It’s been a busy week.
Not only did I finally manage to publish the second in a multi- piece campaign on vaporizers, but I also finally got a ‘think piece’ out on third wave coffee vs. third wave (Fourth? Fourth and twentieth? Who knows) wave of cannabis.
More interesting, at least to me, was what was going on in the background, as I finally got the chance to talk with someone at the state about what I could possibly do about the cannabis lab situation. After six months, I got someone to talk to me - and not just shift me to a media specialist. As it ends up - I am very much able to help, because I think I can hand them some ‘smoking guns.’ So we’ll see how that develops. I still call the lab work ‘the most expensive story I’ve ever written.’
I’ve also been working on some larger campaigns for another client, and using smocking a shirt to avoid doing web build and other things I need to get done. I’ve been saying “I’m processing” quite frequently and I mean that. I’ve now processed and smocked to the point my thumb hurts, but the smocking looks lovely.
I’ve also been served up a few challenging eye days. It doesn’t impact the smocking much (that’s what the lighted magnifying lens is for), but it makes reading things very, VERY challenging. I keep wanting to make the print larger on anything I read in person, and my phone is impossible to decipher some days.
Beyond just writing about the Five of Pentacles, I’ve been thinking about Dying Alone in the Cold a lot lately. It’s not the economic blues (though I have those).
Some of you are aware of the long stint I spent completely obsessed with people dying on Mt. Everest. For those that aren’t - it lasted for about four years. Lately, there’s been rumblings of interesting updates specifically about whether or not Irvine’s body (and camera) were or were not been found.
I thought talking about what was going on with my armchair Everest obsession would make for a fun thing for me to write while I heal my dumb thumb.
I can trace that obsession back to one thing - the death of my friend and colleague, Dr. Jim Levin.
We were close, he was one of the few people in healthcare that I met that centered patients and their health. His wife and daughter were really amazing people as well. He died far too early and I took it pretty damn hard.
Right after he died is when I started reading about Everest disasters.
Not a little bit. A ghoulsih amount. My Kindle purchase history shows 16 books, and I have 10 print books I’ve read in addition (they aren’t available on Kindle). I’ve also read quite a bit about K2 and Denali. I feel like if there was a way to have a degree in people who died in disasters on Everest, I might have like . . . an Associate’s? Because there are people with PhD’s and I promise you it’s not me. I don’t know if I get any points for having an Everest-inspired tattoo on my right wrist.
I understand now the emotional mechanics of what was happening. I had recognized for a long time that I felt that health care was a very toxic environment for me and not fitting at all with me philosophically. I felt that disconnect was causing me physical symptoms and illnesses, and was becoming more and more damaging to my mental health as it echoed trauma I was carrying. I also felt survivor’s guilt because I was still alive, and people I estimated to be better people than I was weren’t alive anymore - and it felt like the job was killing them.
I don’t feel like expressing to you how frustrating some of the situations at Children’s Hospital were, but it was bad. Bad enough for me to feel I had escaped by going to … an insurance company. This is also when I started drinking more and more, just to keep up (or to make sure I couldn’t, depending on your point of view). I would lose Cesar a year later, and my more rapid descent in alcoholism happened from there (I’ve written about it before).
In light of all of that emotional glop, it makes a lot more sense that I was reading about these huge parties of mountain climbers that faced adversity with wildly different outcomes (that’s a nice way of saying that only a few got out alive). Also, it’s really compelling reading. (Like many, my introduction was the classic “Into Thin Air” by John Krakauer, who also penned the fabulous “Under the Banner of Heaven” which I understand is a TV series now). ANYWAY.
A bit ago, I put together an article about one of my favorite stories about someone dying on Everest, which was about Maurice Wilson. Maurice, like many who tried to climb that mountain in that period, had himself a mountain of PTSD from World War I (and I think the experience of being the near-sole survivor - and then victor - of the first battle he ever participated in really fucked with him). The same was true of Mallory and Irvine, who failed (or did they?) before him.
So let’s talk about that, because that’s what’s coming up again, and it might come up in perpetuity. It’s one of mountaineering’s little mysteries, you see. In 1924, on June 8th, George Mallory and his climbing partner Andrew (Sandy) Irvine died on the mountain.
My favorite book about that is probably Wade Davis’ Into The Silence, which examines how WWI led into the entire philosophy of climbing these enormous mountains. Hint: colonialism really comes into play.
So, anyway. June 8th, 1924, Mallory and Irvine are spotted by expedition member Noel Odell, who felt they were going strong, even though they were sighted later than expected. That was the last time they were both seen alive.
The question isn’t about their fate. The question has always been - did they summit? The answer seems, as with all grand mysteries, tantalizingly close.
Sleuths hoped that the discovery of George Mallory’s body would reveal the answers. There were lots of reasons why, but mainly it came down to some things that were in Mallory lore. It had been said Mallory planned to leave a picture of his wife, Ruth, on the summit. He was also an amateur geologist and would probably have pocketed some rocks from the summit (I mean, I sure would! I have rocks from all over the place!). According to some stories - he had also taken a camera with him, and Kodak has said they could possibly develop the film. It ends up that the top of the world is pretty perfect conditions for storing film.
Those hopes were rather dashed when Mallory’s corpse was found by an expedition in 1999. You can go ahead and easily search for images of what he looked like, we’ll say it wasn’t good. There’s some doubt if the hole in his head was from the team that discovered him. The methods of that expedition have been debated since, and some may have been … drastic. But ultimately, George Mallory’s body was found and he had obviously died from a fall.
What was interesting to the mystery of it all was - there was no photo of his wife, Ruth, but there was also no camera . . . or rocks.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN???
Could Irvine have the camera? Where is Irvine, anyway?
Good question, dear reader, and that’s the one that’s been coming up in my YouTube recommendations lately, because quite a few of those PhD’s in Mallory studies are talking over the possibilities. One is certain, for instance, that a Chinese expedition in 1975 found Irvine - and the camera. When the Chinese attempted to develop the film, however, it was destroyed. It’s even alleged that the camera is in a Chinese museum (though among the collection, and not on display). This was debunked. Then, talk about ‘what are they hiding?’ Of course - there’s also someone who disputes all of that, and says that Irvine’s body is in yet another location. And everyone’s writing a book - each one with the possibility of having the piece that solves it.
It’s crazy, and it will get crazier as we approach the 100th anniversary of the expedition and the deaths of Mallory and Irvine in the pursuit of the ‘wildest dream.’
That’s just one tiny story on a mountain of dead men.
I’ve read thousands of pages of accounts of the disaster in 1996, and of the escalating issues of crowding and lines on the mountain since then. ‘Every corpse on Everest was once a very motivated person.’ Each of those people had hopes, dreams, and their own stories.