There is an eagle cam in a bald eagle nest at Big Bear Lake. Nancy showed it to me on the Internet, and I saw it on the computer in the office of Eminger’s Nursery as we were buying plants yesterday.
There was a baby bald eagle in the nest. Sitting high above Big Bear Lake, the ten week old eagle looked over the valley and focused on the lake far below. He wandered to the edge, took a few practice flaps, thought the better of it and just sat there on the edge of the unknown while he contemplated his next step.
But, destiny calls.
In 1973, I was on a ski trip with the director of Control Data Institute. He took the students to his lodge in Bear Valley. The road was cut through ten-foot-high snow drifts. At times it seemed as if we were driving through a long tunnel which snaked through a white wilderness in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Then, there I was at the top of the ski mountain. Steep cliffs of snow on every side. I was frozen with fear. I had wanted to do this ever since I saw the skier in Cinerama in Honolulu. He was holding a camera as he skied down an exhilarating slope in some winter wonderland. That was for me!
So there I was. Cliffs on every side. Social pressure to take the plunge. Fear, wonderment and chagrin at how I could have gotten myself into this ridiculous predicament.