Shaggy Dog Stories

                 

Ryan is lucky to be alive!

Having completed the Grouse Grind hike a few summers ago, I was sweating, tired and starting to get cold. This iconic hill climb is a 2,800 foot steep ascent up Grouse Mountain which is a ten minute drive from our house in North Vancouver. I was eager to get on the ‘Sky Ride’ gondola and get down from the top of the hill to the car park and below. There were only about a score of people so there was no line up to get aboard. The lift has a capacity of about 100 so we all had plenty of room to stretch and enjoy the descent.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, my name is Ryan I will be your host on the downward journey, thank you for visiting Grouse Mountain, the peak of Vancouver, our ride today will take about 10 minutes to the base. Please hold on when we cross the two pylons on the way down.”

Well done, Ryan, ‘nuff said. It was a time to contemplate the view, get one’s breath back, to gently stretch stiffening limbs.  Most people were happy to remain at peace or chat quietly with their friends. But Ryan, a happy go lucky university student, started to tell a story to a youngster who had taken an interest in him.

“There was a little boy whose father asked him what he wanted for his 5^th birthday”.

And the young listener was quickly rapt because it was apparent right there and then that Ryan had a real talent as a story teller. Very quickly all of the sky riders became entranced. Roughly it went as follows:-

The boy’s father had the 5^th birthday as being a special one so he gave his son a choice.  Eric asked for a new backpack for school, filled with pink ping pong balls. His dad did not question his choice but looked at him a bit strangely. 10^th birthday came around, another special one. What did Eric want? A new tent and could his Dad put it up and fill it with pink ping pong balls? Sure and no questions asked. 16^th birthday, he wants  a Grouse Mountain ski pass,  he wants the sky ride filled with, you guessed it, pink ping pong balls. 21^st birthday comes along, mum and dad buy him a car filled with the inevitable (Are you bored or enthralled?)

 And the sky ride was halfway down the mountain and Ryan’s audience was spellbound and a pin could be heard dropping and we could hardly wait for the punchline.

 And when on his 30^th birthday, Eric set up in an apartment , he wanted it filled with pink ping pong balls. At 40, he wanted his newly built, empty swimming pool in his recently acquired house filled with the pesky things. And the Dad never ever asked and his mum was an innocent, albeit head-shaking, bystander.  When he was 50 years of age, for nostalgia’s sake, it was his favourite teacher ever,  fill up her classroom with the pink spheres. At 60 years of age, his 85 year old Dad, after a good, long happy life, was on his death bed. He asked Eric to prop him up on his pillows, where, gasping for breath, he said,

“Eric, through 55 years of birthdays, I swore that I would never ask you about your love for pink ping pong balls, but here am I dying and my last wish is to know what and why and what on earth is this thing about these bloody balls?”

It was almost too much for him and he slumped back on the pillow, gasping for breath.

“Alright, Dad, you have been such a wonderful father to me that I will tell you. The reason that I always want pink ping pong balls on my special birthdays is———–.”

Eric saw his father tense, grip the sheets and his hand tightly, and struggle for breath. He suddenly felt his father’s grip on his hand loosen and knew that he was losing his battle.

At that moment, his much loved, long lived father gasped his last breath and died.

Ryan’s story was at an end.

With almost perfect timing, the sky ride pulled into the base station. The woman standing opposite me opened her mouth to speak and shook her head in disbelief. The rest was a stunned silence. Ryan was beaming a mischievous smile. Nobody else spoke. They all looked at each other. The woman looked across at Ryan and said,

“Young man you do realise that that is ten minutes of my life I will never get back”.

Ryan smiled and thanked everybody as he opened the doors and let everybody out. There were mutterings and murmurings and brusque nods of almost thanks and a sense of arrested, but stunned, appreciation.

 And that, my friends, is why Ryan, the Grouse Mountain ski ride host, is lucky to be alive!

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I looked up the definition of ‘Shaggy Dog Stories’. Wikipedia defines them as:-

‘A shaggy dog story or yarn is an extremely long-winded anecdote characterized by extensive narration of typically irrelevant incidents and terminated by an anticlimax’.

Frightening thing is, Dear Reader, that most of us on that short ride down the hill all of that time ago, probably still remember Ryan and his shaggy dog story!

Spring is just around the corner. Stay safe.