Just Passing Through

They showed up early Friday morning.

I saw them when they arrived.

I was sitting in my camp chair drinking coffee and watching a lone Cormorant swimming around on the end of the pond where we were camped for the weekend with a group of friends that we often refer to as Tribe. It is called a pond. A thirty-acre pond, in my mind, is more akin to a small lake.

The morning warmed up quickly once the sun broke the horizon. Not the first hint of a breeze was stirring. The surface of the pond was smooth as glass.

They came from the North, circled once before lowering their landing gear, then touched down near the middle of the pond. That is where they stayed throughout the day. At times they would swim in tight circles. Clockwise. Counter-clockwise. At times they would swim in a straight line in one direction for fifty yards or so before turning about and then, in single-file fashion, retrace the duck paddled distance.

The Cormorant stayed close to our camp until late in the morning. I don’t know if it was some kind of longing for company or if it was out of curiosity. Regardless of the cause, it took the Cormorant half an hour to paddle its way to the small plump of ducks in the middle of the pond. It stayed with the ducks during the middle of the day. Slightly outside their circle-swimming. Always a short distance from them in their single-file paddling forth and back. 

Then, after mid-afternoon, the Cormorant returned to the end of the pond where we were camped.

Wallace Stegner, historian and novelist, makes a lot of sense in The Wilderness Letter (1960). He wrote, “we need wild places because they remind us of a world beyond the human.” It is in the wild places that we “have the chance to see ourselves single, separate, vertical and individual in the world, part of the environment of trees and rocks and soil, brother to the other animals, part of the natural world and competent to belong in it.” Without wild places we would be “committed wholly, without chance for even momentary reflection and rest, to a headlong drive into our technological termite-life.” Stegner concluded, “We simply need wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.”

Almost sixty years have passed since Stegner typed those words on what long ago became an obsolete typewriter. A lot has changed in sixty years. The termite-life has become tremendously more advanced and complicated over these near sixty years.

I pleasantly found myself both entertained and amused by the Cormorant and the ducks. I also found myself a little surprised by what seemed to be an irresistible attraction to watching them … something a little akin to a child’s interest in watching a fuzzy caterpillar for the first time crawling up their shirt sleeve. I felt that I belonged there in that day-long moment that would have bored most people to tears.

It was not only where I belonged. It was where I needed to be.

What happened to the ducks?

I looked for them Saturday morning and glanced out over the pond several times during the day. 

They were gone … apparently just passing through. A lot of migratory birds are passing through on their way to places farther South for the winter.

Just passing through.

That is all any of us are doing. We are all just passing through.

Enjoy the adventure.

Why I Am On Public Platforms

I was not afforded the pleasure of knowing either of my grandfathers. My maternal grandfather died when I was still in diapers. My paternal grandfather divorced my paternal grandmother in 1953 and moved to Florida where he was run down and killed in a very suspicious hit and run incident. I was a grown man, about eight years ago, when I first saw a picture of my paternal grandfather.

I have only a vague memory of my maternal grandmother. I was barely out of the toddler stage when she died. There are pictures of her. My mom, aunts, and uncles told stories about her and their father. Hardscrabble farmers … sharecroppers in the upper part of the State before moving to the lower part … where they managed to pull things together and purchase their own hardscrabble forty acres.

My paternal grandmother?

She lived next door to us in a little house that my dad built for her. I was a young kid in elementary school when she died. I walked over to see her quite often. She cared for me like a grandmother cares for a grandchild. I remember that much about her, and that our conversations … if you can call them that … were little more than a mess of pointing and grunting. She, and her husband, had immigrated from Czechoslovakia. She never learned to speak more than a few words of English. My dad was born in Minnesota and grew up bi-lingual. He saw no value in teaching us to speak the language, though when he and his siblings were together they carried on their conversations in what sounded like jibber-talk to me.

So here I am, all these years later, myself a grandparent. Shirli and I have eight blood-related grandchildren and another ten step-grandchildren. I never wanted to be called grandpa. I opted for the grand-title of Poppy. Maybe it is my futile attempt at escaping this age-related reality. Poppy, in my head anyway, doesn’t sound as old as grandpa or its other life-spectrum counterparts.

