Per

LOSING PER'S FAVORITE FRISBEE ON WHISKEY RUN BEACH

It's the summer of 1995 and Per and I are on Whiskey Run beach in Oregon. The wind is howling parallel to the shore.

Being jokesters, we attempt to play toss with his Frisbee. I pull it out of my pack and throw it to him about 6 feet away, but the wind takes the disc and sends it flying down the beach. It lands on end, with the underside of the disc facing out to sea toward the oncoming gale, and the wind keeps it upright and rolling down the beach. We watch it for a moment, not really thinking, but then realize that it isn't going to fall over and stop. By now it's a few hundred feet downwind from us, and we sprint after it, but its rolling fast and our sprinting sinks to a fast jog as we try to catch it. At this point, it still didn't seem like a big deal - that we would catch up to it soon or it would fall over or get hung up eventually. But it didn't, and we couldn't catch up to it. We had gained on it originally, but now were out of energy and jogging with the disc seemingly taunting us less than 50 feet away. We kept running, and it kept rolling. With winded desperation, Per insisted that we catch the disc. It was his favorite Frisbee, a glow-in-the-dark one he'd gotten long ago. We kept hustling to no avail, though - the disc just kept on rolling. Whiskey Run beach stretched beyond as far as the eye could see and by now I started to regard the situation as hopeless. But Per wouldn't give up. Finally, I did. I'm going back to get my car, I told him. I turned around, walking back up the beach while Per kept running after the disc. Back at my Volvo I collected a bunch of drift wood and built a ramp for me to ride down the small bluff onto the beach. Once on the beach, I floored it on the hard wet sand next to the waterline, catching up with Per about a mile away. Nearly out of breath, he jumped in my car, saying that the Frisbee hadn't stopped rolling, and had in-fact rolled ahead out of his sight. We zoomed down the beach, scanning the beach, but without success. Did it roll into infinity? What happened to it? We drove down the beach a mile or two and never saw it again. And that was how Per's favorite glow-in-the-dark Frisbee escaped.