the caveman olympics

Many moons ago, when I was working in Yosemite, Me and the most excellent group of miscreants I used to hang out with used to engage in all manner of wonderful activities. One such activity was dropping acid and going for midnight hikes through this vast and surreal valley on full moon nights. The moon light would light up this valley fairly well and there would be a jumble of crazy silhouettes and half lit up trees. There was a river that ran right through the center of it and at some point, crossing the river was a wooden bridge with mini log wooden railings. The whole scene was movie beautiful. At some half baked juncture we were crossing that bridge and my friend Rich had picked up a thick stick, and somewhere around the middle he took this stick and struck the railing and it made an amazing hollow thump sound as it echoed through this valley reverberating like an explosion in a bell jar. We were all like, do that again! So he started thumping it in cadence like a row master beating a drum in a galley. It was incredibly incredible (yes the redundancy was necessary), it brought us back to primitive days and put us into some kind of Neanderthal trance which was broken when I suggested that we all go find sticks and play that bridge like a drum. Every one thought this was a good idea, so we went off in search of sticks. I believe there were six of us that night. We were down on the bank of the river on our stick search when I came across a dead tree about 20' tall right on the bank of the river. I was screwing off (as usual) and I gave a great primal shout which of course echoed through the valley and everyone was looking over at me so I took a couple of steps towards the tree in the manner of what I imagined looked like a cartoon cave man and gave the tree a swift kick with the toe of my boot. Unexpectedly the whole tree slowly ripped free of the bank and fell into the mighty flowing river. The whole scene looked so ridiculous and unlikely (plus don't forget, we were frying on acid) that we all just started laughing so hard that we laughed until tears were streaming down our faces. All the while My friends were like "dude, you seriously are like a fricken cave man", which spurned on more caveman jokes, which begot more laughing. Then my friend tom came up with the idea "we should host the caveman olympics" It was born! I said "but what about the bridge?" and someone said "opening ceremony". So we all went back over to the bridge and we all chose a place and then tom yelled into the valley welcome! (echo echo echo)...to the caveman (echo echo echo)...ooolym-pics!! (echo echo echo), which I punctuated by giving two stirkes in quick succession to the rail BOOM BOOM (echo echo echo) . One of us then started a very cool primitive beat and the rest of us joined in one at a time. Another amazing discovery, striking different places on the bridge made different sounds, so every drum beat sounded unique. when I was younger I played drums in the school band and later in a couple of punk bands, so I was a pretty good drummer and so was tom who was mostly a flute player but had some drumming in his background. So me and him did the more complicated beats, but every one seemed to be able to keep rhythm. Yosemite was full of the musically inclined. My point is, this was an awesome primitive tribal beat that could have easily been in the jungles of deepest darkest Africa my friend, and the massive reverb as it echoed through the valley was indescribable. It sounded so surreal and hypnotic that we got into a serious groove that lasted at least twenty minutes. Although we were a fair stint away from the campgrounds and lodges, I imagined that all of the people staying in Yosemite that night stayed up on guard because the great drums penetrating the night in the distance were a sure indication that the natives were restless. When we finally stopped Tom yelled "let the games begin!!" We walked back down to where we were and we made up events as we went along. There was one standing rule, you had to grunt/yell like a caveman with each exertion. We had the boulder toss, where we tossed the biggest rocks we could into the river to see who could make the biggest splash. we had the stick throw to see who could chuck a stick the farthest, we had the rock kicking championships....and a couple of other events I'm hard pressed to remember. oh yeah the "this rock to that tree" foot race and....At any rate it was oodles of fun, mucho laughs, lots of grunting, kicking, crass moving about and caveman sign language and caveman speak and good times were had by all. Oh yeah, we also tried to kick some more dead trees over, but the trees weren't having it, they thwarted us at every kick. We declared the America's caveman team the winners and awarded ourselves the highest medal you can receive at the cave man olympics...rocks! It was a proud night for cavemen americans everywhere, we rocked the crust that night. This was all about 18 years ago???? maybe...plus I was whacked, so I don't necessarily remember all of the details, but you get the picture. If anyone happens to read this that was actually part of the cave man Olympics feel free to add details and by all means contact me. In retrospect I feel lucky we didn't get attacked and or eaten by bears on one of those late night hikes of which there were many. Yosemite is full of bears. that would have been a very bad trip. What can I say, I was young and foolish...now I'm old and foolish. If you knew some of the things I am planning right now, you very well might admonish me if you had any school marm in ya at all. What can I say, I am a gloriously defunct human being. I could be part alien....seriously.