Post by Sasquatch on Nov 13, 2011 21:32:58 GMT -5
I grew up quite literally in the middle of the woods. I consider this a blessing for reasons far to numerous to list in their entirety; however there is one that stands out. It is something hard to put a name to but for the purposes of discussion I suppose I would call it awareness. Awareness of the outdoors all around us. Awareness of the plants and the animals, the sights and the sounds, the sensations and the smells that make up the wild places. Awareness of a great, interwoven Creation and the God that made it. This love of---or perhaps more accurately--- this feeling for the outdoors is something that I treasure, and that I wish everyone shared.
Growing up where I did meant that I could walk out any door and in two minutes be deep in what is for Indiana a pretty big woods. I loved to walk through what seemed to me the forest primeval and pretend I was a great explorer, or fighting barbarians, or what have you. At one point my brother had a pellet gun that looked just like an M-16, and since the show Tour of Duty was big at the time I had a blast sneaking through the brush looking for Vietcong. In the spring we would hunt mushrooms near an old home site that at the time of it’s building had to be miles from nowhere. The only trace that remained of the dwelling was some flowers that had to have been planted before the Civil War, and an old rock-lined well that has since been filled in. It breaks my heart that we never took a picture of it.
In the summer my walks grew less frequent but I would still go down to my favorite spot on “the creek.” This tiny little water hole is at the center of many memories, and I can see it in my minds eye as I write this, shaded and cool. Many, many times as I lay in bed I have pictured it as a way to go to sleep. I like to picture a doe standing at the edge of the pool, lowering her head to drink in peace as the moonlight hitting the water reflects in her eyes. At first read it might sound a little goofy, but if you picture such an event it’s a powerful, even haunting image. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but it nearly always puts me to sleep.
When the time came that we had to leave that place, I was eighteen and we were short of money. We bought an old farmhouse with no plumbing about a mile away, and I was lucky to have permission to walk the large woods that bordered my old haunts, and it to contained many familiar places as well. By now I was into hunting, and though it took nearly all of my check to keep us alive, I remember I told my mother that my only demand was that I would have arrows and broadheads, no matter what. So during the fall I donned my second hand duds and chased the deer. Man those were some cold seasons. (So cold, in fact, that as I returned from hunting to a decidedly drafty upstairs room my drinks would freeze overnight )
When the season ended I would still walk on warmer days, free to spook deer in my search for sheds and other treasures. I learned so much in those days, following deer trails wherever they might lead. I was so fortunate that the landowner let me have the run of his place. If I had had to leave the woods cold turkey I would have been miserable. I couldn’t imagine sitting on that farmhouse porch and looking across the corn stubble at a giant woods That I wasn’t allowed in. I would have died.
Anyway, no matter what was going on, whether it was good times or bad, there was always the woods, and the walks within them. But time passed, as it always does, and things change, as they always do. Now I’m married and blessed with three wonderful children, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Still, there is the fact that I live on two acres hemmed in by land that I cannot roam; I look out across fields that I cannot cross. I could probably get permission to walk around, I don’t know.....but I would still feel like an interloper. Oh how part of me misses those days, and thinks back with great sadness to the times I sat and watched TV instead of walking in those woods, or even when I worked overtime; all those hours spent doing something else were hours ticking away. Hours that would never come again.
I don’t know why I shared this...I just got to thinking about the old days. Maybe it was the post about people dumping trash that I read in the Deer Hunting forum. ( I think that was a lot of it) Maybe I want to you to think about these days, so that you can savor them. Maybe you’re the eighteen year old who has the run of half the county, the one who isn’t taking good advantage of the opportunities in front of you. Don’t get me wrong...do what you have to do. Go to work, throw a few bucks in the collection plate, help your grandmother in the garden. All these things are good, but promise me you’ll shut off that damn TV and take a walk.
Growing up where I did meant that I could walk out any door and in two minutes be deep in what is for Indiana a pretty big woods. I loved to walk through what seemed to me the forest primeval and pretend I was a great explorer, or fighting barbarians, or what have you. At one point my brother had a pellet gun that looked just like an M-16, and since the show Tour of Duty was big at the time I had a blast sneaking through the brush looking for Vietcong. In the spring we would hunt mushrooms near an old home site that at the time of it’s building had to be miles from nowhere. The only trace that remained of the dwelling was some flowers that had to have been planted before the Civil War, and an old rock-lined well that has since been filled in. It breaks my heart that we never took a picture of it.
In the summer my walks grew less frequent but I would still go down to my favorite spot on “the creek.” This tiny little water hole is at the center of many memories, and I can see it in my minds eye as I write this, shaded and cool. Many, many times as I lay in bed I have pictured it as a way to go to sleep. I like to picture a doe standing at the edge of the pool, lowering her head to drink in peace as the moonlight hitting the water reflects in her eyes. At first read it might sound a little goofy, but if you picture such an event it’s a powerful, even haunting image. Perhaps it sounds ridiculous, but it nearly always puts me to sleep.
When the time came that we had to leave that place, I was eighteen and we were short of money. We bought an old farmhouse with no plumbing about a mile away, and I was lucky to have permission to walk the large woods that bordered my old haunts, and it to contained many familiar places as well. By now I was into hunting, and though it took nearly all of my check to keep us alive, I remember I told my mother that my only demand was that I would have arrows and broadheads, no matter what. So during the fall I donned my second hand duds and chased the deer. Man those were some cold seasons. (So cold, in fact, that as I returned from hunting to a decidedly drafty upstairs room my drinks would freeze overnight )
When the season ended I would still walk on warmer days, free to spook deer in my search for sheds and other treasures. I learned so much in those days, following deer trails wherever they might lead. I was so fortunate that the landowner let me have the run of his place. If I had had to leave the woods cold turkey I would have been miserable. I couldn’t imagine sitting on that farmhouse porch and looking across the corn stubble at a giant woods That I wasn’t allowed in. I would have died.
Anyway, no matter what was going on, whether it was good times or bad, there was always the woods, and the walks within them. But time passed, as it always does, and things change, as they always do. Now I’m married and blessed with three wonderful children, and I wouldn’t change a thing. Still, there is the fact that I live on two acres hemmed in by land that I cannot roam; I look out across fields that I cannot cross. I could probably get permission to walk around, I don’t know.....but I would still feel like an interloper. Oh how part of me misses those days, and thinks back with great sadness to the times I sat and watched TV instead of walking in those woods, or even when I worked overtime; all those hours spent doing something else were hours ticking away. Hours that would never come again.
I don’t know why I shared this...I just got to thinking about the old days. Maybe it was the post about people dumping trash that I read in the Deer Hunting forum. ( I think that was a lot of it) Maybe I want to you to think about these days, so that you can savor them. Maybe you’re the eighteen year old who has the run of half the county, the one who isn’t taking good advantage of the opportunities in front of you. Don’t get me wrong...do what you have to do. Go to work, throw a few bucks in the collection plate, help your grandmother in the garden. All these things are good, but promise me you’ll shut off that damn TV and take a walk.
;D