Don’t awaken sleeping giants.
AKA - Pay attention to your surroundings.
This is something I learned many years ago, but continue learning daily. Two instances in particular come to mind.
I have been in many cities across the US, and when in them in enjoy taking long walks, miles long, entire days of just tromping around looking at my surroundings and the different environs I find myself in, the world of those people who live there. For a man who has spent most of his life in rural places, particularly Alaska where you can hike for days without seeing another human being, hiking in a city is extremely interesting, seeing the different surroundings, the different people and their local cultures and dialects. I particularly enjoy listening to the ambient sounds of the place I am at. But when I am doing a walk about a city like Atlanta, or Chicago, San Diego, or New York City I am always alert, on edge even, as I know the places I tend to prefer walking through often do not have high grades for security and safety. Only a few times did I find myself at the edge of a violent encounter that I did not anticipate, and always managed to extract myself before things got out of hand. The fact that I have never been mugged I would say is primarily due to situational awareness and the fact that I do not want to get into a place where I will need to spend time in a police station. And so, even when there were near misses, I always came back in one piece with no bruises or extra holes.
But back home twice death was near upon me unawares. But in those cases it was a death of claws and hooves rather than junkies and hoodlums. Both times it was because I was relaxed in my home environs, traipsing blithely down a trail listening to the sound of my footsteps and letting my mind wander far.
The first time was way back in 1987, I know that was a very long time ago. Walking to work as a prep-cook at the local Sizzler Restaurant in Fairbanks Alaska, down the suburban* street where I lived with my father, I was listening to the crunch of my feet on the snow, looking down to watch the steam from my breath crystalize in the -30f air, when a sudden puff of steam erupted from the side of a large spruce tree inches from my face. The moisture froze on my skin in the frigid air and odour of animal breath embedded in my nostrils. My eyes popped to the right and instantly locked onto the eyes of a large bull moose on the opposite side of the tree. As he became aware that a human was less than four feet away his hackles rose and his ears lay back tight against his head. He immediately knew he did not like me, that he did not want to be my friend. I immediately knew I had a very good chance of being stomped to death. My heart stopped beating. The breath froze in my chest. My pace increased all on its own. The moose gave a threatening grunt and a huff. Another puff of steamy breath and I took off like one of those funny looking walk racers, not wanting to actually sprint away as that might inspire him to chas. Lucky for both of us there was a short wooden fence, while it was only four or five feet high it was definitely not too high for him to jump, and the spruce needles he was eating were a very good vintage. He gave a half hearted feint at me, then as I continued hoofing it he returned to his standing salad.
Now that may not sound so dangerous right? I mean there was a wall of sorts between us, and the moose knew it had a delicious feast in front of it, plus I could, and did, keep walking without looking back again. But what most folks miss is the fact such interractions, when they turn violent do so in crazy beast time. Which is to say no human can really be ready when a two thousand pound monster with five foot wide antlers covered in pointy tines of bone that can shred flesh, and hooves that can stomp a person into something resembling chunky salsa in handful of heartbeats decides it needs to take the path of agression. Yeah, that moose did not charge me, he did not jump over the fence and chase me down like others of his kind had done to other mindless pedestrians before me, but if he had done those things, you’d not be reading this story, because I would be high protein salsa on the snowy streets of Fairbanks.
Lesson learned: Keep you head up and you eyes open.
I did say there were two of these instances, but will describe the next one in the next post.
*In Alaska suburban usually just means wilderness with houses, the wildlife mostly still consider themselves the primary occupants and us humans merely easy food sources
