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Of course I wasn’t allergic to it.  I knew that and was certain about it, as certain about it as a twenty-six year old man can be about anything related to himself.  If you had me do one of those “party mixer” games where I have to write down three interesting things about me, the fact that I wasn’t allergic to poison ivy would have been one of the three on the list.  The other two would have been the fact that I play tuba and that in college at Nebraska I memorized the first ninety decimal places of the numerical value of pi.

Before I proceed, I’ll answer a couple questions just to get that out of the way.  I don’t want you distracted through the remainder of the story.  Why did I memorize ninety decimal places of pi?  I don’t know – I thought  it would be fun or unique.  I think maybe I thought it would be a good way to meet girls.  “Hi, I’ve memorized pi to ninety places and I drive a red Dodge Dart.  Wanna dance?”  No, it didn’t work.  It did get some smiles though.

The tendency for the female gender to not be impressed with my capacity for retaining ninety digits of an irrational number meant that I had to rely on my charm, my looks, and my tuba.  Well … okay, I had to rely on my tuba.  It was a nice tuba (I play the same tuba today), fortunately, and eventually I met and serenaded the woman who would end up marrying me.  Actually, after I proposed to her, I was playing background music on my tuba while she mulled it over.  After the seventh piece (a Bach fugue), she begged me to stop.  I threatened to keep playing unless she said yes.  She quickly said yes.

My unwavering belief in my ability to withstand a poison ivy onslaught had its foundation back in my childhood days, playing in the backyard, and camping.  I had been exposed to it numerous times.  I even remembered grabbing a handful once, just to prove to my friends that it had no effect on me.  And I had been correct.

So I wasn’t allergic to poison ivy.  We’ve established that. 

As I looked across the ravine and then down at my map and compass, I calculated that this shortcut would save me a couple hundred yards of running on the trails.  I decided I needed to jump across.  The only problem – and this was not really a problem, I figured – was that on the opposite side of the ravine was a large poison ivy patch.  I won’t say it was the largest patch in the universe, but it was about the size of perhaps a small ocean.  I could easily picture Marlin Perkins filming an episode at this spot.  “Standing in this safe location, notice that Jim, wearing only a loin cloth, is rolling around in the poison ivy.  I told him it was Virginia Creeper.  Join us next week as we examine Jim and discuss the adverse effects of a serious poison ivy reaction.”

Chuckling to myself, I backed up a few steps and took a running leap across the ravine, map in one hand and compass in the other.  At about the midway point of the leap – while I was suspended in air – several things occurred to me.  First of all, the ravine was a little wider than I had guessed.   Second, I hadn’t gotten a good foothold on my leap.  And third, the side of the ravine was steeper than I originally thought. 

Before I finish the jump, though, I probably should answer a couple other questions you have.

No, I don’t remember pi to ninety places now.  I tried it a couple days ago and found I could still do forty or perhaps fifty, but then I get stuck in a loop somewhere.

And yes, if you’re wondering about my Dodge Dart, it was one with a Slant Six engine. 

Well, okay, we have time for one more question.  What was I doing out in the woods with a map and a compass, leaping across a ravine?  That’s a long story. In fact, I guess it’s this story.

It was Sunday, May 17, 1987.  My fiancé was living down here in North Carolina and I was living up there in Schenectady, New York.  We had been engaged since November, and in July we were going to be married.  I planned on leaving my job in Schenectady and finding employment in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina (near Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill).

I flew down on Thursday, May 15, for an interview with Data General the next day.  Data General was the company featured in Tracy Kidder’s wonderful book, “Soul of a New Machine.”  The interview had gone very well – the hiring manager told me at the end of the day to be expecting an offer soon – and that set the stage for a wonderful weekend with my fiancé.

That year, while we were apart, she had taken up the sport of Orienteering.  Popular in Europe and gaining popularity here in the U.S., Orienteering involves using a map and compass to navigate your way through the woods in search of various control points.  Typical Orienteering meets have multiple courses with varying levels of difficulty.  My fiancé had worked up to the orange level (having done well in the lower white and yellow levels) and she suggested that for my first time I may want to try yellow.  I eagerly agreed – anything to please my honey.  My flight home was scheduled for that evening, so I had a few hours to kill on a Sunday afternoon.

