PART XII
To say Short Skirt Sue had a thing for tree climbers would be like saying the sky is blue. It was an inherent established fact, beyond dispute. And to state the inverse, that climbers had a thing for Sue, would be equally axiomatic. But it was not just any climber Sue would set her sights on. She had a special place in her heart, and in her loins, for climbers who did the “really big ones,” as she so eloquently put it.
Sue would not have been classified as a possessor of a beautiful body by any known standard or stretch of the imagination, nor would her face have caused a country to launch a single ship, let alone a thousand like Greece had done over Helen of Troy. Rather she was one of those rare women who possess indefinable qualities that can make a man mortgage his Malibu beach house, even if he didn’t own one. It was something in the way she walked and the way she brushed her long dark-brown hair from her face. It was something that lingered in the spaces between her words when she asked about your day while taking off your climbing boots after nine hours of bombing wood. And it was something in her finger tips when she massaged you from shoulders to feet, not missing any part of your anatomy.
Guido had met Sue in 1977 while working in the hills outside the town of Sonoma, up in Jack London country. He was in the process of wrecking a big blue gum. The tree was in a field about thirty feet behind a barn, and any tree man worth his spurs could have wrecked that tree without lowering a stick.
The bottom half of the tree had been limbed out the day before, when after tying in at a strong crotch eighty-five feet up, Guido had limb walked the lower branches: taking them in two or three pieces; making compression cuts so pieces fell flat; and leaving the stubs small, just beyond the wide collars, so as to avoid chunks bouncing off the stubs when he began to chunk the tree down the following day. All the brush and wood were staying, so Guido ended his first day nicking up limbs and clearing a space so he could do it all over again in the morning.
Doing solo big takedowns can be a tricky thing. There’s always the possibility, especially with eucs--and with some native hardwoods as well--of jamming your saw in the undercut, and also on the top cut due to euc limbs “rolling” when breaking off due to their spiral grain. Because of the extra weight of euc gum, undercuts have a habit of closing quickly, so shallower undercuts need to be made or else small face cuts. And with top cuts on large branches, sometimes it’s smart to side cut a couple of inches to limit the amount of “roll.” Getting a saw jammed in an undercut fifty feet up can be a b**ch even when you have a groundie to send up another saw. Having to leave your saw tied off to the tree while you descend to get another, then roping back up and limb walking out to the jam is a whole litter of b**ches.
Guido had done enough blue gums to avoid saw jams. But no matter how good a climber he or anyone else tells you they are, having a piece of wood flop back on your climbing line is as much a part of the job as putting on your boots in the morning. That is unless a climber uses fancy equipment and keeps his rope in coils while carrying it with him. But Guido didn’t climb that way.
But back to how Guido met Sue…
She rented a small apartment in the converted barn and had been watching Guido work his way through the euc. Guido had been watching her watching him, and like any good showman, he was inspired to make sure his audience enjoyed the show, even if the audience thought the price of admission was free, which it rarely is. Rather than use his flip line to ascend, Guido was body thrusting up his climbing line, making sure his exaggerated hip thrusts were clearly visible to Sue. Once he had the euc limbed out, Guido started flopping pieces to the ground, using Humboldt cuts so the wood hit flat and made a big “whop” when contacting the ground. He would flick his 056 off with his left thumb, swing the saw with his left hand back to his ladder snap on his left hip, clip the saw in with his right hand from behind his back, then push the piece over deftly with the palm of his left hand--doing it with all the flair and flourish of a marching band leader twirling one of those big batons.
About halfway down the trunk, after an especially loud “whop” on the ground, Guido over cut the next Humboldt and the piece of euc rotated a quarter turn more than usual, hitting an adjacent log and flipping backward on to his climbing rope, burying it in the dirt between two roots. His climbing rope thoroughly jammed despite all exertions to loosen it, Guido would have to spike down the tree to free his rope. Sue let him flip down the trunk ten feet or so before she opened her window and shouted, “Hey tree man, looks like you got your panties tied in a knot. Need any help?”
And that’s how Guido met Sue.
opcorn:
