This post involves a near-death experience, but not just any near-death experience…. the weird kind of near-death experiences that only seem to happen to me. And that is why I titled this post:

What a way to go…

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I have spotted the weakness in my plan to take over the universe by having the most popular blog ever…

OK, that isn’t my real plan. I really just want to show the world what a freak I am, being all art-side of the brain and all. But here is the flaw. I plan to literally share all the art that ever squeezed itself out of my twisted cranium, just to let the world know what a mess it is in there. But by starting off showing all my early work, I realize now that I am running the risk of boring people who have true artistic talent. My excuse, that I am showing the process by which I achieved what little talent I now have, is an interesting idea. But the early work itself is not that interesting. I now run the risk of annoying the same people I am hoping to impress…

That being said, I stated, somewhere back in the dim past of this blog, that I have had an interesting life. In fact I bragged that I have had more near-death experiences than anyone else I have ever heard of… (Not counting combat vets, lion tamers, the guys on Deadliest Catch, high wire walkers, some cops, and most of the contestants on this season of American Idol, who all appear to be getting ready to die from sheer stress-induced convulsions… (Mollie and my wife watch that show, and sometimes I get sucked in)…

So I am not going to make the same mistake with my almost dying stories as I am on the blog as a whole. I am going to start right at the top with the best one, and work my way down.

So here you have it… Every word of this is true… Even my brain could not make something like this up, but I sort of wish I had…

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When I was young I was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout. I never advanced in either one of them, but it was fun enough. Then I heard about the Sea Scouts. Building fires and learning camping skills was good, but I have always loved boats. So I joined up when I was 15 or 16. Our ship was a 63-foot ex-Coast Guard cutter called the Farallon, named after an island…(or cluster of small islands)… off the coast of San Francisco. We were on a 4th of July cruise from the San Francisco bay to Santa Cruz down the coast.

On our return voyage, we were running far enough from shore that you could just see the white breakers in the distance. It was a cloudy night, around 11:00 pm, with strong wind and an almost full moon. As we neared the Golden Gate bridge, the sea was running pretty high. I don’t know if you are familiar with this stretch of water, but it is famous for its shipwrecks. There are rocks and shoals. There is fog more often than not. There are currents and rough seas. The water is cold enough that hypothermia will kill you in less than an hour. And there are more Great White sharks than anywhere else in the U.S.

The waves were large, and we were running sideways through the swells. Everyone on the boat was seasick except for the Captain, the first mate, a huge kid named Dewey, and Ted, my friend Brian’s brother, who never got sick because he ate so much that we think his stomach had no room to slosh around. That was the theory, anyway. I got tired of smelling the vomit below decks, so I went up to the bridge to get some fresh air. The boat was rolling side to side with some viciousness. The bridge was too crowded and hot, and I started feeling another round of blowing chunks coming on, so I quietly slipped out the door onto the deck for some air. That air was really cold, even though I was wearing an old army surplus coat, and I stuck my hands into my jeans pockets for just a moment to warm them up, even as I took my first step out the door.

Just as my foot hit the slippery, wet deck, the ship heeled over as we crested the back of a wave. My foot slipped and went straight out in front of me, followed by the other foot. I was now lying on my back in thin air about four feet off the deck. I fell hard, landing on my butt. The shock made me lose my lunch, (and dinner)… Now anyone who likes boats knows that you never toss anything into the wind, (especially your cookies),because it is going to come right back at you. And sure enough, it did. I watched the fog bank of my own vomit hang in the air for a moment like I was in a spaceship in zero gravity, before it came back at me with a vengeance. (This may sound disgusting, and it was, but don’t worry, I would be washed clean soon enough)…

All of this took only a split second, and I really didn’t have time to worry about it, because the deck of the ship was still slanting down into the trough between sets of waves. You know, like a freakin’ water slide. So before I had a chance to panic, I was sliding straight downhill towards the edge of the boat. And I still had my hands jammed in my pants pockets, in case you forgot. I watched the rail come at me at an incredible speed. Now when I say rail, you might be thinking of a sturdy fence or railing of some sort, but this wasn’t a cruise ship, it was an ex-military vessel. The rail consisted of metal posts or poles every six or eight feet, with two thin, braided wires strung between them. I shot right under the bottom wire in my reclining position with absolutely no trouble at all…

Let me take a moment to explain another part of ships and boats. It is called the gunnel, or gunwale. It comes from an old word that meant ‘gun wall’, which was a strengthened part on the edge of a ship that supported the heavy canons. On modern ships, it is just a small, raised piece of wood on the very edge of the deck. I guess it adds a little support and stiffness to the structure, but I am not sure about that.

Anyway, there I was, on the slippery-slide to oblivion. I shot right under the bottom wire, and only two things saved me at that point. My shoulder blades caught on the gunwale, and my chin caught the bottom wire of the rail. Man, that hurt a lot. For a brief moment, as the ship was just hitting the bottom of the next wave, I was completely under water. The sounds of the wind and waves and seagulls were replaced by just the throbbing of the big engines. It was nice to have the barf washed off, but that was the only good thing about my predicament. Now the ship began to heel over in the opposite direction as it started to climb the side of the next wave. By the time it reached the top, I was lying almost flat on my back looking up at the sky. I remember clouds blowing in front of the moon.

Did you ever see the movie Moby Dick with Gregory Peck? Remember the scene near the end where he was caught in the ropes of old harpoons stuck in the white whale’s back, and as the whale rolled back and forth, it looked like Captain Ahab was waving for his men to follow him? That was me, and let me tell you, I was not a happy camper… or sailor, as the case may be.

I still had my hands jammed in my pockets, and in that position, I couldn’t pull them out. I was also freezing cold and soaking wet. Nobody had seen me leave the bridge. Nobody knew where I was. The ship kept rolling up and down the waves, so part of the time I was under water, and part of the time I was looking up at the sky. And I could feel the wire under my chin slowly slipping higher and higher. I realized that if I ended up in the sea, my odds of making it to shore were fairly slim wearing all those heavy, wet clothes and already being weak and cold. I am a good swimmer and my size 15 feet do work as flippers, but only to a certain point. I wondered if I would wash up on the beach with my hands still in my pockets, leaving the coroner to ponder what the hell had happened.

I must have done that crazy roller coaster ride 12 or 15 times. The wire was almost off my chin. I was a goner.

Then, Dewey, the huge First Mate, came out on deck for a smoke. He saw my predicament, took one step to the rail, reached down, and grabbed me by my, fortunately, long hair with one hand, and picked me up. I was still not fully grown yet, thankfully. I stood there like a drowned rat, hands still in my pockets, shaking like a leaf.

“You OK?” Dewey asked me calmly.

I nodded.

He slapped me on the shoulder, and returned to his cigarette.

Now that I think about it, this may account for the fact that I kept my hair long well into my forties. You never know when somebody may need to have something to grab you by to save your life when you do something stupid…

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So there you have it. Just one of many times I spat in the face of the Grim Reaper and lived to laugh about it later. Someday I may write a book about the strange phenomenon of your life passing before your eyes in such moments. It does not happen the same way every time, just so you know. But I will say this; it is nice to have something interesting to look back on when it does happen. But don’t get too carried away, or all your life, as it passes before your eyes, will be nothing but visions of other times you almost died.

Also as a note of interest, if you ever have a gun pointed at you, it doesn’t matter how big the caliber of the gun is, you would swear you could drive a Ford Explorer right inside that barrel. Just thought you might like to know… Please remind me some time in the future that I owe you some more stories of my almost untimely demise… Thank you.