Sliding (and landing) at Loring AFB
REMEMBER WHEN
The year after the Youth Week volleyball game, our youth pastor got together with an Air Force service member who attended our church and had youth group age children in the church as well. We asked for and received permission to take the youth to Loring Air Force Base for a fun night of skiing/tubing on the slopes at their ski chalet.
We loaded up the youth in the church bus and several cars and headed to Loring. We had also loaded a tractor tire inner tube, several truck tire inner tubes and for the smaller kiddies we had several car size tubes. An enterprising individual even remembered to bring a can of Armor All with them. For those who don’t know what good Armor All is, it is a tire cleaner that when used is almost like a grease. When sprayed on an inner tube it makes it super slick on snow.
After getting everyone to the chalet and then deciding who was going to do what, either ski or tube, we went to the tubing hill. The first few runs down the hill were uneventful and some of us got more daring as time went by. My wife and I got on the tractor tube with another couple. One of the men gave us a shove and down we went.
Before we could pick up speed the other lady and her hubby bailed off the tube and left my wife and I to go down. Now when they left the tube it began to spin making it go even faster. Towards the bottom of the hill was a jump that someone had made that was about 18 inches high, not real high by most standards, but to an Armor All-coated inner tube that was spinning — it was huge. We were going at what I would estimate to be about 25 miles an hour when we hit that jump square on. The tube went airborne. My wife and I flew off the tube and landed, she bumping her head and me hitting square on my back.
The thing is when you are thrown from one of those tubes and you hit your head on landing, as my wife did, it has a tendency to daze you. She was quite dazed. I had the wind severely knocked out of me. My system didn’t know any better and I immediately jumped to my feet. For roughly 10 minutes I walked around like a zombie as I tried to catch my breath. Luckily for me I caught it and thanked the Good Lord I was alive.
Ya know, to this day I haven’t been back on an inner tube. But then I am content to watch the “kids” and Remember When …
Guy Woodworth of Presque Isle is a 1973 graduate of Presque Isle High School and a four-year Navy veteran. He and his wife Theresa have two grown sons and five grandchildren. He may be contacted at lightning117_1999@yahoo.com.
