I admire my dad’s ability to gut it out for so long out alone on a desert island. I’m not sure why he decided to tell us as we were sitting around our backyard BBQ about it, cause it’s not all that pretty, but he did anyways. Before he put himself on that deserted island, my dad, went to a 5-day survival school. He told us he was bent on learning to make fire with a bow and stick and that he even succeeded twice, although his teacher’s words, which now seem prophetic, said that fire is always the most difficult when it’s the most important.
As my dad prepared the steaks for the BBQ, I wondered if he did any other type of preparation, like did he learn what plants to eat? What animals might be on a deserted island? What fruits might be available? My dad, you see, is kind of a goof, a lovable goof, but all the same, he’s a goof. For example, in our back yard we don’t just have one outdoor sink, we have two outdoor sinks. He didn’t thoroughly review the blueprints before he approved them.
So, here was our dad, dropped himself off on an uninhabited island somewhere near Panama. He allowed himself to survive for 3 weeks. Starve is more like it. He told us he ate termites, coconuts, limpets and a bit of sugarcane which someone planted at one time but abandoned. He snorkeled around trying to spear some fish, which proved impossible. He tried to weave baskets without success and he never got a fire lit. He told us, in the end, that today it is why he will never touch a pina-colada, too coco-nutty. After three weeks of truly trying to survive, my dad ended up calling a nearby resort and a boat swung by to pick him up. He turned over the steaks on the grill. I noticed he had the biggest smile on his face. It seemed that though my dad didn’t do so well at surviving on that island, he did manage to survive to tell us about his memorable failure.
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