Great Story on the Mysterium Tremendum

This is a letter my friend Jason Price sent in to a group discussing
Sewanee ghost stories. I think this is an amazing story of how
mysterious, wonderful and unfathomable life can be.

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I was awarded a Watson Fellowship in 1998 to travel abroad during
1998-1999. My girlfriend (now wife), Kari Palmintier, graduated from
Sewanee in 1999 and worked at the Monteagle Assembly that summer. As
I had no strings attached and no job lined up upon returning from the
Watson, I decided to return to the mountain to be with Kari and to
enjoy some final days on the Mountain. As luck would have it, I was
able to house sit for Bran and Cindy Potter for several weeks in
July-August. It was a wonderful arrangement: eat all the food in the
freezer (I was king-of-the-scrounge in those days), water the plants,
and maybe cut the grass if I felt like it. Of course it was, and
still is, I presume, known that Bran's house is haunted. I already
knew this because I was a geology major, and those types of rumors
circulate among the fold. However, on his way out the door Bran
assured me that his was a friendly ghost and not to worry.

In early August, our good friend, Jamie Blythe (now Wood), c'99,
passed through Sewanee on her way to her family's cotton farm in
northern Alabama. Jamie had spent the last several months as a ranger
in Yosemite National Park and had done a good bit of rock climbing.
As Kari and I were planning our own voyage to Yosemite later that
fall, we picked her brain about great things to do there, including
some recommended climbing routes. There was one route in particular
that captivated her: the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral, a
beautiful multi-pitch (multiple rope lengths) climb that, at 5.10a,
was a challenge but very achievable. It was and is one of the
must-do's in the Valley. Jamie carried on about the quality of the
climb, and then stopped herself, "Wait, I've got the guidebook in my
truck." She returned with the guidebook, and as Kari, Jamie, and I
leafed through it, we came across a cut-off margin where the topo for
Middle Cathedral should have been. Cutting the page out of a
guidebook is a common strategy for climbers on big multi-pitch routes
because a single sheet of paper weighs a lot less than a 300 page
bound book. Jamie apologized that she didn't have the topo and
figured that she had left it with her climbing partner who was still
in Yosemite. Despite this, she raved about the route and told us that
we absolutely had to do the climb.

During that summer in Sewanee I worked two of the requisite jobs for a
Snowdenite: flipping burgers at Shenanigans and painting houses with
George Dick. I can honestly say that both have served me well, as I
can still make a mean spiced turkey melt, and I think of George every
time I wield a paintbrush. Given that both of these are somewhat
dirty jobs, I tended to wear a set of work clothes during the day that
I would change out of in the evening. A few days after Jamie left, it
was back to the grind, so I pulled on a pair of paint-daubed
houndstooth shorts that had been laying against the upstairs bedroom
wall for several days. Why I chose those shorts, I do not know,
except that they were already dirty so what was another few days of
paint and grease? When I pulled them on, I noticed a piece of paper
in the back pocket. I had hoped it was some cash that had escaped my
notice, but instead, I pulled out a folded up, thicker-than-usual,
shorter-than-usual, white piece of paper with black line work. Once I
unfolded it, I almost fell over when I saw that it was was Jamie's
topo of the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral! It was the right page
number, and I could see the relatively clean cut that had been made
with scissors from a leatherman or swiss army knife.

How?? Why? Who can say. There is no explanation for the skeptic.
Jamie did not believe that she had the topo; she did not go upstairs
to the room where my shorts were; I had had no access to the guidebook
since it was in Jamie's truck prior to her bringing it inside and us
mutually and coevally discovering the missing page. Not only that, I
did not wear those houndstooth shorts for at least a week spanning
Jamie's time in Sewanee.

I was not a big believer in ghosts until I lived for several weeks in
Bran Potter's house. Indeed, the Potter ghost was (is) a benevolent
ghost. That he could somehow magically deliver the lost page that had
gone off to Lord only knows where is incredible, extraordinary.

And, if you must know, I had too much trepidation about the whole
affair to attempt the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral! Some may
have taken the topo turning up in my pocket as an auspicious gift, one
that should have been capitalized upon at first opportunity. I, on
the other hand, had more of an ominous feeling--the route delivered by
the ghost. Perhaps I would join him in the ether-of-the-between if I
attempted the route. After all, I had just returned from a year in
the mountains and had known people who had been killed while climbing.
So, to this day, despite having climbed at least 40 days in Yosemite
Valley over the last 13 years on numerous classic routes, I _still_
have not climbed the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral.

good luck with your compilation,
Jason