The 2005 NCAA Final Four
Championship coverage from Franklin Street
The
Tarheels
have just beaten Michigan State to advance to the NCAA Finals and I
know
what I have to do. I have unfinished business with a lightpole
that
I had unsuccessfully attempted to ascend after the Dook victory.
Since then I have spent several minutes of each day studying that
lightpole
on my way to and from lunch.
I had
run out of traction and out of gas trying to shimmy up its glossy
painted
surface, but I hadn’t realized that I was only a foot or two away from
reaching the crossbar that extended the light out over the
sidewalk.
I noted on my lunch breaks that the crossbar was a suitable 
diameter
for gripping and appeared to be firmly anchored to the pole, so it
would
be unlikely that it would break loose and I would plummet to my
death.
Perhaps I would even hang from the crossbar and do pull-ups for the
crowd
the way the cheerleaders do pushups after each touchdown at the
football
games. I had always thought that they should be doing pullups
anyway.
There’s really nothing impressive about doing 7, 14, 21 or even 35 or
more
pushups, especially with the adrenaline of being in front of a
crowd.
But 35 pullups, that would be something.
Franklin
Street is filling up, bonfires are starting. The lightpole is
waiting.
My hands feel light and tingly in anticipation. My palms are
moist.
Adrenalin has vanquished the beer from my veins. There is too
much
at stake, I need a dry-run. I head across the street to the tree
in front of Spanky’s. The trunk is about 18 inches in diameter
and
the first branches are about 15 feet up. I have not climbed a
tree
in some years, but with its rough, grippy bark, the ascent is nothing
compared
to the lightpole.
“Woooooo, there’s a guy in a
tree,” the people
on the ground all say.
“Woooooo, I’m a guy in a tree,” I
say.
The
funny thing is, we both mean it.
Two
Chapel Hill Police officers appear at the base of the tree. They
are looking up at me. “Down?” I say.
“Down.”
They nod.
I
slide
down the trunk, giving myself a nice case of bark-burn, and look
expectantly
at the officers. With a wordless nod of the head, one of them
motions
for me to get lost.
Now
I am ready. I make a beeline for the lightpole. All it
takes
is one shimmy before I can get my hand on top of the 20mph sign, and
then
work my feet up onto the bolts affixing the bottom of the sign to the
pole.
Without much trouble, I then get my feet on top of the sign. I
don’t
trust it with my full weight, so my arms remain locked around the
pole.
This is where I ran out of gas after the Dook game and slid back down
in
exhaustion. Today though I am focused on the crossbar. I
shimmy
once, shimmy twice and feel myself slide back down, just like before.
I am
failing in front of a crowd of hundreds if not thousands. They
begin
to chant: “CLIMB THAT POLE! CLIMB THAT POLE!” I shimmy
once,
twice, but my sweaty hands find no purchase on the pole’s glossy
surface.
My
arms
are getting weak. I should dismount while I still have the
strength
to do so safely.
“CLIMB THAT POLE! CLIMB THAT POLE!” I gather myself.
Shake out my arms. Wipe my palms, shimmy. It’s like running
up an icy driveway-- filling a bucket with a gaping hole in the
bottom.
Cornily enough, I think of the Tarheels battling back against Villanova
in the round of 16. “CLIMB THAT POLE!” I think of a
certain
bug I once read about where the only chemical in its tiny bug brain
tells
it to climb and keep climbing as high as it can. I forget why--
probably
so the wind would disperse its eggs from the treetops or something like
that. One thing is certain, I can’t lay an egg. Not
here.
Not now. “CLIMB THAT POLE!”
Shimmy,
backslide, shimmy, backslide—I am slowly netting altitude. I cock
my head back and lock my eyes on the crossbar. My left hand goes
for broke and latches on. I will advance to the next round.
The pole will go home.
People
take my picture. I take their picture. “Woooo, there’s a
guy
on the pole.”
“Woooo,
I’m a guy on a pole.” The exuberance is real.
The
police are below. “Down?” I ask.
“Down.”
They nod.
I prepare to negotiate the sign
and the bolts in the
downward
direction. My pants catch on the bolts, but I am able to pause
and
shake them free after only minimal ripping of my pants. I
remember
hoping that the officers would note this bit of control and grant me
some
leniency based upon it. I was already planning my defense:
“Your Honor, my client (that’s how I would refer
to myself) paused on his way down the pole and skillfully unsnagged his
pants to avoid significant rippage. Contrary to the State's
claims, I
submit
to you that my client’s careful, studied ascent and descent of the
pole that evening
were the very picture of ORDERLY conduct.”
Pants
unsnagged, I was home free. Or at least I would be on the ground
free. “Ain’ no LAW against climbin’ lightpoles,” I heard someone
shout. Oddly, I found this reassuring.
