I'll never pass up a moment to reach the skies. I love going to the St. Louis City museum and climbing to the top of that dome on the roof - from the inside! and then riding the Ferris wheel up there, which puts you at another 3 stories above the street level, totaling 13 stories above the street - sitting in a little Ferris wheel street!
On my Senior (high school) trip in May, 1986, we went to Niagara Falls and Toronto. The 1,500 ft. CN Tower in Toronto was then the tallest freestanding structure in the world in 1986, and it held that title for many years.
(You may skip ahead to "Anywho - back to the CN Tower)
For those of you that don't know me well, in the middle of my Senior year (November of 1985, and I was to graduate in May of 1986), I had to move from Quincy, IL with a graduation clas of 600 people to Payson, IL - with a graduation class of 43 people.
I needed 21 credits to graduate Quincy High School, and I needed only 19 credits to graduate from Payson High School. When I transferred to Payson, I already had enough credits to graduate in November (19), but they wouldn't let me graduate, so I got to choose electives, such as Typing II, an art class, a class on reading classic novels, etc, for the rest of the year. The only "real" class that I chose was Anatomy and Physiology because they said, "You don't have to do so, but we would prefer that you select at least one scholastic class - and I still got out of school every day a hour early.
At any rate, even though I didn't participate in this new class's fundraisers for the past 4 years, the class president befriended me, and she had the class vote on the issue: If Michael outsells us all in our pizza and candy bar sales this year, he gets to go on the class trip with us. Everybody else sold candy bars and pizzas that numbered between 200- 300 per student. I sold pizzas and candy bars that was upwards of 1, 500 pizzas AND 1,500 candybars. I had to rent a van just to deliver them to the people that bought them from me. Needless to say, I did the required work to go on this senior trip.
ANYWHO - back to the CN Tower.
(This was 28 years ago, my numbers and my memory might be slightly off, but not by much, no? Buy maybe so.)
The elevators traveled at 65 MPH on the OUTSIDE of this huge tower, and they were all glass. The first and main observation deck was on the !,200 ft. level, and anyone with big enough balls could board a much smaller internal elevator to go to another smaller observation deck that was 300 ft taller. You know me. You're going to be dead a Hell of a lot longer than you're going to be alive. SO.....I took option 2 and went to the highest observation desk.
We were supposed to wait until the clouds cleared before we got on the elevators because this tower was tall enough to go right through the clouds, and you couldn't see the top of the observation deck(s).
I begged our chaperons and our tour guides to let me go ahead and go on up, because I wanted to experience what it was like to stand in one still spot above the clouds (unlike a plane that moves above the clouds). They let me go up, and the others joined me later when the clouds moved on. I stood up there weeping at the sheer beauty of looking down on the clouds. There was two places - one on the lower and one on the highest deck where you could literally lean out and put your hands on the slanted glass in front of you. It was the best thing to flying free of any device that you're ever going to experience.
The funniest part of the whole deal:
Remember - this was a small class of 43 graduation students from a farm town high school. This school had only one hallway, and although it did have its own gymnasium, it didn't have its own kitchen. If we wanted a hot meal, we had to walk across the highway / street to the grade school and eat with the smaller kids!
We had two overall-wearing 6' tall tobacco chewing / spitting farm boys on this upscale trip. When they stepped off the elevator - on the lowest deck at 1,200 ft, mind you (the would have never survived the highest deck at the top!), they were literally shacking, eyes and mouth wide open, backs, mouths, arms and legs glued to the wall.
Our Toronto tour guide was much smaller than me. I'm 5' 4", and she had to be, at the tallest, 5', and maybe shorter. I looked at the 'butch boys' that were clung to the wall, literally paralized with fear due to the heights that they couldn't handle, and I asked the guide, "What are we going to do? How are we going to get them off the wall?" She answered me:
"On nearly every tour, I have to do this at lease once. Just you watch me!"
Her little short, stout self pushed the "Down" button on the elevator, and just as the doors opned, she grabbed each stunned, 'butch', paralized boy by the collar - one in eachof her hands, she pulled them down to her level so they could see her stern face, so they would know that she meant business, and with one huge shove, she pushed them into the elevator, she stepped into the elevator, pushed the "Down" button, and she quickly stepped out of the elevator before the doors closed. Our chaperons and the rest of the crowd roared.
That was in 1986. Thanks for the memories. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in Toronto and Niagara Falls, and I will have fond memories for the rest of my life. I could tell you tales of a dinner theatre where I trumped the entire class, but that is a different mini-series, for another day! Thanks for your time. :D
- Michael
