Taft Fact #2

As many of you know, I attended boarding school.  I had my share of embarrassing moments during high school, but the single most humiliating experience of my life (so far) unfolded while I was touring Christ School in Asheville, NC.

I was 13 years old, in the eighth grade, and a freaked out by all the super-cool high school kids that I met while touring schools (if I only knew then what I know now).  My parents and I had just finished an interview with the dean of students and we were hurrying to the dining hall because we were late for lunch.

As we reached the top of the steps leading down to the dining hall, we saw all of the students stand up for the prayer.  I knew that it would be totally uncool if I didn’t get in there before the meal started.  I decided to pick up the pace.

This is where I should explain that the person who designed Christ School must have had an affinity (maybe fetish) for stairs.  The stairway from the main walkway down to the dining hall consisted of approximately 492 individual steps. After one or two steps, I lost my footing.  I’m not talking about getting a bit wobbly and grabbing the railing.  I committed to a Superman-style stair-dive.  There have been runaway trains with less momentum than I had at this point.

My mom later told me that it seemed like I fell for ten minutes.  I wasn’t lucky enough to lodge an arm or a leg in the railing that ran down the center of the stairway.  After all, a broken leg would have been much better than what happened.  I tripped, flipped, and somersaulted all the way down to the bottom.  I was moving so fast by the time I hit the bottom that I slid a solid three or four feet beyond the spot where I splattered onto the concrete.

When I finally came to a stop at the bottom of the stairs, I looked up and realized that I was sprawled out in front of a giant glass façade.  The windows were about ten feet in front of me.  Every single Christ School student was staring at me, horrified at first.  Once they realized that I was going to live, they began to clap.  I received a standing ovation as my dad ran down the steps to make sure I was OK.


As he picked me up off the ground, my dad leaned over and said, “well….I think we can cross this place off the list.”

Until next time.

-Taft