I was tempted to do man-on-the-street interviews and ask those nice old people in wool sweaters about their pain on a scale of 1 to 10. Alas, I feared arrest for disturbing the peace or worse, conducting research without an Institutional Review Board–ap – proved protocol.
Only later in the day did I figure out the meaning of the canes, which at this point resembled in my mind the procession of brooms in the Fantasia version of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. When we got to the York Minster, my daughter, who is 23, announced that she wanted to climb to its top. The tower at the minster is 190 feet high and is reached by a narrow circular staircase with 275 steps. Being fit, I agreed to join her.
At the entrance to the tower, warning signs made the climb sound daunting, if not foolhardy. “Do not attempt it you have any health problems or if you have claustrophobia, vertigo, asthma, angina, or are pregnant.” Suddenly, I felt gripped with fear, as if I was to climb El Capitan without a rope.
I was not alone in my anxiety; the people in the queue began to talk nervously, wondering whether the climb was too arduous or dangerous. Because the narrow staircase allows passage in only one direction, they fretted about what would happen if panic took hold, or someone started wheezing or had his head go spinning.
Cane Revelation
Fear is contagious, and it seemed that more than a few people were having second thoughts about the climb. Just then, at a few minutes before 4:00 pm, people from the last group to the tower emerged from the staircase, uttering reassurances such as, “It’s not bad,” or “You can do it.” Among that group of people coming down from the top were two old ladies who looked to be in their 80s, frail as sparrows with spines curved and shrunken, vertebrae no doubt thin as lace. In the hands of each of the women was a silver metal cane, and as they walked to the exit of the Minster, their canes clicked a zippy tattoo as they struck the ridged and darkened stone that had withstood the steps of worshippers and visitors for over 500 years.
The old ladies smiled and looked jaunty and proud of their accomplishment: 275 steps up and 275 steps down to get a dazzling view of Yorkshire countryside with the green dales rising in the distance. Age, a crumbling spine, and necessity of the cane did not keep these women from scaling the heights.