The
shorter of the two officers grabbed me by the shirt and pulled me into
the doorway of a storefront. The guys at the tree must have
recognized
me and radioed across the street. This might cost me a couple
hundred
dollars, but what else could I have done—not climbed the pole? I
did what needed to be done. I could wake up and look at myself in
the mirror the next morning. Granted, that mirror might be a
barely-reflective,
dented sheet of metal mounted over a prison sink, but I could look at
it
without shame.
The
shorter officer had a buzzcut and yelled in a drill sergeant voice and
cadence, “HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?”
“Nah,
uh-uhh.” I replied after a moment of honest reflection.
“HAVE
YOU LOST YOUR MIND!?”
Having
read several Pat Conroy memoirs about military school culture, I was
able
to recognize the game we were playing and changed my answer to, “No
sir.”
“THEN
HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOUR ACTIONS ON THAT LIGHTPOST!?”
Still
winded from climbing, I mustered, “unce luvtum obtuny suh.”
“I
SAID, HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN YOUR ACTIONS ON THAT LIGHTPOST!?”
I took
a deep breath. “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, sir.”
“THAT’S
NOT GOOD ENOUGH! I should take you to jail RIGHT NOW…” My
mind
raced for a better answer. I had simply done what needed to be
done.
I was so intoxicated by the crowd, the spectacle, the accomplishment
that
I wondered if the slang term “high” had been derived from a guy
climbing
high up a lightpole. I had never felt better.
I
didn’t
have a better answer for this angry officer, and I didn’t much care
what
happened next. If CBS had the footage and any sense of
human
interest, my hand grasping that crossbar would be a cymbal-clash in
their
post-tournament One Shining Moment montage. “NOW GET OUTTA MY
SIGHT!”
The officer concluded.
I had
walked about ten steps before a jubilant group of friends swarmed over
me as if I had just drained a game-winning three-pointer. In
one
shining mo-ment you kneeeew… you were aliiiive…
A second pair of police officers took exception to the idea of a guy
being
congratulated for having been atop a lightpole and quickly approached,
one of them brandishing handcuffs and shouting, “DO YOU WANNAGODA
JAIL TONIGHT!?” Time is short and the road is long, in the
blinking
of an eye that mo-ment’s gone…
“No
sir, I already got a talkin’ to.”
“ALL
IT TAKES IS ONE NUT LIKE YOU TO MAKE THE WHOLE CROWD LOSE CONTROL!”
“Okay,
I already got a talkin’ to and… no more climbing.”
“IF
I SEE YOU ON ONE MORE OBJECT TONIGHT I WILL PUT YOU IN JAIL…
NOW
KEEP WALKING!”
Ameba-like,
I slid through the solid matrix of bodies to the bonfire where the
metal
skeleton of a bicycle radiated, hot and paintless, atop the
embers.
It seemed harsh to burn a bicycle, but it was a pretty crappy bike
anyway.
Across the fire a male undergraduate jumped around in only his
tighty-whities.
As I was trying to decide whether this was respectable, repulsive, or
both,
he attempted to jump the fire, fell short and toppled back onto the
fiery-hot
metal bike. He struggled for a split second, then popped up,
patted
out his smoldering briefs, and disappeared into the crowd. One
shiiining moment... frozen in time…
About
a block farther down where the crowd was sparse, a news anchorperson
was
illuminated on the roof of Franklin Street Pizza and Pasta. My
first
reaction was to begin making fun of him for being a Kato Kailin
look-alike,
but on further inspection, it turned out that he was a she and,
therefore,
any resemblance to Kato Kailin was unremarkable. With
pointguard-like
alertness, I adapted my game-plan accordingly and began to shout, “Hey
newslady, woooooooo, neeewslady, newslaaadaaaaay, woooooooo.” The
cameraman motioned for more noise and eventually turned his camera on
the
small crowd that had gathered. Most of them were yelling more
about
Tarheels than about newsladies, but I had started it and I might be on
TV. One shiiining moment… you were willing to try…
From
there we went to the local seedy, smoky, weirdo bar because it was the
only place that wasn’t full. In a bar where nearly everyone is
covered
in tattoos and piercings, I was filling my cup at the water cooler and
showing one of the more attractive women in the place the tree-bark
abrasions
on my forearms. She was not impressed. However, like a
surprising
number
of people, she did recognize me from the lightpole-- or at least
remembered having seen a guy on the lightpole who, it stood to reason,
had been me. I told her that this made me a minor
celebrity.
She disagreed. I told her that it made me an almost-minor
celebrity.
She sort of nodded and shrugged before turning back to her
friend.
One shiiiining mo… ment… piano, piano, piano.
2005 Final Four photo gallery coming soon
[2000
Final Four coverage from Franklin Street]
[Home]