised teens are wont to do, then it was sunset. A beautiful night with no moon let us see fireworks going up here and there for 50 miles around. We set ours off over the valley, heard some approving hoots and shouts from a mile or two away, and it was a great time.
Truly one of the most memorable days of my life.
As we packed our gear, we realized we had forgotten something very important.
Light.
No one brought a flashlight, lantern, nothing. All we had was a lighter for the fireworks.
The others followed me as I held our beacon high and stumbled down the mountain. For an hour. That’s when the lighter ran out. I sparked our way for a while; spark, see and walk a couple of feet, spark, two more feet, and so on. I decided this would not stand. We went through our trash and found wrappers, napkins and so on, and I wrapped them around sticks to make tiny torches.
With greasy napkins and leaves burning dimly, I brought us down the mountain to within 20 feet of the car. Where the cops were waiting.:eek:
X lived at the end of the road, and called the deputy who lived close by. He had already run the plates, determined the owner, figured out who we were, and confirmed it with our family friend, and was just making sure we made it down alive.
Maybe more luck than MacGyver-ing , but it’s a good cautionary tale!
