The Ladder Incident
by Wil Bosbyshell
I would like to preface this story by stating that as s native Floridian, I had not seen a lot of snow. But I had seen some snow. As a boy, I once spent Christmas in Philadelphia where I saw snow and got to experience sledding. As a freshman at the University of Georgia in the winter of 1980 we had a pretty good snowfall in which I played and built snowmen. However, in the winter of 1981 the snow and ice storm that I experienced in Athens, Georgia was the most snow and the most ice I had ever seen in my life.
The snow started to come down, we didn’t know what we we're in for, so everyone ran out to play. This was before the weather channel. The gentle snow became a storm, and we ran back to our dorms. It snowed all night, then the storm turned to ice. The University of Georgia's power lines came down with the crashing trees, the power went out and all our classes were cancelled. I was so sorry about this. Not really. I would like to go on record as saying that in our dorms with the power out we had absolutely no fun what-so-ever. We did our homework by flashlight and did not drink any alcohol or party in any way.
Basically, I went absolutely bat shit crazy in the snow for three days, but it was great fun. This was when young people in college had grown up playing games outside in their neighborhoods. We knew how to have a snowball fight with 1,000 people. We could organize and play capture the flag in the snow with hundreds or thousands of people.
The University of Georgia did an amazing job during the ice storm. The power was out, and class was cancelled, yet the dorms were heated, and the cafeterias were open. We had 3 meals a day in Bolton cafeteria. No one panicked, no one went home. The University buried all their power lines the next year for some reason.
Baxter Street Hill was about a quarter of a mile long with a 100 foot drop in elevation complete with several bars and grandstands for impromptu judging. In the storm the street became a solid sheet of ice…perfect for sledding! I had really never sledded seriously, and I became obsessed with sledding FAST. We began with cafeteria trays. Very unsatisfactory. We progressed to plastic shower curtains. Also unsatisfactory. Bed frames. Fun, goofy, but too slow. I really wanted to go fast. I had sledded before but not on a hill like this!
My friend David and I found an aluminum ladder at our fraternity house. We had just joined the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity that fall. We disassembled the two halves of the aluminum ladder and bent up one of the ends.
OK. This is where we made the mistake. All stories have a crisis or climax where the antagonists make… “The Mistake.” Well, this was it. And boy, was it a big one. Instead of just using the ladder as it was (aluminum is slick anyway), I sprayed it with silicone fixative. Now the ladder was really slick!
I was an art major, so I had Silicon spray in great abundance. After all, I wanted to make sure that we sled fast.
Just David and I rode the ladder on the first sled down the Hill on Baxter Street. Wow! What a ride... this was sledding! We wanted more. Each time we sledded down the hill we started farther up the hill and we added a person. After many runs, we were starting at the top of the Hill near Milledge Avenue with 10 men and one woman on the ladder.
Fortunately, David was steering the ladder on our final run (spoiler alert!). He is a much sturdier than I am. Had I been steering; I would probably be dead…broken in two. We flew past the bars on Baxter Street at incredible speed. My friend Lou, in Papa Joe’s Bar, wondered if that was indeed, her friend Wil, on the ladder that just went past. We earned all 10s from the Olympic style judges on the porch at Pappa Joe’s.
We were going down the Hill at blazing speed with eleven people on the ladder. I could see the bottom of the hill. We were legends! When, from out of nowhere, an aluminum canoe came out of a side street and slammed into our ladder! It all happened so fast. As we flew towards a brick wall, I was sure I was going to die. The last thought in my very short life was, “Were they using paddles?”
At this point in the story, when the aluminum canoe comes out of a side street and side swipes our aluminum ladder, there are people who exclaim, “You are making this up!” I tell you it is the truth, it happened. I have corresponded with the people in the canoe on Facebook. People likewise don’t believe they hit an aluminum ladder.
Its hard to escape from physics and interactions of metals. Ask anyone who has rubbed their hands along an aluminum canoe or ladder, aluminum is rough, sharp and sticky. Unless you spray it with silicone.
When the canoe hit us, my second thought was, “We’re doomed.” Due to the stickiness of the two aluminum objects colliding we became stuck together and veered wildly out of control. We were traveling pretty fast and the steering capability of the ladder was pretty minimal. My buddy, David, had two choices: point us in the direction to fly off a cliff and then slam into a large brick wall, which was the side of Mell Hall. Not the best future for everyone. Or his other option was to hit a telephone pole. He chose the telephone pole.
When I asked David what he remembered about hitting the pole, he said, “All I remember is…Ouch, that hurt.”
When we hit the pole, it became a scene from a classic three stooge’s movie where we all slammed one-at-a-time in sequence into the pole. For me, everything went black.
The next thing I remember, I was looking up to see bodies everywhere and sirens wailing in the distance. Then I remember sirens wailing closer and closer.
The casualties were pretty light that day. David had a sprained back and some of his ribs were bruised. The woman broke her arm, several people had concussions and two men broke their collar bones. It took three ambulances to take us all to the hospital and we made the front cover of the Athens Banner Herald paper the next day.
I was taken to the hospital with all my friends but was completely uninjured. They had to spend the night in the hospital, and I went on to further adventures.
At the chapter meeting of our fraternity the next week, I earned the “idiot of the week” award. I deserved it. Snow, I just love it.