So there I was, suspended in air as I jumped across the ravine.   To set the stage a little further, my arms, neck, and face were covered in sweat.  I had been running hard through the woods.

I hit the side of the ravine with a thud and then began sliding downward.  I scrambled – clawing, clutching, grabbing, reaching, hanging on to anything I could find.  Somehow I stopped the descent, and then slowly I inched my way up to the top of the ravine.  I had all but eaten the poison ivy.

Not to worry.  We’ve established, you will recall, that I was not allergic to poison ivy.

Three days later – Wednesday, May 20 – I drove from Schenectady to Syracuse, New York, to have dinner with my sister, a grad student at the university there.  My birthday had been a couple days earlier, and she wanted to take me out to dinner.  This wasn’t an unusual request.  The drive was about two and a quarter hours one way, and I regularly would make the trip to have dinner with her.

I was taken by surprise when I arrived at her place and found the apartment populated with friends and colleagues from Schenectady – they had all driven to Syracuse for a surprise party!  I was delighted.  We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, and I was thoroughly enjoying the festivities.

Jen gave me a beautiful blue sweater at the restaurant, and I put it on even though the restaurant was feeling a bit warm.

Halfway through dinner, Jen turned to me and asked if I felt okay.  “Yeah, why?” I inquired.

“Oh, just wondering you know.  You’re face looks awfully red and you’re sweating a little.”

“Well, I’m pretty warm,” I agreed.  I took off the sweater.

I noticed that my arms were itching.  I gave them a good scratching, and then finished eating. 

We went back to Jen’s apartment for cake and ice cream.  Jen then asked again if I felt okay.  “Yeah, why?” I inquired again.

“Oh, you’ve got bumps all over your arms.  And there are some on your neck.  I think there are some on your forehead and nose too.”

I looked in the mirror.  I was breaking out.

“Darn that Japanese food,” I muttered.  “I must be allergic to sushi.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she agreed.

I tried to think.  What had I eaten the last few days?  My diet was nothing out of the ordinary, other than the Japanese food that evening.  Oh well, I decided to not worry about it.  A case of the hives would go away in a few hours or a day or two.

As I drove back to Schenectady that night, the itching not only increased its intensity but it seemed to spread all over my body.

Poison ivy?  The thought actually had crossed my mind once, but I dismissed it.  I knew for certain I wasn’t allergic to poison ivy.

When I got home, I took a shower and then crawled into bed.  I slept miserably that night, tossing and turning, scratching and rubbing, and tossing and turning some more.  At two o’clock I couldn’t handle it anymore, so I got up and turned on the light.  Perhaps I could read a little and then fall back asleep.  But when I turned the light on, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror.  I was swollen.

I wasn’t just a little puffy.  I was swollen.  I was blistering.  A quick examination revealed that my entire body, head to toe, was swollen and blistering.  I looked about three sizes too big, or something like that.

The next day, when the doctor at the dermatology clinic saw me in the waiting room, he stopped dead in his tracks and then he burst out laughing.  He was nearly doubled over, he was laughing that hard.

“Do you know what you’ve got?” he asked.

“Japanese food,” I mumbled.  “I think I’m allergic to Japanese food.”

He burst out laughing again.  “No, my friend.  This is poison ivy.  This is a classic case.  Your picture should be in a textbook somewhere.”

Oh that made me feel better.

He gave me a dizzying array of steroid shots to reduce the itching and swelling, and seven weeks later the remnants of the allergic reaction were all but gone.

I learned a wealth of lessons through that episode, mostly centered on avoiding poison ivy like the plague.

The next time someone downplays the respect of poison ivy, tell them about nutuba, a tuba player who drove a red Dodge Dart, once had pi memorized to ninety places, and who fearlessly took on an ocean of poison ivy … and lost.