Climbing Hogback Mountain

Shortly before Centurion day I whined to someone about my doubts as to my ability to go the hundred miles, and was advised (tongue-in-cheek, I like to believe) that, oh well, it might be best if I didn't do it, since the blog was about a "century at 60" and if I actually did it, I'd have nothing more to write about.
I half-believed that. Or, rather, half-endorsed the excuse, finding it a solid rationalization for not reaching my goal. Maybe it's even more applicable now, since we didn't do the hundred, and it will take some dedicated effort to find and ride another century.
But upon further consideration, I hereby formally reject that rationalization as so much bunk. And here's why:


I spent a better (in terms of quality, not quantity) part of my misspent youth midst the bluffs and plains of the Nebraska panhandle, where I did a stint as general reporter for the Gering Courier (newspapering being, so far as I know, the only profession in which the word "stint" is used without pretension). The Courier, a weekly, went to bed on Wednesday nights, so my Thursdays were the most free day of the week. I spent many of them roaming those bluffs, in the early days alone or in the company of our German Shepherd-Husky mix, Julia. Long, wondrous, hours, midst the wind and brush and dirt and rocks, on hot dry summer days watching killdeer skittering along, vultures and hawks circling in the summer updrafts, or magpies screeching among the wooded breaks. Winters found me breaking through fresh snow on crisp winter days under sharp crystal-blue skies.

I spent much of that time on Scotts Bluff and its attendant rock formations, but one place I always meant to go was Hogback Mountain, the highest peak (used in the broadest sense of the word) in Nebraska. I'd been close to it, wandering around the Wildcat Hills, of which it is one, but never on it. On some of those Wildcat trips I was accompanied by Jim Prohs, the husky, red-headed, mustachioed heir to and managing executive of Prohs Furniture, a long-time Gering institution. Jim and I had become acquainted when he would show up at the paper to buy advertising. He had been away to college and had a liberal arts degree, and seemed to welcome the chance to talk with someone his age from outside the insularity and practicality that constituted Gering society.

In any event, we became friends, and, in addition to daytime rambles, had a few interesting nights on the town, one of which involved a tour of the bowels of the furniture store, and the cobwebbed remains of what had been his grandfather's undertakering operation; another found us wandering the amphitheater and canyons of Wildcat Hills with a bottle of spirits in our respective hands.

After a year or so with the paper I decided, for reasons unclear to me then and unsubstantial to me now, to pack it up and move back to Omaha and "civilization." Jim didn't try to talk me out of it -- he even helped me move -- but I do think he'd rather I hadn't. In any event, I mentioned to him my disappointment at leaving before climbing Hogback, saying that "Climbing Hogback Mountain" would be an excellent title for an autobiography or book of essays. "Nonsense," he said, "it makes a much better story if you never get a chance to do it. More ironic."
I agreed, and, for the same reason, decided that the dollar I owed him would also make a better story if I never paid it, so I never did. Nor did I ever climb Hogback.

That was nearly 30 years ago. And, by golly, I think Jim was wrong. I should have climbed it. The hell with irony and literary conventions. At this point in my life I've decided it's the experiences and not the literary conceits -- or rationalizations -- that matter. He may have a better story, too, since I still owe him a dollar, but he'll never have the dollar to spend and, to some extent, is a poorer man because of it.

By golly, I still have a few months in which to do a Century in my 60th year, and, this time, I'm going to make every effort to reach my goal. Might make a better story, too.