Parking Lot Peddlers

This story is from my younger days (around 7 years old). Most of you don't know, but I grew up in Oakland, CA on East 14th Street which was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood. I have great memories of growing up there. It isn't necessarily the best neighborhood, but it was home for a time. Anyone who has grown up in "the ghetto" has a good idea of what it was like growing up in Oakland.


One day, my family and I were out driving. There were always "sidewalk salesmen" on almost every corner. My family had bought many items from various sidewalk salesmen throughout the years (my favorite item was a Mickey Mouse doll that read books to me). On this trip we pulled over onto some parking lot (I think it was a Jack-in-the-Box). These two guys were selling various electronic equipment. When we arrived they were in the middle of selling an item to another "customer." My father (my biological father, Albert, not the dad I now have) was waiting for them to finish with this customer. I don't remember hearing what they said. As a kid most adult conversation was background noise and this incident was no different. I do, however, remember that one of these two "salesmen" snatched the money out of their prospective customer's hands. As the customer was negotiating and counting his money one of these guys just snatched the money right out the guys hands. It quickly escalated to the point where there was almost a fight. The second sales man convinced the "snatching salesman" to give back the money. Although there was no real incident, this man's behavior was a harbinger of what was to come. 


Finally the time came for Albert to talk to the salesmen. I don't remember the conversation but I do remember that Albert had his eye on a Sony TV. Again, I don't remember the price, but it must have been far below the market price, otherwise Albert would not have been interested. After some haggling Albert finally came to an agreement with these salesmen. I remember the TV was great for the time (around 1989-1990). It was black and was at least 24 inches wide, not to mention it was a Sony! After some trouble loading the heavy TV onto our car, we made our way back home to try it out.


I remember Albert was really exited. We lived in a second floor apartment so there was some trouble getting the TV upstairs. Finally, the TV was in our apartment! Albert struggled to get it onto a table and plug it in but to his frustration the Tv would not turn on. It was plugged in and should at the very least have been displaying the expected black and white static. As Albert tried to troubleshoot the TV he noticed something strange about the Sony logo on the front of the TV. He looked at it and, picked at it. To his ire he realized that the Sony log was just a piece of paper cut out from some magazine advertising Sony! As he removed the strategically placed misnomer he revealed the true identity of our illegitimate friend: Emerson.


This is the first memory I have of the brand "Emerson."  As you might imagine, Albert was furious. I remember him yelling about the fact that it was not a real Sony, and that he was going to go back and get his money from these scammers. Having discovered its true identity, Albert continued to probe the Emerson. Still unable to figure out why it wasn't working he realized the TV was two parts jerry-rigged into one solid TV. He pulled the two halves apart to discover the most egregious deception: The TV was full of bricks! This was the icing on the cake. Albert stormed out of the apartment to track down these evil salesmen. He quickly returned to the apartment, reporting that the scammers were gone. I imagine Albert just threw out the TV shell. After that, I think he was a little wiser when it came to dealing with the sidewalk salesmen. Let this be a lesson to all of you looking for an easy bargain. Sometimes you get exactly what you pay for. 

My Near Death

I lived in Twentynine Palms, CA for four years. Directly opposite the base (to the south) is Joshua Tree National Forest. According to the MBTI I am more introverted than extroverted, although I switch back and forth between the two frequently.  I guess it was my introverted personality type that led me to go to Joshua Tree to escape the world. Whenever I needed to recharge my batteries or I needed some me time, I would head to Joshua Tree. Little did I know, I would almost lose my life in pursuing solitude.

