Crushing It

The door was closing.

All I could do was watch it happen.

As my wife and I watched our daughter-in-law close her grandmother’s automatic garage door, the moment flashed into my mind. Something that I had not thought about in years.

To tangent for a moment, while providing background—something I found myself doing more and more lately… Is this an old person thing? I’m tangenting my tangent. Sorry.

To tangent for a moment, while providing background, very recently my wife and I, as well as my youngest daughter and oldest son, found ourselves needing to clean out the residence where my nephew had been living. This is important for two reasons: Indiana Jones.

I know that’s a name; however, Indiana Jones is worthy of being counted twice. Once for Indiana. And twice for Jones. Still, if you don’t agree, fine. Get over yourself. Or, let me connect it this way: I have a fondness for the part-time teacher. Additionally, my nephew has a soft spot for the adventure-archaeologist.

Ever since those movies came out, I wanted the whip, the hat, and the adventure. At some point, I got the whip. Years later, at Disneyland, I got the hats (yes, you read that correctly). Remember, Indiana Jones is best known for his brown fedora. However, at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark, he is wearing a blue suit with a grey fedora. I bought one of each—for similar reasons. Eventually, I would add a nice brown oilskin jacket to help complete the collection. The adventures have been off and on for years, ever since.

Now, before any of you try to tell me that his is a leather jacket, let me point out a couple things. First, in The Last Crusade, a young Indiana models his outfit off another individual, but does not copy it exactly. I’m doing the same thing: Modeling off of. Second, I can’t afford a leather jacket. So, there ya’ go.

Let’s see, where was I…? Oh yes, my two reasons. One was me and my love for Indiana Jones, and the other was my nephew. When he was young, he became enamored with Dr. Jones (and who wouldn’t?). One Christmas, many years ago, I sent him my old brown fedora (mentioned above) and a satchel. He wore out that hat and satchel. His mother (my sister) told me that the boy insisted on sleeping in the hat for many nights. He wanted to do the same with the satchel, but she had to almost yell at him that it was a choking hazard before he would give it up for the nighttime. Bless that kid’s soul. Good kid, that.

One night, I got a text message with a picture of my nephew wearing a brown fedora. My first thought was “Why…?” So, he’s wearing a brown fedora. Why send me a picture? We all know he likes Indiana Jones. I do too. What’s the big deal? The big deal was that it was an Indiana Jones fedora. My sister and her family were visiting a guy who worked in the film industry, and my nephew was wearing an actual fedora that Harrison Ford had worn in one of the Indiana Jones movies. Yeah. A little jealous? You should be. That was over ten years ago, and I still am, so…

At any rate, as my family spent hours cleaning and picking things up, the number of Indiana Jones-related paraphernalia was almost too astounding for words. We even found my now very old, very beaten-up fedora that I had given him all those years ago. The kid and I share a love for a thing: Indiana Jones. Now, what’s this got to do with the electric garage door? Well, it all started…

Almost forty years ago, I was living in a nice house in Billings, Montana. That home had an electric garage door. Today, an electric garage door is quite common. Back then, not so much. It was more of a novelty, and as such, my friends and I took advantage of it.

On the inside, near the bottom, there was that long metal lip that could be used to lift the door, in lieu of power failure, or whatever. Often, we would grab some of our G.I. Joe’s or Star Wars action figures and place them on that ledge, press the garage door button, then wait. We would wait to see who would be left standing. The vibration would often cause the troopers to tumble well before we wanted them to. Sometimes, the figures would remain for a few feet before gravity proved the winner. It was always good fun.

For a brief time, there were cases and cases of soda stacked in our garage. One day, while my buddies and I were sharing and drinking a few cans of Shasta, one of us got the idea to put a can of soda on the lip of the garage door and press the button. Brilliant. So, we did. The door went up. The can stayed for quite some time. Several feet up, it eventually fell. Pretty cool.

But it was empty. What we needed was a can with something in it. Over the next hour or so, we spent the time trying all manner of fluid levels in our cans. We used our cans over and over until they weren’t structurally sound anymore. Then came the best idea, “What about a new can?” The best idea ever. That can went up. Gravity and physics conspired to win, and did. Then, that compressed carbonated concoction contrived to coat everything in a sugary, sticky mess upon impact. Glorious.

Now, what do the two things have to do with each other? What does Indiana Jones and an electric garage door have to do with each other? Simple: Movie scene reenactment.

There is a scene in the Raiders of the Lost Ark, where Indy is trying to escape the ancient temple, and there is a door sliding down from the ceiling, about to trap him inside said temple. At the last possible second, Dr. Jones rolls under it and escapes, cementing in our minds just how awesome this hero is. Audiences were flabbergasted (it’s a word). Really.

