YOU WANT ME TO DO WHAT?

There are some things guys my age should not be doing.

One of them I discovered recently is trying to climb electric utility poles.

I was dressed in denims, boat shoes and my nice, new Columbia windbreaker that day when lady friend Sue and I visited her son Eric’s home.

He is about to finish his training to be an electric company lineman and his mom wanted to see a practice contraption he was rigging on a power pole in his yard which otherwise did the routine duty of supporting his security light.

Eric fitted himself with a safety harness to which was attached a cable which dangled from a gadget suspended from near the top of his pole. If he suffered a fall during his climb this otherwise free-wheeling cable would immediately arrest his tumble.

He also was outfitted with another harness which encircled the pole loosely. During a climb he simply relaxed his tension on this harness and with a flick of his wrists on its handles, could slide it a foot or so up the pole and, in synchronization with his boot spikes, propel himself toward the top.

Linemen know these "spikes" as gaffs.

Eric went up and down the pole like a smoothly energized monkey then offered his mom a chance to sample a climb.

She emphatically declined—but offered “Terry would like to try it.”

Can you imagine me looking at her sternly over the top of my glasses?

But, as you can see (right), my sanity escaped me and I donned Eric’s gear under his close supervision.

The climb simply involved me hugging this splinter infected pole while stabbing my spikes into the pole at a 60 degree angle, first one, then the other a little higher up, while boosting my hugging arms a similar distance in my attempted ascent.

This, all the while being sure to keep at least three of my four hands and spike-equipped feet firmly attached to the pole.

Ha.

The chances of me getting my second spike firmly imbedded in the pole while supporting myself on the first one were remote. That’s about where my sanity returned—and Sue’s amusement for the afternoon ended.

While I was being disentangled from my climbing gear Eric reminded us he had to pass a test by doing a climb at least twice as high as his pole and safely retrieve an “injured” co-worker (which could happen—some night—in the freezing winds of a howling snow storm).

Good grief.