Oh the Glory of It All by Wilsey Sean

Author:Wilsey, Sean [Wilsey, Sean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2006-04-25T00:00:00+00:00

AS SOON AS Dad’s car was out of sight I ditched around the side of the NOLS building, crossed the concrete apron of the boar service station, and hid behind a Dumpster until I was sure he was a mile or two down the highway. There was still no sign of any NOLS personnel. I never thought the plan would go this well. I knew I’d better move fast. I ran up to the road, stuck out a thumb, and was picked up immediately by a young guy in a Subaru station wagon who said he’d take me as far as someplace that was about halfway. He let me bum a cigarette off him.

After he dropped me off I stood on the road for about twenty minutes failing to flag down anyone else. I was still fifty miles away, and I began to worry that I might miss the next flight out and not be able to make it to San Francisco. But eventually a car stopped: a couple in their seventies. I endeavored to be my most charming, and after about twenty minutes the wife told the skeptical husband that she thought they should drive me straight to the airport. I told them that I was going to my sister’s wedding in Napa, California, and she was all the family I had besides my sick aunt with no car out here in Wyoming. At the airport the woman gave me their number and told me to call them collect when I made it, so they’d know I was safe.

“Have fun at the wedding,” her husband said.

“What?!” I said. “Oh! Yeah. Thanks! I will.”

I leaped out of the car and went to the ticket counter, where I was told that there was availability on the next flight to Denver, with a connection to San Francisco, and that I’d be able to use my ticket, with no extra charge. It was arranged with ease. Then I got several dollars worth of quarters, found a pay phone, got the number for NOLS from information, and called it, and when someone said, “Hello?” delivered the following speech, in a long uninterrupted rush (while pumping quarters into the phone to stay ahead of the charges):

“Hello yes I’m calling in regard to Sean Wilsey who was to be arriving today for your six-week Wind River Range survival course—I’m his father, Mr. Wilsey’s, secretary—and I say ‘was’—‘was to be arriving’—because I’m afraid there’s been an unfortunate mishap: he’s broken his leg in three places skateboarding [it made me cringe to say the word “skateboarding,” since, like Thrasher magazine, I always called skateboarding “skating”], and so, obviously, he will be unable to attend the program, which he was so looking forward to, and is terribly disappointed about, but there’s really no choice, since this is a major break and will require a lengthy convalescence…recuperation…and obviously he can’t participate in the program [it was right about here that I realized winging it was not exactly the best move,

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