Bio Preface

Long before I set foot on a mountain or even aspired to hike, I was thrust into truly strange circumstances. Although they have nothing to do with my outdoor adventures, they led to events more fascinating than any of my trips. However, some readers may think these events are too remarkable, even unbelievable, and I'm concerned I may not be taken seriously. Some accounts will surely strain credibility. But I want my writing, whether here or in my trip reports, to be trusted and not dismissed as a product of imagination, fabrication or some delusion. Incidences portrayed here in my autobiography, as improbable as they may appear, occurred just as I have described them. I pride myself in thinking and writing objectively, and I take to heart a passage from William Zinsser's book, Writing About Your Life: “To write about your life you only have to be true to yourself.”

Bob Spirko
November 2011

Photo from the Internet

Signs of Trouble

I was in my late teens when the night sky changed. It probably happened gradually, nudging the edges of my awareness before capturing my complete attention. When I took notice, the change was startling. What used to be a typical star-filled sky became an extraordinary spectacle. Stars that used to twinkle now dazzled as if far brighter, clearer and more beautiful than I had ever observed, a sight so amazing that I often stood spellbound whenever I stepped outside on a clear night. And it wasn't just stars. All nighttime scenery, even ordinary street lamps and whatever surfaces their light fell on, appeared unusual and alluring.

The night sky hadn't changed, of course, nor did I believe that my night vision had somehow improved. I wasn't seeing better, just differently; nightscapes were much prettier. I wondered why and was sure I was seeing the night sky differently than anyone else, but I saw no harm in it and rather enjoyed it. I could not have guessed it meant serious trouble.

Before the night sky changed, my life was normal. My father was a welder, and my family – my parents and two brothers – lived modestly in Fort Erie, Ontario, a border town across the Niagara River from Buffalo, NY. Since our home sat on the edge of town near the woods, I often explored the forest, catching frogs and snakes, and climbing trees. Those boyhood interests gave way to academic pursuits when I entered high school, and my attention turned to math and science.

In 1969, after finishing grade 13 (Ontario offered an extra year until 2002), I looked forward to studying math and computer science at Waterloo University. Back then, computers were slow and ponderous. A single computer might fill a large room yet have only one megabyte of memory. There were no computer terminals; programs were typed on punch cards, one line of code per card.

I enrolled in the cooperative program that alternated four months of school with four months of work. It would take longer to get my degree, but the work would help pay for university as well as provide valuable experience. Ambitious and studious, I wanted to be a computer programmer.

However, that didn’t happen. After entering university, I became uncharacteristically apathetic. I made poor grades and made a error that cost a company a million dollars. I barely made it through my first year of university only to fail my second. It was odd that I should lose interest in school, almost as odd as the unnatural brilliance I saw in the stars at night. Yet stranger things were about to befall me.

In 1972, I dropped out of university and moved to Niagara Falls, Ontario, to work as a milkman. Driving a milk truck allowed me to meet people, especially girls. I had lost my zeal for school, but I was still attracted to the opposite sex.

I was on a date when I had my first mind-blowing experience. It was the weirdest thing. One minute I was walking in a mall, and next I had dropped to my knees, overwhelmed with pleasure. It wasn't drugs that led to it, nor did I take any, but a storefront. Not any store, but a shiny, one-of-a-kind store with glass and chrome like the one I had seen in Buffalo. Such a unique store couldn't possibly exist elsewhere, or so I thought, but it did, and it was here in a mall in Niagara Falls, and I couldn't comprehend it. I was confused. Was I in Buffalo or was this the same store in another city? My mind reeled as I tried to sort it out, and that's when it hit me. A sudden, warm rush ran up my spine and exploded in my head. It was an intense pleasure, an ecstasy so powerful that I fell to my knees. For a couple of seconds, I was oblivious to all else. Then the mysterious euphoria dissipated, and I became aware that I was kneeling on a mall floor with a girl standing next to me.

As I stood up, I wondered what to tell my date or myself. I couldn't account for the head rush or whatever it was. In all my 22 years, I had never experienced anything like it.

Months went by, and the body rush incident was nearly forgotten when another oddity arose. I had a girlfriend now, and after dropping her off, I kissed her goodbye. Nothing unusual about that except our kiss didn't end. As I drove away, I could still feel her lips pressed to mine. The sensation was so real it was impossible to ignore. It wasn't just peculiar; it was annoying. I tried rubbing my lips to release that kiss, but those phantom lips remained locked on mine. An hour passed before her kiss disappeared.

Being more pragmatic than romantic, I tried to come up with a rational explanation but couldn't. I shrugged it off as a harmless mystery. I never imagined there would come a time when all my senses would go haywire, when not everything I saw, heard, felt, smelled or tasted was real.