Like with the soda can, someone had the idea. And like the soda can, the rest of us decided that it was a good one. Every so often, my buddies and I would spend time raising the garage door and then pressing the down button, watching its very slow descent, then, at the last possible second, we would roll to safety from the dark and spooky temple (my garage) to freedom (the outdoors, or more specifically, my driveway)! As I already mentioned, this was not an everyday occurrence. This just happened once a week, or once every two weeks. It was occasional. We would even do slow-motion by waiting until the garage door was still high up, then slow-mo run for the closing crack, then we would tumble and dive for the last chance to escape, all while ‘screaming’ in slow-motion, “No-o-o-o-o-o…” Good times. Then, one day, someone upped the ante.

Just getting under the descending door wasn’t good enough. Eventually, it became a case of who could do it with the smallest clearance. We became emboldened and gutsy. Sometimes barely getting by, while other times becoming trapped inside the bowels of the ‘temple’. For safety reasons (I’ve always been a big fan of safety), we would usually have one of us remain by the control box of the electric garage door, so that if anything went wrong, we could press the stop button and well, stop it.

This particular day, we were all getting bolder and bolder. We had a measuring stick set up to see just how close we were getting to almost getting ‘crushed’ by the temple’s ‘stone door’. I was not going to be outdone. My buddies seemed to keep getting a ‘closer call’ than I was, and I was not having it. I was going to show them what I was made of—and I did.

As the door descended, I waited. My buddies had already gone. I waited. They were calling for me to hurry and go before it was too late. I waited. They didn’t think I could do it. I waited. At the last second, as they were beginning to tell me that, “There’s no way you’re gonna make it.”, I bolted. I hit the cement hard and rolled. I would have made a new record, except something went wrong.

For whatever reason, as I rolled, my body did not do my usual straight-line roll. It did what a cone would do and twisted as it rolled. Now, many of you might be thinking, “Duh. Body shape.” And, yes, to that well-deserved ‘Duh’. However, I had done this activity countless times. I knew how to tuck my body to make it less conical and more cylindrical to avoid such problems. Or, so I thought. The one time training-reflex didn’t kick in…

My shoulders and torso were free. My legs were not. The door came down perfectly. My legs were positioned perfectly. My knees were stacked perfectly. I was stuck. Perfectly.

The timing could not have been better—or worse. Just as my knees aligned upon each other, the door pinned them. In a perfect vertical line, it was the cement, my left knee, my right knee, the metal frame of the garage door, followed by immense pressure. I couldn’t believe it.

Instantly, I began to scream. My friends began to scream. Panic set in like nothing I could have imagined. The closest I have ever come to that level of fear and terror was the day my youngest was born, and the complications suggested that either my daughter or my wife might die, or both of them. Fortunately, everything was fine on that birthday. However, on that summer day, with my knees being crushed, I was certain I was about to become a double amputee.

I was screaming in pain, and for someone to shut off the door. My friends were screaming to shut off the door. Unfortunately, panic was winning, and the two of them just ran around in circles, not knowing what to do. Eventually, one of them realized that if they could just get to the button, all would be well. Meanwhile, the pain just kept amplifying. I figured that if a person was ever hurt, that you were just hurt (I know what I wrote). Like, when you hit your finger with a hammer, the pain doesn’t come back or get worse. It just hurts. So, imagine my surprise to learn—first hand—that as the electric garage door continued to press down upon my knees, that the pain increased. It just kept increasing.

It was an odd sensation. It was as though the pain were being slowly, methodically, spread throughout my joints and bones, like peanut butter on a bit of bread. It just moved outward without end. Almost as if the garage door was a syringe of pain, and each passing moment allowed it to inject me with more of the awful serum. I couldn’t take much more.

Finally, I heard one of my compatriots call out, “We’re in!” They had gotten inside my house, into the garage, and were about to press the button.

Elation filled me. “Hurry up and press it!” I demanded.

“We already did.” They responded. “Three times.” Yet, the door was not going back up. For whatever reason, the downward-moving door was not going to relent. I was done for. Whatever hope I had had was now crushed, just like my knees were slowly being. The tears were streaming down my face. How could I have been so stupid? Why did I have to win at all costs? The pain I was feeling was intensely physical, as well as emotional and spiritual. My life—as I knew it—was about to be over.

Suddenly, and without warning, the door reversed itself. The pressure relented, and the door began to rise. As it lifted, I saw my friends just standing there, tears on their faces, hands at their sides. They had not pressed the button.

There will be many who will say, “It was the built-in safety.” Sure, you can say that. I now know—as an adult—that electric garage doors have a safety feature that is intended to kick in so as not to crush a person. But, to you, I would say, “It wasn’t the safety.” That whole incident felt like an eternity, though it was probably only minutes. And, while there may have been a safety, this was the ‘80s. What was safety back then is not the level of safety we appreciate now. So, again, I say, “It wasn’t the safety.”

I don’t know why God does what He does when He does it. All I know is that He has been there for me time and time again. Over the years, adventure has called, many times. I have done, many times. God has saved me, many times. Looking back, I’m sure that moment under the garage door has supplemented my knee joint issues. However, I know that God is in the details of our lives and, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage.”