When my father was about 43 and we were living in Arizona he made one of his “less mature” decisions.  We always teased my father for doing some crazy things sometimes; he kind of never grew up.  Every now and then his little boy self would just show up and it usually led him into some sort of trouble.  It would seem that this might have been one of those times.

Dad and his partner Billy had been out in the desert on patrol for several days and had gotten bored, after all there is only so much one can do out in the desert.  They found various ways to pass the time and had exhausted their normal list so they tried to find some new ways to pass the time.  They apparently had driven to the top of a hill with a cliff overlooking the area they were watching for the drug runners to come through.  As they sat watching they got into a “boyish” discussion of “how close to the edge of the cliff do you think I can get without going over?”  Of course since my father was driving you can guess whose brilliant idea this was.  The idea was set into motion, literally (I am shaking my head as I am typing this).

Dad would inch the jeep forward and his partner Billy would get out and check to see how close he was to the edge of the cliff and then remark how much farther he had to go.  Then, showing his faith in my fathers’ ability would get back into the jeep and dad would then move forward again.  This continued multiple times until even my father would get out and check to see how much farther he thought he could go.  The visual in my head as I type this still makes me shake it.  I still cannot understand two grown men going through this process. 

Well… eventually, as you can imagine, he went just that one little hair too far.  He and his partner Billy went over the cliff.  Did I mention that it was a fairly high cliff and that the jeep went end over end?  Thankfully the jeep had a roll bar and they HAD buckled in for those last few forward movements (does that give you a clue?).  Dad or Billy, I really don’t know who, radioed in and had to be picked up and taken to the hospital.  Billy had a gash across his forehead that required stitches and dad had some pretty good cuts and bruises.  My only comment was, “I guess you lost”.  My thought was, why didn’t he stop before he got that far?  I never did understand, to be truthful sometimes my father told ridiculous stories to cover up scary things that happened so we wouldn’t be afraid.  For all I know he may have been pushed off the cliff by the very people he was patrolling.