Several times a year, the entire Wash Heights (no one ever called it Washington Heights) Teen Club would get on a train and go somewhere great.  There must have been a hundred of us on the trip to climb Mt. Fuji.  TC Director Mrs. McCall would get parents as chaperones, since there was no way she and her husband (don't cross him, a career Master Sergeant, he would not put up with your crap!) could keep all of us in check.  Their daughter, Myra, was, of course, the picture of decorum.  I prayed my parents wouldn't volunteer and, thankfully, they didn't.  The train trip itself was utter chaos.  Guys getting off at stations to buy liquor on the platform, which seemed to be obtainable by even 14 year-olds.  Some barely made it back when the train took off again.

	Guys trying to get girls into the 4 square foot bathrooms.  The liquor taking effect on several, who had to make sure everyone knew it by being loud and obnoxious.  Buying Japanese food on the platform .. and looking at it and wondering what it was.  Some people got into Japanese food easily .. I never did .. and don't to this day.  "Is this cooked?  What if I get the runs?  Is there anything without fish in it?  Don't they have hamburgers anywhere outside Tokyo?"  Those who had completely immersed in the culture would just roll their eyes up in their head.
(click on pics outlined for larger view)

Arriving finally at Mt Fuji (and starving), I took a look at that mountain.  It was huge!  It was gonna take two full days and nights to climb it (from the absolute bottom, not take the train to the 5th station, like intelligent people do).  Have another cigarette and think about this. Thankfully, we spent that night in a hotel near the mountain.  Chaperones who had never been on road trips with us before really didn't know what to expect.  If their kids were on the trip, it was basically a real bummer for the kids. There's nothing else they could do but play the dutiful son or daughter.

I shoulda known better after first seeing this sign. (click on pics for larger view)

  However, the chaperones saw kids who had been over to their house as well-behaved, well-spoken young gentlemen and ladies turn into Atilla the Hun and his ravaging hordes across the steppes of Asia.  I think most of the chaperones got little sleep that night, playing traffic guard in the hotel hallways, trying to keep boys out of girls' rooms, and vice versa.  If smuggling alcohol onto the train appeared to be a stream of trouble, then at the hotel, it was a tsunami.   No one wanted to go to bed.  We were amped up and psyched, as any road trip will do to you.  When the adults finally herded each sex into the proper rooms (and who knows what really went on?), large groups of boys would converge on one room, and girls in another.  The girls would chat.  The guys were looking for more to do.  Hey, guys, I just happened to bring a deck of cards .. and some chips.  How about some poker?  Ahh, what a manly thing to do, drink a smuggled beer and play seven card stud.  Everyone pulled out their yen (we had to convert our MPC for the trip), I was the banker, and it started .. and went on .. and on .. and on .. until we see it's approaching dawn .. and none of us had gotten any sleep.  I pocket a considerable amount of cash.  I think: this is gonna be a great trip.

The next morning, a banging on the door awakens us.  "Time to climb the mountain," comes this overly-cheerful voice from the hallway.  I've gotten about three hours' sleep, and am in no mood for this.  I think I'll stay here.  People are pulling me out of bed.  I really don't wanna go through with this, but I'll really look like an idiot if I chicken out now.  Besides, there was no way the chaperones were going to leave me alone at the bottom for all that time.

This was a good idea when we started, but I'm having 2nd, 3rd and 4th thoughts now.  I'd better go through with it.  We get a 6 foot wooden pole to climb with .. it has another purpose.  A slight incline at the start becomes Mt. Everest by the end of the first day.  I am wheezing from smoking way too many cigarettes for a 16 year-old.  But, there were no Surgeon General's reports then, so I'm not the only one.  There are stations all along the way, where you can buy the worst food on Earth (you're not coming back, they don't care!) .. "they're only noodles, Michael!" .. or you can stay for the night, everyone jammed on the tatami mats on the floor.  By this time, all the athletic types have zoomed far out in front, straight up the mountain, so they can be the first to the top.  Each station you pass, you get that station's symbol branded on your climbing pole.  That way, you can prove you've made all ... how many? .. 9 stations ? 10?  89?.. to the top.  Or not.  So, here we are, about six of us, at the 4th station, with everyone else at least to the 6th station, and we're feeling sorry for ourselves.  That is, until someone points out that there is ONE group that hasn't passed us.  We are jubilant!  The fact that it is a group of really out of shape kids doesn't faze us in the least.  We won't be last!
 

Stage 5, where normal people start  the trek up Mt. Fuji.	Stage 7, straight up, but it seemed like descending into Dante's hell.

Mt. Fuji can just knock the shit out of you!  It gets freezing cold and it gets so steep that your poor, unused muscles just scream for relief.  Maybe I should have gone out for sports after all.  This is torture.  Did Prince Vlad of Romania design this climb?  People do this for fun!?  The second day, our ass-dragging, ragtag, motley crew fell breathless into a rest station and dropped limp onto the floor.  We got our poles branded, drank some water .. that you have to buy if you run out .. and headed off again, calves throbbing with pain.  We tried singing to keep our mind off everything.  That even deteriorated into "Swing that hammer, take it to the Cap'n," and we just knew we had chain gang iron around our ankles.

Looks quiet and graceful, doesn't it?	Something to peacefully contemplate?
Don't let it fool you!  This is my arch enemy!	My nemesis - Fuji-san!

This was a sight I was never to see .. the summit of Mt. Fuji.  It was disgusting to see the pictures people brought back from the summit.	Oh, right!  Just fine!  Rub it in!  The whole damn COUNTRY is on the summit .. including eight kindergarden groups, a senior citizen nursing home and two guys in wheelchairs .. all but me and my pitiful crew.

(click on pics outlined for larger view)

  Those who would reach the top would come down a different path .. sometime tomorrow.  On the way down, we wondered if there was a dealer trafficking in counterfeit brands for our climbing poles (there wasn't .. we checked).  

We offered this guy a king's ransom to sell us fake brands for every station .. well, maybe it was a carton of Marlboros .. but he wasn't buying it.	I may go back to Mt. Fuji and set up shop selling these to out of shape Americans.

Then, several more stations back .. in fact, waaayyyyy back ... we ran into the last group .. wheezing, panting, groaning.  We soon had them enlisted in our mutiny, and we all started down the mountain together.  12,388 feet high .. how much is that in meters?  Who cares?  Well, we had 7 brands, that wasn't so bad.  Better than the 5 these guys had in two days.  It was a lot easier going down than coming up .. quantum leaps.  We spent that night in the last way station before the bottom, preparing for the eventual humiliation.

One by one, as they returned the next day, the other groups ragged on us mercilessly, showing off their hiking sticks with all the brands, and especially the one from the summit.  We tried lame excuses at first, like one guy turned his ankle and we had to go back with him.  "ALL of you had to come back?" they asked, and we knew it was a pitiful justification.  But, like most kids, they tired of the taunts after a while and got on to other things to talk about.  The train ride back to Tokyo was more restrained than the trip going.  Everyone was tired and slept most of the way back to Tokyo.  I was introspective.  Bummed out.  I smoked too much and didn't exercise enough.  It was the day Mt. Fuji kicked my ass.

Then, all that bad news was soon forgotten with our next Teen Club trip .. the Christmas ski trip to Nikko.