“Bruce likes to terrify himself.” So began a story years ago in Success magazine.
One day Bruce led some friends 9,000 feet up Mount Hood, and decided to show them how much fun it would be to slide down part of the way. While zipping down an ice field at 30 miles an hour, Bruce suddenly realized he had forgotten to remove his crampons – the spikes that attach to hiking boots. His feet were useless as brakes.
Uh oh.
Bruce had the presence of mind to realize that jabbing the spikes at the ice whizzing past him wouldn’t work either – that would risk breaking his ankles and hurtling off the side of the mountain. So as the edge of the cliff came rapidly into view, Bruce flopped over on his stomach and jabbed repeatedly, frantically, with his ice axe. He finally came to a halt about 50 feet from the edge of the cliff. He later said that the thing that kept running through his mind as he got closer and closer to the edge was, “Boy, this is a stupid way to die.”
Uh huh.
Oh, and just a thought – if it’s a stupid way to die, then maybe it’s a stupid way to live. But hey, that’s just me.
I don’t know if Bruce ever went ice surfing again. And for all I know, he may be the ultimate LifeVestor. But on this day, he was a gambler.
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