Did you catch the story and video of the two guys destroying the rock formations at a Lake Mead Recreation Park? If not (click here). As best I can tell, the two guys have not been caught yet nor busted for their actions but the powers that be are still trying to track them down and hold them accountable for their actions.
When I saw the video and heard the story, it reminded me of a long ago incident whereby I was confronted and made to feel guilty for doing something that I shouldn’t have done in a park/nature area. Here is that story. (I hope that the statue of limitations for littering and vandalsim has run out as I make my confession here.)
My transgression took place at a place called Dan’s Rock (see video on link below photo) in Western Maryland when I was attending Frostburg State College (FSC.) Dan’s Rock is located in Alleghany County and is just a little south of Frostburg. The joke then about Frostburg was that it had 9 months of winter and three months of cold weather and is named Frostburg for good reason. (As for how someone like me, who hates cold weather, ended up there is a whole nother story for another day.)
So whenever we did get a sunny, semi-warm day in Frostburg, and could skip some classes to do so, a couple other idiots and I would ride up to Dan’s Rock. There we would get high, literally and figuratively, while drinking beer and sitting on the rocks enjoying the views from there.
One afternoon as we were doing this at Dan’s Rock, a young lady was sitting several feet away from us just relaxing and also enjoying the views when I tossed an empty beer bottle onto the rocks below us. As the bottle landed and broke, the young lady turned to me and very angrily said “That was a stupid thing to do. This place is so beautiful. How could you do something so stupid like that?”
While I did not know what to say, my idiot, drunk and high buddies immediately joined in by mimicking her and making fun of her and me by saying “Yeah man, how COULD you be so stupid? This place is soooo beautiful!” And then they too proceeded to toss their empty beer bottles over the edge to fall and break on the rocks below us.
Disgusted, the young lady got up and as she proceed by us simply said “You guys are assholes.” She headed down the steps towards the parking lot.
I immediately regretted my actions, and followed along behind her trying to apologize to her, but she very obviously didn’t want to have anything to do with me. (Note – she was not the first, nor the last female, to have ever treated me as such.) Nonetheless, I continued trying to tell her that I felt bad about it, that my friends were idiots and that I would never do anything like that again. She mumbled something, got in her car, drove off and flipped me the finger as she did so. I never saw her again.
That was 50 some years ago, and, having learned my lesson, I never again did anything similar in any park or nature center. It was not because I am a great environmentalist; but it is because I have never forgotten that young lady being so mad with me and my idiot buddies for tossing those beer bottles as we did.
Note that I did make a return visit to Dan’s Rock several months after this incident when Greg Madjeski rode with me for a disciplinary hearing that I had to attend at FSC (another story for another day.) Greg and I of course had a cooler of beer and on our way out of Frostburg, consumed a few of them while visiting Dan’s Rock. And yes, we disposed of our empties in the park’s trash can. Who says Ridge boys can’t learn new tricks? (Then again we were drinking 10 ounce cans and they were never as much fun to toss onto rocks as were bottles that would break. Jes sayin’.)
I hit the Youtube machine and found this video (below) of how Dan’s Rock appears today. Unlike when I was there years ago, it is now all graffiti’d up. It made me wonder just what my young lady friend would have to say today about all of that?
They say that good journalists inject some personal stuff in their reporting. Dan’s Rock was a good example of that. BTW, I didn’t know that “God gives good head ” Just sayin ! Regards, Norm