Mitchell WayI’m Marty Mitchell, aka Captain Crash, the guy behind Mitchell Way. MitchellWay.com is the story of my misadventures in life and reflections on faith. ... Is Mitchell Way a state of mind? A real place? A way of life? Tough to say. You be the judge.
It was a scene reminiscent of an Elmer J. Fudd hunting cartoon. My granddog Milton Barry and I were stalking wild game. I was wearing my plaid hunting cap and my wool coat. In my hands I carried a 12 gage 1897 Winchester pump shotgun. We were walking on tiptoes. I had never seen a dog do that before.
Saturday, June 4th, 1988. Just another typical weekend morning for me. I was reclined in my lounge chair in front of the TV, sipping a cup of coffee and watching Garfield and Friends. These were the Saturdays I enjoyed. Totally relaxed, no socks on, not a care in the world.
My mother was a world traveler. Ask her about any country or region of the world and chances are that she had been there. She traveled by plane, train, bus, cruise ship, camel and elephant. She was never keen about bicycles or skis because she said that elegant ladies should never fall on their faces. It was her goal in life to see and do as much as she could possibly cram into her remaining years and, as much as possible, she wanted to share the experiences with her family.
I was an eleven-year-old in sixth grade All City band. It was two hours each Saturday that the family would not have to listen to me practice my trombone. There is only so much a parent can do to encourage a child. After that, they play a game called, “Hide the Slide.”
Recently my wife has been ailing from sciatica in her left hip. This has been a blessing for me. For the first time in a long time, I am not the biggest pain in her backside.
It was a panoramic view which I am sure most people have never witnessed. The whole of Abbotsford, B.C. and further up the Fraser Valley to Harrison Lake, south to Bellingham, Washington and west to the San Juan Islands. There I sat in the morning sun; the wind was at my back — about 80 miles per hour of wind.
It was the sound of a rushing mighty wind.
“What was that?” I asked my wife Cheryl.
“That,” she answered, “was your youth being torn away by a twister and your body being thrown somewhere into old age.”
What if a man died on a cross?
What would it matter to me?
Maybe not much, people die all the time.
Maybe I’d care if I knew him.
But what if a man died on a cross
What if He did it for me?
Gave up His life so mine might be spared.
That would be different indeed.
In a small cabin at the Fisherman’s Cove Resort on Curlew Lake, eight men prepared for a week of deer hunting on Vulcan Mountain. This was the opening weekend. This was the final weekend of the World Series and this was the year we witnessed “The Phantom.”
“I once sucked down a whole can of sardines — heads, guts and all, while only taking one breath.”
“Ok,’ I said. ‘You’re a liar.”
My friend Rex removed a can of sardines from his backpack, peeled back the lid, took one deep breath, and proceeded to slurp down the whole can — head, guts, and all.
It has always been my opinion that too much of a good thing is never advisable. Too many rides on the Zipper at the carnival can make you sick for the rest of the day as will too many hotdogs or pieces of pizza. After four days, relatives staying at my house begin to become annoying because they are in my space. Too much of a good thing. This is why I have my own office, or as I like to call it, The Laboratory for Creative Ideas. I can be around my wife Cheryl for a short amount of time before my adorable, sarcastic, small-talk drives her up the wall and she shouts, “Get out of here. Go to your office!”
Obviously, I’m too much of a good thing.
I have special interest in three sciences: Ornithology, because my wife says I am ornery. Ichthyology, because the girls in elementary school constantly said I was icky, and Entomology for my appreciation of honeybees. Not that we have not had our differences; the last time I was stung, my arm pits swelled up like there were golf balls under the skin. Now when I travel, I must bring my Epipen™ to prevent my tongue from swelling up and choking me. Yet, I find the little fellows interesting. They leave the hive in the early morning and work all day gathering honey only to give it up to the Queen and the 500 kids. (I won’t try to draw any parallels here.)
The slush pump, or more commonly known as the slide trombone. The instrument which has mystified children since the day it was created — “Mommy, where does that tube go when he slides it back and forth. Into his mouth?”
The instrument which mystified me for over 50 years — “Cripes, where do I position the slide so I don’t make the sound of a bellowing cow?”
In my young years, life was all about flying and before Bellingham airport became a fenced business park which happens to have a runway, it was a young boy’s dream. It was a place where you could ride your bike right up to a parked airplane and press your nose into the window. The smell of aviation oils and leather interiors are still logged in my memory. Evenings, we would bring home model airplanes and spend hours in my bedroom building them, only stopping when we could not see straight from smelling the rubber cement. This of course led to the need to build something bigger which we could make fly, so we put wings on a cart.
It started as any of our other hunting trips — with high hopes and low expectations. Sturgis Fenton and I were going to spend three days hunting the hills of northeast Washington.