When I was a kid, my family used to camp at Lincoln Boyhood State Park in southern Indiana. I looked forward to these excursions for one reason: Angie F, who camped with her family at the state park too.
Meeting Angie F marked the moment I first discovered girls.
Angie F and I were in the same grade. She lived an hour from Tell City.
We wrote letters to each other during the school months when our campers were mothballed. How I loved finding letters from Angie F in our mailbox.
There was nothing more exotic in my late boyhood than Angie F. Suddenly, camping took on a whole new meaning. It did not mean campfires and hotdogs. It did not mean swimming and fishing. It meant one thing: seeing Angie F (even if only in the form of a fleeting glimpse of her, similar to a random Big Foot sighting). The older, muscled, blonde lifeguards took a shine to her, too.
I didn’t have a prayer, but oh, that didn’t keep me from hearing the heavenly angels singing her name.
Enter Lincoln’s dreaded fire tower, a steel structure standing 120 feet tall on the other side of the lake. I avoided the tower like the plague. I hated heights.
Photo provided by Scott Saalman
Imagine my dismay when, after hiking halfway around the lake with Angie F and her girlfriends – no I wasn’t stalking them; I was invited – the girls chose to break from the main path and take an uphill trail leading to the fire tower. They were excited about their prospective climb to the tower’s top.
At the top of the hill, I stared straight up. Six flights of steps zig zagged skyward within the structure’s shaky, metal framework, a small platform atop each section, as if serving as a base camp for climbers to pause in their ascension and adjust to thinner air. Remember the three words famous adventurer George Mallory said when the New York Times asked him why he wanted to climb Mt. Everest? That’s right. He said, “Because it’s there.” Well, one look at the Lincoln Boyhood State Park tower of terror and he probably would’ve said, “It’s there alright, but I’m not climbing that rickety damn thing.”
Photo provided by Scott Saalman
From the ground, I watched Angie F and her friends make their noisy ascension to the final flight of shaky steps and then disappear one by one into the observation deck at the top. They poked their heads out the windows and stared down at me staring up at them. Their distant, shrill voices eventually reached into my hearing: “C’mon up!” I pretended not to hear. Feigned a shoe tie. I secretly hoped one of the girls would accidentally fall out, justifying my cowardice. I wouldn’t even try to catch them … well … unless it was Angie F.
When the girls returned safely to earth, Angie F seemed more than a bit distant to me. I felt ashamed for my cowardly display. I vowed to myself then and there that I would not chicken out should I be given another chance to climb the fire tower with Angie F. I was desperate for redemption.
Sadly, though, our families never ended up at Lincoln at the same time after that. Angie F and I lost touch. The letters stopped arriving, as if the country was experiencing a postage stamp shortage. We never reconnected. Damn fire tower.
But, alas, I returned to the fire tower in 2017 (40 years later), this time with a new girl in the early stages of our courtship. Brynne Beason was her name. I actually coaxed enough courage to climb the tower with her, even taking the lead. I was a middle-aged man with something to prove. I did not want to lose Brynne Beason. If I fell off the tower, so be it!
Photo provided by Scott Saalman
At the top, I reached for Brynne and helped her up onto the observation deck. The brisk breeze above the treetops felt divine. Gorgeous greenery and “Simpsons” blue sky stretched for miles via my bird’s-eye view of southern Indiana.
Redemption at 120 feet.
It took four decades to reach the top.
Brynne Beason and I kissed.
The tower swayed gently, dreamily.
Brynne Beason is Brynne Saalman now.
Heaven.
Contact Scott at scottsaalman@gmail.com.