People use these modern self-publishing platforms for an assortment of reasons … blogs, YouTube, Facebook, and the like. Some uploaded keystroking and video footage and, in an instant, the world sees you and knows your business. On the one hand it is a good thing. On the other hand, it is scary considering the enormity and diversity of what can be found with a few keystrokes.

Why am I on these platforms carving out my own little corner in cyberspace?

The answer is basically three-fold.

I am a solitary hermit-type that thrives on solitude. I am not anti-social. I have grown, however, quite selective-social. It would be extremely easy for me to pull the plugs, drown my smart-phone, and disappear from view altogether except for the occasional wander into town to pick up supplies. These platforms keep me from becoming a total recluse and offer me a needed outlet for personal creative expression.

The encouragement factor figures into the three-fold answer. I want to encourage others to explore and adventure outdoors. All of us may not be able to hump a forty-pound pack deep into remote areas for days on end. All of us can discover and develop an interest in activities that take us at least to the edge of deep woodlands, mountains, and flowing streams where nature’s medicine can be absorbed by our senses. I personally need a lot of nature’s medicine. David Kralik Outdoors reflects my pursuit to satisfy my personal need.

The third part of the answer has to do with legacy. Those old black and white photos of my grandparents are merely cold and lifeless images of them. The stories told of them by their children will be forgotten with the passing of time. These modern printing and recording tools offer me a way to leave something of my living-self behind as a gift for my grandchildren … a lot more than a box of cold and lifeless photographs.

Note: I have added a subscribe feature in the right-hand blog column. By subscribing you will be sent an email notifying you when blogs are uploaded.

I also want to make a few keystrokes to express my appreciation and say thank you for including David Kralik Outdoors in your reading and YouTube viewing material. Your comments are always appreciated.

The adventure continues. Enjoy the Adventure!

Curing My Nature Anemia

I do not know quite what to think about this crossroad.

Maybe it is a normal part of the process. Maybe it is simply part of my personal born a Pisces personality complex that is coming into full-bloom. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that life has arrived at a point where I can allow myself the luxury of allowing it to accompany me. Maybe it is a combination of the three with a dash of this and a shake of that thrown in.

At times I find the crossroad a pleasant place to be.

At times it evokes a sadness that pulls me into a passing state of melancholy.

I never know which direction it will take me, and I have learned to simply go along for the ride.

The simple reality that I reckon with is that I am becoming quite nostalgic as I go through this aging process. It is odd how good memories unexpectedly float to the surface of life’s experiences and drift around in the flotsam that is always present. I cannot help but to notice and pay attention to the good memories.

Important stuff becomes more important and there is now time to focus on the things that are most important.

Important? More important? Most important?

Relative terms of measurement that mean something different in the lives of everyone.

We all set our priorities. The tragic thing about priorities is that all too often our personal priorities can turn into pits of despair. As Robert Burns put it, “The best laid schemes o mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.”

What I do outdoors is more than a hobby that has made its way onto my personal priorities list. It is, for me, more of a lifestyle choice.

I spent a large part of my adult life looking forward to my next occasional outdoor adventure. Other important life-matters seemed to always take priority over outdoor adventuring. Those outdoor adventuring occasions were few, short, and often far between. I shorted and deprived myself of something that I needed. I think, in retrospect, that by shorting and depriving myself of something that I needed, I also shorted and deprived others of a better part of me that was left neglected and malnourished.

Those days of neglected malnourishment are behind me. I no longer suffer from N.D.D. (Nature Deficiency Disorder).

Autumn is here. 

Trees are losing their leaves. The autumn wildflowers are really showing their colors and our crazy L.A. (Lower Alabama) heat and humidity has finally let up. It’s time to pull the Kodiak tent out of the shed and get our Fall Camping Tour on!

Shirli and I are headed to a group camp this coming weekend. We’ll be camping and making more good memories at the Open Pond Recreation Area in the Conecuh National Forest.

I consider myself a fortunate man. Part of the fortune is that I share life with someone that not only feels my need for the outdoors but also shares in my need for it.

Note: For those of you that enjoy YouTube, here's a link to my most recent video.

Payne Lake Overnight