04/26/24
July 25, 2005
Sports Editor Drowns: The sport of kayaking lost an impassioned advocate with Sunday's death of John Francis Mullen, 37, a Washington Post sports copy editor who drowned in a kayaking accident on a West Virginia river Sunday.
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like grandpa, not screaming in terror like the passengers in the other car.
posted by rcade at 10:22 AM on July 25, 2005
I probably shouldn't be laughing, but I am.
posted by JJ at 11:08 AM on July 25, 2005
I'm always up for a laugh, but that's how my grandfather died - head on into a tractor trailer...and my younger cousin followed suit a couple years later. No big deal, but I just don't appreciate that metaphor. I'd prefer contentment rather than despair when I go. A smile, rather than a scream, if you will.
posted by garfield at 11:34 AM on July 25, 2005
I'd prefer contentment rather than despair when I go. Like Atilla the Hun?
posted by yerfatma at 11:52 AM on July 25, 2005
That's an old joke, garf. I'd like to go after some exquiste meal, or exquiste sex - but that usually isn't very peaceful since somewhere in there you have to work in 'massive cardiac arrest', or 'unpredicted coronary episode'.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 12:26 PM on July 25, 2005
I'm not sure I follow. I don't consider a nosebleed pleasant. weedy, I know. it just rubs me the wrong way. it's my issue, and I should've left that comment unsaid.
posted by garfield at 12:33 PM on July 25, 2005
I don't consider a nosebleed pleasant. If the apocryphal story of its cause (a rollicking honeymoon) is true, can we consider that a mitigating factor?
posted by yerfatma at 12:56 PM on July 25, 2005
definitely.
posted by garfield at 01:10 PM on July 25, 2005
sorry for sucking the fun out of this thread, and kudos for trying to reinject it.
posted by garfield at 03:13 PM on July 25, 2005
Does anyone here kayak? I'd never get in one -- the idea of tumping over in one is too freaky.
posted by rcade at 04:08 PM on July 25, 2005
This is from Robert Louis Stevenson's grave, just a few hundred metres from where I'm living at the moment. When I go, I want this read out: Under the wide and starry sky Dig the grave and let me lie. Glad did I live, and gladly die, And I laid me down with a will. This be the verse you grave for me: “Here he lies, where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea and the hunter home from the hill."
posted by owlhouse at 04:40 PM on July 25, 2005
Does anyone here kayak? I'd never get in one -- the idea of tumping over in one is too freaky. I do. I took a class in a pool where they show you how to roll yourself if you get inverted. It's more scary to think about than to actually have happen. You're back upright almost immediately. I use a sea kayak in coves and caves, though - nothing like the white water and waterfalls Mullen did.
posted by dusted at 05:25 PM on July 25, 2005
I agree with rcade. I want to go like my dad did. Fell asleep in his recliner and passed away in his sleep. I do like the idea of going after some intense sex. If I'm going to have a heart attack, I might as well make it a good one. I guess time will tell.
posted by dbt302 at 06:24 PM on July 25, 2005
Does anyone here kayak? I'd never get in one -- the idea of tumping over in one is too freaky. I do, on whitewater, just about every chance I get. I was there when my best friend died in a whitewater accident. It didn't motivate me to get out of the sport, but after that experience, my feelings got a lot more complex in re: the questions of how I want to die and how I feel about the inherent dangers in a sport like whitewater kayaking. I hope it doesn't sound too condescending to say that the whole thing may not be understandable by someone who hasn't been through a parallel experience. Before my best friend died, I'd always felt that there was a problem with the saying, "At least he died doing what he loved"; to paraphrase JJ, people don't want to die doing what they love, they want to live doing what they love. But after my friend's death, I realized that when you live doing what you love, of course you greatly up the odds that you'll die doing it. The problem is in the "at least": it attempts to console in a way that, for me at least, just doesn't work. He lived doing what he loved. I think that has enough consolation -- or at least, all the consolation that any of us is ever likely to get.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 07:25 PM on July 25, 2005
Well technically, JJ, going over a 10-foot waterfall is not an Olympic sport. Not to say that the Olympic slalom is completely safe, but it's generally a lot less hazardous than whitewater river running. I have gone whitewater kayaking and I found it thrilling and terrifying. Part of the fear could have been prevented had I approached the activity with the proper respect. I knew everything there was to know about paddling a flatwater kayak very fast, but it turns out that is mostly irrelevant on the river. I assumed that I was an expert when in fact I was a complete novice. Anyway, I am not the thrill-seeker type. l.b.b., that is very eloquently said.
posted by Amateur at 09:21 PM on July 25, 2005
" I hope it doesn't sound too condescending to say that the whole thing may not be understandable by someone who hasn't been through a parallel experience." Well, it does. Sorry, lbb. And I mean that in the nicest way possible, from someone who used to say he wanted to die in a fiery car crash...until he actually saw someone die that way.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:09 PM on July 25, 2005
What's too condescending about it then, Mr. Crash? Or don't you consider seeing someone dying in a fiery car crash to be a parallel experience?
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:21 PM on July 25, 2005
I had a go at the K1 slalom for the Olympic challenge and felt pretty close to drowning... umm, most of the time actually, and like Amatuer said, the slalom course isn't exactly as mental as what this guy was up to (and the slalom course I was on was turned right down and hardly moving - and I was at the bottom of it, where it was the least dangerous). In the last few months I've done sea kayaking (would have been more fun if I hadn't been hungover), flatwater kayaking (would have been more fun if I had a better sense of balance), and slalom kayaking (got 'the fear' really badly towards the end). I can't think of a number big enough for how much you'd have to pay me to get me out on some uncharted river just freestylin'. Those are all self links, which I suspect goes against the ethos of SpoFi - but hell, there are pictures of me looking stupid and falling out of boats which should make up for it. As for the best time to die? Probably half a nanosecond before the anti-climax sets in.
posted by JJ at 04:02 AM on July 26, 2005
Does anyone really leave the house looking for the best time or way to die? On the whole I'd have to say no. I've seen alot of bad stuff (hence the VOL-FIRE), and had a few myself. Is'nt living your life doing what you love,living to the fullest? Sharing things with those we loved and being involved in their lives? We are all at a loss when someone is lost, But , I think if you can not find the consolation in knowing they were living their lives to the fullest, it is the individuals loss not the person who has passed. We can't control everything in our own lives, let alone someone who is close to us.
posted by volfire at 11:32 AM on July 26, 2005
lbb, what I meant to say was that anytime someone basically says "You can't understand it because you haven't done it" it always sounds condescending. To me, anyway.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:36 AM on July 26, 2005
Crash, it may sound condescending, but I think it's also true for at least some classes of experiences. I also don't know what other answer you can give people when they insist on asking you to describe what it's like, unless you're willing to try to turn it into a simplistic soundbite.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 11:39 AM on July 26, 2005
rcade - are you stalking me now with the Olympic-sports-that-can-kill-you thing? Poor guy - it always seemed a strange thing to say by way of consolation that someone "died doing something they loved" - as far as I can see, that'd be the worst time to die. Better by far to die when you're so miserable you can't stand it anymore.