When the Smoke Clears

“Medic!”

“What?”

“You got here at just the right time. I need a medic,” Butterbar’s little Younger brother shouted down at me.

I had already been greeted by name by several people whom I did not know as I got out of the jeep at the 4-H camp where we were staying for the weekend. We were in the cabin in the farthest back section of the hollow, just before the baseball field with the 8 signs around the fence that read “No Shooting.” It was a very kind welcome just getting in from the long drive, made longer as I stopped to nap for a few minutes and also stopped to help some people with their car.

It was black, the bit of night sky visible in a thick scar above, surrounded mostly by the dark of the mountains rising in walls around us. I could hear the river running, echoing up the rock face. Somewhere nearby there had to be a waterfall. In this cleft of land everything smelled moist, green, clean.

I grabbed my clothes bag, pillow and medical bag. For some reason I thought to bring med supplies, even the good section with all the surgical instruments and heavy oto/opthalmoscope (that I didn’t get any gifts of replacements for this Christmas I might add).

The Younger had shaved since I saw him last year. The eyes were just about identical to his big brother’s, the voice very similar. He had recently returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand, prior to that having spent a month in Spain, all places where he was in lumberjack competitions and showcases. He’s one of the fastest woodchoppers in the world right now. Not THE fastest, but give him a few more years. He’ll be there.

“There’s something in my foot,” he told me, “been there for a few days but it’s really starting to hurt now.”

“Think it’s metal shavings from the garage?” his touring partner asked.

“Metal shavings?” I said with a raised eyebrow. Oh yeah, he makes axes, too. He gave his brother one to take to Iraq with him. When handling his axes, you do have to be very careful. They quite literally are razor sharp. Just before an event he might take a whetstone to his axe and make a few swipes, then runs the axe along his leg, shaving a perfect strip down to the skin, the hair jumping off like fleas.

So we talked, we caught up as he lay there, me checking out his foot then pulling out the forceps and other equipment. Whatever it was was well buried. Surface level picking was not getting anywhere so I pulled out a fresh scalpel. His friends came in the room and moved in closely, silent. The Younger and I kept on with our conversation while a few minutes later I was pulling out strips of wood, not metal, small, but disintegrating.

“Holy crap,” one friend said, “That must have hurt.”

“What?” he asked. “I didn’t feel anything. What did he do?”

“The guy took a knife to the bottom of your foot.”

“Nope. Didn’t feel a thing. Actually it all feels a lot better now. He’s good.”

I smiled with a bit of pride. I like helping, especially without pain.

Eventually we all fell asleep in the big cabin, awakening early the next morning before the sunlight. The Younger and I got up, showered, dressed and out the door before their friends made it out of bed. We went to town to the greasy spoon on the corner for breakfast, where you can get your eggs any way you like so long as they are fried and flat. Even an omelet was essentially scrambled eggs, folded, with some filler in there.

But it was filling. The biscuits… well, they weren’t southern. Someone had microwaved them. I forgive, but I didn’t eat beyond the second bite. Birds started going wild in the morning air along the riversides. The place for the competition is on an island formed from a split in the river. Away from the stage in an open field food vendors arrived, starting up their garish carnival carts all promising enticing treats from funnel cakes to butterfly fries to chinese food. Everything required a deep fryer I think. Everyone also promised fresh lemonade but I never saw anyone squeezing a single lemon.

The town, Webster Springs, is a poor mountain community with a population of less than 1000, like a lot of places hidden in West Virginia, and yet I think of West Virginia as one of, if not the, prettiest states in the union. I met people who reminded me of some of the folks from my mountain town, though mine is becoming far more connected and resort-like over the years. But the town is unique in that it is host to the World Championship Woodchopping Festival.

Actually, the name of the town is really Addison, but when the Post Office was built in the 1800s, the name “Webster Springs” was carved into the wall and so that’s what people called it.

The women, even the youngest teenagers, though, did seem a little… eager? as if something instinctive were welling up inside them, “Fresh DNA… fresh DNA…”

The day of competition started out with fine saw cuts and axethrowing. In that time I was able to meet and talk with a number of the “big names” in the world of Timber Sports. Okay, so it’s not as big a deal as, say, UFC contenders, but still. These are men and women of great skill. And I’d much rather take a beating from Chuck Liddell than take on one of these guys with an axe considering what they can do to a tree.

As always, even with the competitive nature and the money on the line, these men and women were the epitome of sportsmanship, helping each other, encouraging each other, and accepting compliments with grace.

I tried to serve as an assistant to the Younger, was there on hand to haul stuff, not that he wasn’t much stronger and could haul stuff better, but hey, it gave me the chance to be a part of it all. He was patient with me, introducing me to the others on the tour as his friend, not just his brother’s friend. While on the stage helping him get set up and marked, he would explain to me the choice of where to chop based on what he saw of the wood, how he would mark a log to guide him, how he would lock the log into place to make sure it held well.

Always when a competitor was having problems and everyone else in his heat had already finished, the rest of the competitors stood by, encouraging, the crowd cheering him on, no one letting him think it was time to quit. Anyone could compete in the initial rounds, and there are even handicapped rounds, which led to one of my favorite moments:

During the underhand chop a new lumberjack decided to join in, competing against people who hold world records in this sport. While he had a 20 second head-start, the others on the stage alongside him completed, their logs split before he was even halfway done. He kept on.

At age 12 he kept right on swinging his axe, the crowd cheering him, two of the champions standing nearby, coaching him along. “Bite cut high. Now middle. Now low. That’s it. Another low. Left side low. Now high.”

No one raised the question about whether to go ahead with the competition while the boy hacked away at his log, the axe wearing him down. No one prepped their own stations for the next round, everyone watching and encouraging, the announcer calling for more clapping, more cheers. The round that should normally take 60 seconds at the most continued for 7 minutes as the boy finished. And he did finish, hands blistered from squeezing too tightly, arms barely able to lift up. He wanted to compete. He came in last but he shared the stage with the best of the sport, and he never quit.

That night after dinner we stopped to talk with some of the older legends of timber sports, sitting in a motel parking lot/patio in old plastic lounge chairs. I heard stories of the old tours of Australia, of the many times one of them was on with Johnny Carson, both on “Who Do You Trust” and on “The Tonight Show.”

“At first he kept wanting me to knock a cigarette out of his mouth from about 10 feet throwing an axe, and I would tell him no way. You never know when your throw might be that one time it goes off and that would be bad,” he recalled. “Then one night I was on with me first, then Lauren Bacall [he had my full attention but didn't get to talk with her much] then some singer. We were talking before the show and I asked, ‘You still want me to do that cigarette thing?’ Johnny said, “You know, that was then. I’m making a few million a year now. I don’t have to do stupid stuff like that anymore, but thanks, buddy.”

Later, after the first day of competition was the promise of a concert. A band set up on the stage in front of everyone. There was no private soundcheck. They seemed to have a really hot assistant helping with the setup. Turned out she was one of the two singers. We were all pretty exhausted and figured we’d head on back, but wanted to hear how bad the music would be.

The band played… competently, starting up, then the hot chick broke into a song I had never heard before but DANG. The lady had chops. She sounded incredible and it was a great song. Unfortunately, the other “singer” on the stage, a cowboy version of late-staged, lounge-singing Elvis came on out. He grabbed his wireless mic and walked the bleachers through the audience, singing one song after another, as the hot lady stood on stage, not doing much of anything.

“We’ll stick around until she sings at least once more,” the Younger offered. We did. As the chords started up, I couldn’t resist… just could not resist…

We left right after, with a quick stop for some beer and rum on the way back to a good night’s sleep.

A great day with another one the next morning.

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