With the advent of corner stores selling cheaper milk, my job as a milkman ended. I couldn't find work in Niagara Falls, so I moved to Toronto. I took on two jobs: selling betting tickets at Greenwood Raceway (now defunct) in the evenings and driving a truck for Canadian Linen during the day.

I became comfortable living and working in the big, bustling city of Toronto. Nightscapes still appeared strangely resplendent, but everything else was normal until I met the girl who made a face.

While working, I stopped at a fitness centre on my route. The centre used many towels, which were tossed into large canvas bags. The used towels were damp, and the bags were heavy. A young, pretty girl behind the counter helped me with the bags. She tried lifting one, but it was too heavy. As she struggled, her face flushed and contorted, yet she seemed amused, as if she found it funny that she couldn't lift a bag of towels. Her face portrayed conflicting expressions, at once both straining and smiling. Her contrary image seared into my mind, and like the storefront episode a year earlier, it confused me and caused my brain to burst with pleasure. But not right away.

I threw the towels in my truck and drove away. As I negotiated the busy streets of Toronto, I thought about the pretty girl lifting that heavy bag. When I pictured her straining, smiling face, something extraordinary happened. In my mind and of its own accord, her face changed into bright colours and then, like stirring paint colours, they swirled. Suddenly a warm rush ran up my spine and exploded in my head. If I hadn't been sitting down, the ecstasy probably would have brought me to my knees. For a few seconds, exquisite pleasure flooded my mind, obliterating all thought and awareness.

When I recovered, I tried it again. After checking to make sure I hadn't lost control of my truck, I again pictured her face and again it melted into colours and climaxed in euphoria. I kept doing it.

The euphoric episodes reminded me of an experiment done with rats in the 1960s, something I remembered from my university psychology classes. Rats were wired so that when they pressed a bar, it triggered their pleasure centres. They hit the bar hundreds of times a day for the reward. I was like one of those rats, stimulating pleasure receptors in my brain repeatedly.

Instead of pressing a bar, though, I conjured an image in my mind. I was driving down Highway 401, one of Toronto’s busiest thoroughfares. But nothing was more important than that rush, not even the risk of getting killed, so I kept doing it. Fortunately, the effects diminished with each episode, and I calmed down before I crashed. For the rest of the day, but less frequently, I continued to induce decreasingly smaller rushes by picturing the girl's straining face. By the following morning, the effect diminished to a buzz before disappearing.

The experience was bizarre and alarming. By picturing a girl's face, I had become extremely high. I didn’t understand it and didn’t tell anyone about it or my other extraordinary experiences. Who would believe me?

In 1973, I moved back to my hometown, Fort Erie. I took a job at Fleet Manufacturing, an aircraft parts factory that also employed my father and brother. I worked as an expediter, ferrying parts between departments. I settled into a normal life, except for the alluring night sky and my unusual degree of apathy. I also had some delightful head rushes, this time triggered by music. These were not the sensations-to-die-for like I had before, but they were extraordinarily pleasant.

But I was concerned about my fatigue, which had been worsening since high school. I felt unaccountably tired for hours or even days at a time, especially at work. But most days I felt fine, so I didn’t worry much.

When I felt good, I was energetic and loved going on long bicycle rides. I especially enjoyed cycling along the Niagara Parkway, a scenic road that follows the Niagara River from Fort Erie to Niagara Falls, about a 100 km round trip. One day I pressed farther, past the Falls all the way to Queenston Heights. I was full of vigour, zipping along and almost at my destination when I hit a gravel patch. I slid out of control and slammed face-first into the road. Gravel sliced my legs, shoulder, hands, and face. The accident left me bleeding in several places.

After getting up and looking around, I spied a policeman sitting in his vehicle down the street. I limped over to him and calmly asked for a ride to the hospital. I must have looked a fright for in his haste to come to my aid, and much to my amusement, he tumbled out of his car onto the ground.

The officer drove me to a hospital in Niagara Falls. Covered in blood and dirt, the medical staff asked me to bathe before treating my cuts and scrapes. They swathed my hands in bandages, rendering them nearly useless. I had to take a week off work; I vowed to get cycling gloves. My worst injury was a laceration in my cheek that required 14 stitches after a stone was removed.

After leaving the hospital, my father drove me home. Although I had trouble holding the handlebars with my bandaged hands, I went for a short bike ride. That was the summer of '74. Years would pass before I would again have such vitality.

With my younger and older brothers, my mother (centre back) and extended family (1964)

My job as a milkman (1972)