Chapter 11: The Critic

After a shower and change of clothes, everyone gathered in the lawn chairs beside the fire ring. It was too early for dinner, much less a fire.

After their hike, and subsequent doctor’s visit, none of them felt like moving any more than was absolutely necessary.

“We did a bunch of things wrong, today. We’re lucky it didn’t turn out any worse than it did,” Dexter announced.

“What did we do wrong?” Will asked.

Sarah said, “I didn’t mean to twist my ankle.”

“I know. That was an accident. The reason it happened, though, is because we weren’t properly prepared,” Dexter said.

“Prepared?”

Dexter said, “First, we should have been wearing hiking boots. They would have supported your foot, so that it would have been much less likely for you to twist your ankle.”

“I figured we were just walking,” Sarah said.

“There’s a reason they call it hiking and the appropriate footwear is called a hiking boot,” Dexter said.

“That makes sense,” Will said.

Dexter answered, “Also, we should have gone on the ‘easy’ trail.”

“It was longer,” Will said.

“It may have been longer, but it was probably a whole lot less work,” Dexter said.

“Oh, yeah,” Sarah said.

“I guess, in hindsight, it’s kind of obvious,” Will said.

Dexter said, “This is the really hard one to admit. We weren’t in shape for that level of exertion.”

“I’m not going to argue with you there,” Will said.

“You’re right,” Sarah said.

Dexter said, “If we had been a little more fit, this could have been a fun day. Unfortunately, we aren’t in shape, and it turned into a nightmare.”

“You’re in better shape than me,” Will admitted.

Dexter said, “I guess I’m going to have to beef up my exercise program.”

“You? Are you kidding? I thought you did pretty darn good,” Will said.

Dexter said, “Not really. I kind of pushed it a bit too far. I could have gotten seriously injured. What would you have done if I had passed out?”

“I don’t know,” Will answered.

“I didn’t even think about that,” Sarah said.

Dexter said, “You know I had a heart attack.”

“I forgot about that,” Will said.

“I should have stopped at that spot where we had discussed the dangers of that washout. I should have sent Will ahead to get some water, and perhaps even some help. I didn’t. Because of that, I put both of you at risk. That was a bad decision on my part,” Dexter said.

“It worked out all right,” Will said.

He frowned while thinking about what his father was saying. It seemed to him that his father was taking all of the blame for how the afternoon turned out.

Will said, “This wasn’t your fault.”

Dexter said, “I’m not talking about fault, here. I’m talking about learning from your mistakes. One of the things that you have to learn, is to examine your past actions, and learn from them. You should be your own harshest critic. You shouldn’t focus on only the negatives. You need to look at the things you did right. The whole point is that you have to learn from your experiences.

“You also have to watch what other people do, and learn from their experiences. Maybe they do things differently than you do. If so, does their way work better, or worse than yours?”

“That makes sense,” Will said.

Dexter said, “So let’s try it. We’ll each come up with something that we did wrong on this hike. I’ll go first ... I should have stopped at the place where Sarah twisted her ankle, and helped her across the uncertain ground.”

Sarah said, “I shouldn’t have twisted my ankle.”

Dexter held up a hand and asked, “Are you saying that it was a preventable accident?”

Sarah answered, “I guess so. I mean, it wasn’t until I had twisted it, that I remembered your earlier warning that the footing wasn’t very good through there. I could have been more careful.”

“Excellent,” Dexter said. “Will?”

“You know, you suggested that we turn around at one point. I dismissed it without thinking. I should have really considered that the hike was a little more strenuous than I was prepared for,” Will said.

“That’s a good point, too,” Dexter said.

“You’re right,” Sarah said. “I didn’t think about that. It would have been a nice little hike, if we had turned around at that point.”

“It would have been about as much of a hike as we could have enjoyed,” Will said after giving it another moment of thought.

Dexter said, “It’s my turn again. I should have gotten a little more experience hiking, before bringing you two with me on a hike.”

“What good would that have done?” Will asked.

“It would have made all of the difference in the world. I would have become a little more aware of some of the problems we might have encountered. I could have found a trail that we would have enjoyed, before taking you on it. That way, you’d have had a lot more fun on your first hike,” Dexter said.

“I can see that,” Sarah said.

Dexter said, “After this experience, I don’t think either of you would want to go on a hike again.”

“That’s not true. I really enjoyed the trip down to the pond and around it. I learned a lot,” Will said.

“That was fun. I enjoyed watching the baby ducks,” Sarah said.

“It was only coming back that was not so fun,” Will said.

“I’ll concede that point,” Dexter said.

“So you would try it again?”

“Sure,” Will said.

“Maybe not tomorrow, though,” Sarah said pointing to her ankle.

Her sprained ankle was wrapped in a bandage. The doctor had prescribed aspirin to deal with the pain and swelling. Her ankle was a little tender, but not all that bad. Still, she couldn’t put her weight on it. Instead, she had to use crutches to move around. Like most young people, she was milking it for everything she could.

In a way, Dexter was relieved that the two kids were willing to try hiking again. He had enjoyed most of the hike. In fact, he felt that he probably could have handled the entire hike without much difficulty except for having to carry Sarah for the last mile or so.

“We’ll probably be talking about this day for a long time to come,” Sarah said.

“You’re probably right,” Dexter said.

Although common interests often formed the basis for friendships, the strength of a friendship was often tempered as a result of shared experiences ... particularly harsh ones. There was nothing like having a tough time to bind people together or force them apart. Brittle relationships often fell apart when faced with hard times, but good relationships most often grew stronger.

Will said, “This sure wasn’t like in my computer games. I mean, the characters never get tired or twist their ankle. You sure can’t save the state of game, here, and go back to try it again. I guess there’s many more differences between the fantasy world presented in computer games, and real life, than I thought.”

Dexter was kind of surprised that Will thought there were any similarities between the game world and the real world. He said, “You don’t believe there are monsters out there?”