I had had a bad day at work. The biggest problem I had that day was that I had been assigned poor marks on my personnel review by my supervisor. First, I did not agree with her assessment of my job performance. Second, this poor review had the potential to hurt my promotions. I was furious (on a side note, my reviews before and after this supervisor were all average, or above average. I think it goes to show that her assessment of me was not fair.) When I got home from work that day I decided that I needed to get away from everything. I decided I was going to go to Joshua Tree. I Was so angry and so eager to escape that as soon as I got home I changed my clothes and drove straight to Joshua Tree. I couldn't have spent more than five minutes home before I was back out and heading to Joshua Tree. In my haste to "get away" I failed to make the most basic preparations for my desert trip. I was wearing regular clothes, did't bring any extra water, and I didn't tell anyone where I was going. Being unprepared was going to cost me.

I sped to Joshua Tree and choose an area called "Jumbo Rocks." I had been here before and it looked as good a place as any to escape the world. I parked my car and decided to leave my cellphone in the car (another mistake). Last thing I wanted was to have my private time interrupted by the world I was trying to escape. I set off climbing the rocks. It was great. The focus and exertion that the climbing the rocks required allowed me to forget about everything else. All the troubles in the world faded away; all that mattered was me and the rocks. I finally made it to the top of a large rock formation. I sat there tired and satisfied. I had a small water bottle that I drank out of as I stared into the desert abyss. Then I realized how dark it was. In all my climbing I had failed to keep track of the time (another mistake). It was past nautical twilight and into astronomical twilight. I was no longer able to gauge distance and seeing hos high on the rocks was also difficult. I didn't think anything of it. I did realize that I had to get back to my car.

As I made my way down the large rock I realized that I did not recognize where I was. I could not see the path I took up the rock nor the path back to my car. I was a little nervous, but I decided would go in a few different directions to see if anything looked familiar. Nothing did. I finally came to the inevitable conclusion that I was lost. It was completely dark by now, I was not going to get out of this situation by backtracking my steps. I had to find any way to get out of the rocks. I looked around me and all I could see was more rocks. I couldn't see the desert, my car, or other people. I was completely surrounded by the rocks, except for a tiny section of sand I could see between two rocks. I figured this was my best chance at getting out. At least if I kept going towards the sand I would eventually reach the desert.

That patch of sand became my north star. I just kept walking in that direction until I came to the edge of a drop-off. There was an almost perfectly round boulder there. I tried to get to the edge of the boulder to see how far down the drop was, but because it was round I had to be careful not to slide down the boulder. I felt like I couldn't turn back then. I had set a course and I was determined to see it through. I decided that I would lay on my belly, feet facing the edge of the round boulder and I would slide down (looking back on this, I think this is an absolutely idiotic thing to do). I started to slide down the rock really slowly. I kept moving my feet in the hopes that they would find a ledge or another rock that I could stand on. I kept sliding down. I was getting to the point here I could feel my body was about to slide down the rock uncontrollably. Just then I felt a ledge! I allowed my body slide down the rock and I was firmly on a ledge. I turned around, and to my dismay the ledge was only big enough for my two feet. I couldn't even sit on ledge if I wanted to. Not only that, but in front of the ledge was a ten to fifteen foot drop to the next boulder. On either side of that boulder were chasms that I couldn't even see where they ended. If I tried to jump, assuming I landed safely from a fifteen-foot fall, I would have to make sure that I did not roll left or right, or I would end up falling down the chasms. I decided it was too risky. I decided to climb back up the rock I had slid down. The problem was that the face of the rock was too smooth. I couldn't get up more than two feet before I sid back down to the ledge. Going back was not an option, I was going to have to jump.

I turned and faced my adversary: the drop-off. Most boys have a pretty good sense of what they can and cannot jump. This comes from many failed attempts to fly by jumping of platforms of various heights. Every kid has the one jump that let them know what their limitation was, either by knocking the wind out of them, getting a bad scrape, or breaking a bone. As I gathered all my childhood experience as a daredevil, every fiber in body said, "you can't make this jump." Every time I leaned forward to jump, some self-preservation reflex kicked in and made me pull back to the safety of the ledge. Could I stay on this ledge all night? Would anyone even notice that I was gone? I didn't think I could spend the night on the ledge, it was barely large enough for me to stand, much less sit or lie down. If I did spend the night it would have to be standing. Then I realized that this was the start of the weekend and I had not told anyone where I was going (I am going to stop pointing these out, but this was another mistake). It wasn't uncommon for me to just disappear for the weekend without notifying anyone. The soonest they would suspect something was wrong would be Monday. Again, I came to the conclusion that I had to jump.

