When I finally realized I could go climbing without asking my folks' permission, I was twenty-three years old,
and had a few dollars in my pocket once in a while. I lived in Houston, and started studying climbing,
reading whatever materials I could find. I had, after all, wanted to climb mountains since the first time
I had seen pictures of American climbers on Mount Everest during the 1963 expedition (when I was four!)
My buddy Tom Jones was equally curious about the heights, and we struck out on a similar
path at the same time in our lives. At first, he had a great aspiration to climb the steepest, highest
American summits, which sent a chill up my back. I just wondered where we could get some
fancy oxygen masks for the big peaks in West Texas! Even though I'd been higher, it didn't
connect in my brain. West Texas, no matter how many RV's encroach on it, is still way
out there, and, even today, having been to some of the places I've been, it could still be a serious proposition
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