Cliff diving!

Great is the excitement to stand upon a precipice, either drunk from the immortality of youth or later in life, beer, and climbing ever so higher to jump into waters deep and green. Some of these cliffs are found in the limestone strata throughout Texas and Arkansas (my first!), and then the common everyday rock or gravel pit that permeates the lands of North Texas across the Blackland Prairie. My first memory as a daredevil youth was cliff diving while camping on the shores of Lake Ouachita in the Ozarks of Arkansas.

My extended family would go off on summer campouts, with  paternal aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to different parts of the south in my early youth. As eldest child of my siblings I was able to go on this trip to Arkansas delights at the adventurous age of 12.

Deeply wooded hills, with clear and cold streams wend their way throughout these Ozark Hills all coming into the deep impoundment of Lake Ouachita. The water in this lake is a dark emerald, but not exceedingly clear due to the limestone from which it bubbles up out of. There was plenty of swimming, fishing, both in out of boats and hours of hiking throughout the forest that adjoined our campground.

As a child I was always something of  a loner,  and fairly secure in my sense of direction. I would easily wander off on foot exploring and usually find something quite intriguing. On this one exploration I came upon a group of kids with parents in attendance that were doing some jumping off of cliffs into the lake. Now as I have stated before, I was born of water and grew into an avid aquaphile early in my childhood. This looked really exciting and I was ready to get in the game.

In no time at all I was climbing up and jumping back in repeatedly from that cliff with all the others in attendance. As I had a lot of experience with diving boards, even at this early age, I was doing dives and experimenting with a few flips. All the fun came to quick halt when I landed on my back with what I will call a back flop. You know, one of those landings where you knock the wind out of yourself and your back feels like you got a "pink belly" by the whole football team.

One other memory of cliff diving needs telling, and that is the cliffs at Lake Buchanan know as Bee's Bluffs. Now Bee's Bluffs is on the Morgan Creek arm of the lake there and was accessible easily from my home there at Morgan Creek Subdivision during the 1980's. Bee's as I will call it, received it's name from all the small caves or holes that dotted and permeated the face of this cliff. History books will tell of hundreds of these caves being filled with native bee hives when first found by the early pioneers throughout the Hill Country and no less in Burnet County.

These cliffs are unique in that they start literally at the water's edge and gradually climb to well over 75' when Buchanan Lake is full at 1020' above sea level. So no matter the experience or lack of experience, a diver or  jumper can find a cliff to their liking. My personal liking was jumps of about 30+ feet on a hot day when beer drinking was minimal. Then there were those nights where we literally climbed those cliffs in the  moonlight with friends and companions lighting our way with spotlights in pontoon boats floating on the flat and still waters. Definitely beer was clouding our better judgement those evenings, due to the fact that all those empty bee caves were easily imagined to be filled with all matter of snakes and other creepy-crawlies.

One other point concerning alcohol and Bee's! It was 4th of July and we had a house full (close to 20) staying there at Manes Manor on the lake. Mark and Susan had a brood of kids as did a number of other families, and it was decided it would be safer to light  fireworks off of Bee's. I recall there were three of us menfolk lighting different devices at different intervals at different levels of Bee's. Mark F., my brother Pat, and myself had several hundred dollars of fireworks to consume and we proceeded to git r' done!

Roman candles, mortars, bottle rockets, and firecrackers galore were being ignited as fast as we could grab em' and get a punk on them. Reaching into the bottomless box of incendiary magic, I came out with  a fountain cone. Now for those that don't remember what this looks like, it is something like a Nutty Buddy but on steroids and upside down. Most of these items have a  few disclaimers on them. First would be 'use only with adult supervision', (Strike one!). Another would be 'do not use with alcohol', (Strike two!). Lastly would be 'place on flat surface, light and run away', (Strike three!).

I proceeded to do what I would call a "Statue of Liberty" pose.I lit that thing, placed the base of the cone on my open palm and proceeded to watch it go shooting out the top. And shoot out the top it did, it was amazing and awe inspiring. Until it burned through the bottom of that cone and shot hot fire between my fingers of my outstretched hand. Somewhere deep in my lizard brain came the conclusion that I was on fire, and better do something about it. I took three giant steps backward and off Bee's I went. I remember treading water, after my jumping off about 30 feet and hearing a voice say, "Mike, where's Mike, he was here just a minute ago?" It was Pat my brother who the proceeded to look over the edge of the cliff and ask, "Mike, what are you doing down there?" "Caught on fire, seemed the fitting thing to do," I replied. In the wink of an eye I swam over to where the Bluffs stepped into the water and everyone was circled around me inspecting the damage from the experience. I had a webbed hand, as the gunpowder had fused my fingers together whilst the flesh was molten.

The next day I was at the doctor (second time in two days burning myself...but that is another story that will not be told!), and he proceeded to cut my fingers apart without the use of local, so that there would not be a third incident. He wanted me to remember every bit of the experience of slicing my fingers apart! All this reminds me of my favorite line in my favorite Redneck joke. What is the last thing a Redneck says before he dies? "Here hold my beer and watch this!" Shalom Ya'll!