I had walking Death Valley figured  as daunting but doable, but in day 2, reality set in. It was nearly un-doable.

In such a marathon, the will begins to wilt, unless you are a world class  athlete like Lt Dick May, probably the fittest specimen in the Marine Corps. I had asked for him to pace me, but that was before the Walk. Now, a whole day into the event, he wasn’t showing the slightest sign of the agony that was wracking my body. My breaks were running longer, while he trotted in place, waiting for me to resurrect..

In the gloom of the second night, I began to see apparitions. A small bridge loomed over the  trail in front of me, but May didn’t see it. It looked real to me until I reached where it should have been, but had dematerialized.. He assured me that this was to be expected after so many hours of sleep deprivation.

He said that Marines in combat often experienced such aberrations, seeing an enemy, and learning to ignore him…. unless the illusory figure turned out to be an actual bad guy, “then you’d better be quick on the draw.” He now encouraged talk to keep me awake. 

His analogy concerning  the “quick draw” reminded me of Elton Carl, the fastest draw in the world. I told him about Elton.

“How fast was he?”  May asked. It sounded like a set-up for a Johnny Carson  gag,. I told him that Elton was a regular on my personal appearances, and was so fast that he would ask a man to stand in front of him and say the word, “bang! “and Elton could draw and shoot before the guy could  finish the word. May paused for a moment and asked if I thought Elton could actually kill a man, clearly implying that he, personally, could. I said, “That was something I didn’t want to test.”

These last few hours were beginning to unfold in a way I had not anticipated.  

May was beginning to let me into his tightly held inner space. As they say in the courtroom television shows, he had opened the door so it was okay for me to push it a little further open.

It was close to four in the morning, and I had proven to myself and the others that I could finish the Walk, so the pressure was off of him. We got as near to bonding as was possible between a morning gag-a-minute jock and a humorless iron man.

            I asked him if he had ever won the Boston Marathon and he said he usually placed in the top15, but that he had tested and reached his  limit. He said he was never going to beat the Kenyans and Ethiopians who had the huge hearts, lungs, and heavily oxygenated blood that it took to win. He said that he had learned that there were some humans who were simply superior, and no amount of training was going to enable him to beat them. He was perfectly at peace with being one of the top athletes in the world without fretting over a few unattainable extra seconds in the Marathon.

At sun-up, I was heartened to see Carol, and  Will Tapp heading us off across the rocky terrain, wearing big grins. We were a few hours away from touchdown and this called for a group effort to the finish line.

Lt.  May plotted the course as we went along. He figured that the best way to make the 84 miles that we had planned on was to go to the Furnace Creek Inn, a little over 50 miles from Scotty’s Castle, then 17 miles farther down and turn around to finish back at the Inn, having completed 84 miles.

Our goal; at first was 80 miles, but May asked me to do “four more for the Corps.” What could I say? ”Sir! Yes SIR!”

The joining together of the group gave new vigor to my almost unmanageable legs. In fact, Carol bent down and rubbed my legs while I stood in place, and May showed me up, as usual, by trotting in place. She reached over to minister to him but he smiled and gently pulled away.  

Then, I groaned inwardly  when  Carol unthinkingly bent down and tied my shoes. She often tied my shoes before we went out because I had never learned to tie them with dispatch. She often got dressed in a few minutes, then jumped in to get me out the door faster, which meant tie my shoes.

Dick May had chided me during the Walk. He said, “You would make a great Marine if you would learn to be faster with your boots. The way you tie them, you would never make it on time to reveille formation.

He was right. While at sea, I had mastered a couple dozen intricate knots with dispatch, but a simple bow knot flummoxed me. Making the loop and then circling it and skewering the hole after several tries and finally cinching the knot up was a formidable task. Carol long ago had decided  simply to bend down and tie them with flying fingers.

She looked up at me and mouthed, ”I’m sorry,” but it was too later to stop the snickering. She looked up to my grizzled face, and tried to cover for me. “I have a confession.” she lied. “I never could have made this walk all the way.”

Fact is, I could not have made the Walk without their help.Some of us are singularly gifted physically. Some need all the help they can get. Others fall somewhere in between. I am an in-betweener..

Being a popular morning jock enabled me to draw from the best. I reached out to a man whom I knew could out-walk practically anyone on earth, Lt Dick May, able to pick me up and carry me out of there if I got into trouble.

Also, there were Will Tapp and Wes Reynolds who climbed the 10,000 foot  mountain with me  the prior year, This was where I really needed all the help I could get. Wes roped me in and climbed above me, ready to pull me up or check my fall, if necessary..

Will Tapp climbed with me, pointing out hand and foot holds, some called micro ledges for good reason. He often risked his life for me, shielding me against a fall with his body, seemingly without giving it a thought.

Mike Troy , the Olympics gold medalist taught me  to swim against a rip when I parachuted into the La  Jolla Rough Water Swim  prior to the 200 pool swim across the city.

Maylen. The Charger strength coach  got me into shape for the Walk. All of my charity shtick was accomplished with the help of experts.  

Lois McCoy’s musical voice sang out from the road.. “Hey guys! Furnace Creek is just a mile up the road.”  Knowing the Walk was almost done, my legs took on new strength and vitality. The fatigue was gone. The mind works miracles.

Furnace Creek was a desolate uninhabited place during the summer.. In Death Valley, the humans desert the place and leave it to the reptiles and scorpions. We made our way gingerly into the pool area guarding against a scorpion sting or worse, a rattler bite.

She had already  prepared our reward meal of baseball cut-more like softball cut- filets given us by the Chart House owner, Rick Smith one of Maylen’s 500 pound bench pressers.

It was mid morning and the sun was already out fully ablaze but she had put us in a shady area near a stand of bushes a few yards from the empty pool from which she had purged a pair of rattlers  before declaring the place safe for the celebration..

There is no better restorative than protein-laden  filets, Lois’ bean and bourbon soup, and a bottle of frosty Dos XX  Mexican beer. Sitting with hearty souls like Will, Wes, Lt. May, Carol and Lois, I felt their energy surge into my body.

The Mountain Rescue plane landed on the road adjacent to the empty Inn and, DI  to the end, Dick May rousted me and Carol to board it for the trip back to San  Diego and the Jerry Lewis Show, now nearing its final climactic hours. Will, Wes and Lois would drive the RV and the truck back to San Diego.

We made it back in time for Jerry to greet me in his whole-hearted Jerry Lewis style and thank me for my  “unique contribution” to the Muscular Dystrophy campaign.

I then brought on Dick May and thanked him earnestly  saying that I could not have made it without him. Well I couldn’t have. Of course, I also thanked Will, Wes and Lois for everything, including the Picacho climb for Jerry the year before..

The Walk across the Death Valley was grueling, a matter of one helluva lot of pickin’ ‘em up and puttin’ ‘em down.

These last couple of days brought home to me what I had known all along, that they were vital to me. We are hard learners, and it seems that we only learn when the heat’s on. In this case, the Death Valley heat.

The year prior, The climb to the summit of Picacho del Diablo with the help of the Mountain Rescue guys  was a  supreme test of body and soul. Straining every muscle in my body over a long period of time, and facing down the stark panic of the climb.

Next week, the continuing revelation of what I learned about myself during this climb of The Devil’s Peak.  Carol, as usual, gave me strict orders to leave her out it. I was tempted to thank her, anyway, for walking with me, cheering me on, and….keeping my shoes tied.