I took a deep breath, I aimed,  and I jumped. It felt as if I had jumped off of Mt. Everest. I kept falling and falling. Suddenly I hit the ground with a heavy thud! I did not move for fear of falling into the chasms next to this rock, assuming I had made it to the rock. I looked around and it appeared that I was alright. My ankle hurt a bit, but it was nothing I hadn't felt before as kid, I would just have to walk-off the pain. As I surveyed my surroundings, I realized I had made it! I was on the large bouder I had aimed for. I hadn't fallen down either of the chasms and I seemed to be in one piece. I mustered my strength with a new found resolve. I was going to make it out of this. I stood up and was about to take a step, when I felt an excruciatingly sharp pain in my right ankle. It was strong that my reflex was to take the weight off of my bad ankle. I fell bak to the ground. The pain I felt was different than any pain I had ever felt. I knew something was wrong. I pulled up my pant leg, pulled down my sock and what I saw terrified me. My ankle was swollen, not too bad, but enough and it was slightly purple. I concluded I must have broken my ankle. Every time I tried to stand on my leg I felt the pain and I could not walk.

I had to crawl my way out. I started crawling back towards the sand patch. My pace was slow, but I was making progress. I kept crawling until I reached another edge. I looked over the edge and it wasn't very high, maybe ten feet at most. With my bad ankle though, it might as well have been the Grand Canyon. I noticed that there was a crevice that ran the hight of the ledge I had to climb down. I guessed that I could wedge myself in the crevice and wiggle my way down instead of jumping or climbing down. It worked. I was able to wiggle my way down without serious stressing my ankle. I kept crawling. Then I came to another edge. The good news was that it was really small. Had I not broken my ankle I could have jumped it with ease. Not only that, but once I got down this edge I had a clear passage to the desert. The excitement of ending this whole orderal prompted me to simply jump the edge. I just wanted this to be over. I jumped and landed hard on the ground. The same sharp pain shot out of my ankle. I am pretty sure I had further damaged my ankle with that jump. But the good news is it was over!

I hopped to the sand. I've never been so glad to feel sand under my foot. Now I had to find my car. I started hopping towards where I guessed my car would be and to my delight I found it. When I got to my car I checked my ankle again. It was so swollen that it was no longer able to fit in my shoe. I took my shoe and sock off. My foot was extremely swollen. The swelling was focused on my ankle but had spread to the rest of my foot. There were some areas that were a dark purple while others were normal. I decided to drive myself to the hospital. If you want to experience the difficulty I had driving myself to the hospital, try driving your car (a manual transmission with a clutch) with just your left foot. Fortunately I made it to the hospital for treatment.

In the end I had a posterior tibial fracture. It was very small. On the X-ray it looked like a piece of my bone had splintered of the tibia. I was in crutches for several weeks, but I made a full recovery. This experience ended up being great for me. Aside from the terrible pain and stress I realized what a determined mind can accomplish. I remained calm in a crisis situation, although I could have made better choices, I ended up finding a solution to my problem. The most important thing I got from this experience was to always be prepared. Many small mistakes had combined to create a perfect storm that could have ended in my death. I assumed too much about my capabilities. I didn't think I would need lots of water, I did not think i would be in the park late into the night. I did not carry even a basic first aid kit, and lastly I did not bring any method of communicating if I found myself in a crisis situation. I still enjoy the outdoors, and Joshua Tree has earned itself a special place in my heart. I no longer take careless chances and assume best case scenarios. I hope my ordeal can be a lesson to you.