The Rock That Wasn’t
‘Running the logs’ wasn’t a game for the faint of heart.
The rules were simple – you could not leave the logs and you were not allowed to ‘expire’ during the race. All else was fair game, including broken bones and semi-drowning in the surf should your grip slip. I think it the simplicity and chance of real physical harm that at the root inspired a love of the game.
Running the logs was an all-weather sport, whether under a bleaching August sun or pounding surf and slashing rain. I don’t remember us ever running the logs at night, probably a good idea given the lack of lighting other than the moon and occasional passing cruise ship.
The game wasn’t just for the Law children, far from it! Cousins would actively participate when they visited, except perhaps the city cousins, who were admonished by their parents to keep their clothes clean. For the rest of us there would be a ‘Whoop!’ and off we would go, laughing and shouting to each other.
On one fine August day our ‘Baker’ cousins visited from Willow Point and nothing doing as soon as Uncle Hugh opened the back door out shot a plethora of kids headed for the beach. Gerry, the eldest was a natural athlete and he quickly set the pace, followed by Rich, JL and the rest of us with shorter, stubbier legs.
Sometimes when you run the logs you can run for literally miles. Other times the vagarity of the sea would shift the logs, creating great gaps of impossibility. That day was one of the latter.
Quickly Gerry reached one of those points and stopped. In the middle of perhaps a 12 foot gap in the logs lay a large flattish grey rock. We all stopped and looked, agreeing to allow one rock jump to the next set of logs.
Gerry flexed and jumped as hard as he could to the rock. No sooner than his feet hit the rock, it exploded, releasing the most foul stench we could ever imagine. We all jumped back while Gerry’s ‘rock’ collapsed under his feet!
Long story short the ‘rock’ happened to be a well-deceased sealion, tucked for eternity between the logs! We all retreated pronto, away from the stench, to the safety of our front yard while Gerry and Rich went off looking for a hose to wash the last of the sealion off Gerry’s feet!
In the end, as I remember, Fisheries came with a backhoe and dug a deep hole in the sand to deposit the sealion in, with proper dignity of course. As for the game, a new rule was added – there will be no jumping on large rocks between gaps in the logs.