Brotherly love (part 1)

If any of you are interested, I’ve decided its time to share some of my recollections of me and my brother’s youthful adventures (more properly misadventures) growing up in Eastern Oregon. In attempting to compile and record the above mentioned adventures, I find it quite remarkable that the ones I most vividly recall all involve either pain or fear, in fact, usually extreme pain and/or absolute terror.
The one I’ll start with really occurred when we were old enough to be considered grown up in most societies. Happily, in Eastern Oregon most of us are granted at least 10 additional years of childhood and in some cases far more than that. In fact, I know of one individual totally escaping the onerous responsibilities of adulthood for his entire life.
One late winter or early spring, we were up home for a visit. Lyle and I decided that there may still be some Steelhead in the river so we went down to do a little fishing. One of our favorite spots at the time was an irrigation dam on the river a mile or so from town. When we reached the dam, we found that someone had put rip-rap on the bank below the dam to prevent erosion. This was no ordinary rip-rap, this was RIP-RAP. I mean, these rocks were the size of small cars and probably weighed more. Lyle decided wisely that discretion was the better part of valor and went on down stream to fish below the rocks. I was not about to let a few rocks keep me from my favorite spot and so carefully climbed down the rocks to the edge of the water. There I smugly planted myself to fish, my feet a scant inch above the flow and my back leaning comfortably against a mammoth boulder. I had hardly cast when I felt the rock that was taller than me, even longer, and who knows how thick, MOVE. Without hesitation, I leapt as far as I could into the stream. There, neck deep in the icy flow, I watched as the entire bank of rock came crashing into the river exactly where I had been standing.
Lyle, having witnessed all of the preceding, asked with grave, brotherly concern, “A little cold for a swim isn’t it?”