Once A Man, Twice A Child

I stepped out of it a long time ago.

I grew weary of it.

All the wrangling. All the taking sides. All the hard and harsh feelings. All the name-calling and accusations. All the never ending struggling for prominence and dominance in the Right versus Left, Liberal versus Conservative, Religious versus Anti-Religious. All the divisive inter-religious bickering and all the finger-pointing issues that seemingly have no end. All the constantly having my innards in a turmoil. All of the doping frenzy fueling frenzy that keeps people emotionally intoxicated and stirred up.

I concluded that there is pitifully little that I can do about any of it. So why let the mess consume me and keep constantly wrecking my personal peace and serenity?

The conclusion was liberating and life-changing.

It was, thinking back to those earlier years, the generous spans of interest, time, and involvement that I invested in studying several Eastern and Western monastic traditions that began moving me out of the frenetic fray. Their practice of disassociation from the events of the world allowed them to more fully embrace and focus more intently and objectively on life and its most essential elements.

I still cling tightly to several of the monastic puzzle pieces. This particular disassociation piece is a jewel to never be parted with.

It was this piece of the puzzle that helped me rediscover and reconnect with that almost lost interior part of me that was, as a child and youth, cultivated and groomed by the familiar woods, creeks, overgrown fencerows, and meandering cow paths where I spent enormous amounts of time during my formative years. This piece of me, like the jewel mentioned above, is a piece that will never be parted with now that it has been rediscovered and reclaimed from beneath the assorted layers of life that kept it hidden for so much of my adult life.

I am approaching my 65^th Birthday. I am, at this point in my trip from start to finish, simply an older version of that young kid and I am still out roaming the woods, creeks, and other natural wild places that feed my sense of peace and serenity.

There is something that my mom would say of my dad once his mind began to go.

“Once a man, twice a child.”

I watched the development of his senility. It was sad to watch.

I think the sadder thing to watch, particularly in retrospect and now that I have joined the ranks of the Retirement Club, was all the years he spent from the time he quit farming and up to the time the senility began to take him.

He did very little.

He did not know what to do with himself, so he became immobile. His days were spent eating and napping in his chair before turning in to sleep all night. That was his daily routine for close to two decades. Perhaps he never rediscovered and reconnected with his inner kid. Perhaps his formative years, as the last-born son of Czech immigrants, were so traumatic that he didn’t want to reconnect with his inner kid. I can surmise but I cannot say with any certainty what was going on in my dad’s head. He kept a closed latch on a lot of things.

I can say what is going on in my head, though, and one of them is that I have better things to do in retirement than waste away in a recliner waiting on senility to take my mind. There are entirely too many fun and interesting things for us two oldering kids to do.

Our miserable summer heat and humidity is about behind us and our Fall Camping Tour is about to begin. There are places to go, sights to see, backroads to travel, trails to blaze, and campfires to be kindled.

Where will we be off to first on our Fall Camping Tour?

We are thinking about Arkansas.

There are a lot of roads. 

Just pick one and go.

The Lure of the Woods

I grew up wandering the woods.

Getting out there wasn’t an occasional thing.  It wasn’t a weekend, seasonal, or occasional thing. It wasn’t a thing to pass time away. It was a lifestyle thing. A walk through the woods was a daily thing.

Daily walks through the woods were mostly on account of some kind of work that needed doing … checking on fences … moving cows from day pasture to overnight corrals … closing gates … bringing the Jersey milk cow home for the night. 

Those normal daily chores always took a lot longer than necessary on account of all the woods exploring that somehow arose as part of the normal course of life for a boy that wasn’t more than 8 or 9 years old when he started wandering the woods solo.

It was, too, around that age that I graduated from a BB gun and began toting along that old .22 single shot or a .410 shotgun when out doing my woods chores. The scope and range of my woods wandering found itself largely expanded with that graduation.

I have the impression, looking back, that a lot of my peers and teachers in school believed I was maladjusted and deprived of the better things in life.

I wasn’t good at organized sports and was always one of the last ones picked for teams by peers in the schoolyard picks. That was embarrassing at first but I learned to accept and expect it as a matter of course. It was also an early on education in how the system works to reward and to punish based on some imagined preferential performance prescription. I’ve never been a fan of systems … regardless of their name or intention.

Systems create system-dependency and do nothing to promote self-reliance. Systems, in fact, depend upon this dependency to maintain their existence. The more self-reliant we become the more we jeopardize the health and welfare of systems.

School work didn’t interest me. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the intelligence to do it. It was boring. I was also surrounded by kids and teachers that I shared little in common with on a personal level. I spent a lot of time staring out the window thinking about things that were more interesting than reading, writing, arithmetic, and measuring up to and fitting into all the extracurricular amusements and games that quantified the lives of the townies I found myself forced to mingle with.

 Intelligence?

I was smart enough to figure out in a hurry just how much I needed to do to make good enough grades to keep my woods exploring, hunting, and fishing privileges from being restricted when the report cards were sent home to be signed and returned!

If, looking back, those childhood peers and teachers were right in believing I was maladjusted and socially deprived, I’m glad of it. Those maladjusted and socially deprived years laid down something deep in the fabric of my being that I’ve never been able to shake loose from.

I tried to put those roots behind me as a young adult and well into my adult years … tried to fit into the social scheme of things … and marry myself to the ideals and standards for success set forth by society. That may work for a lot of people, but it just never worked out for me. I was, for way too many years, miserable in a suit and tie and wing tip shoes. I was also gone from my woodsy outdoor roots for so long … so long on pavement and concrete sidewalks … that getting back out there away from campgrounds and campground amenities and deep into the deep woods with its natural inhabitants for a camp with minimal gear was more than kind of scary at first.

The truth is, though, that the deeper you get the deeper you want to get. The lure of the wild, and the deep peace and solitude it affords, is captivating if we will allow it to capture us. There is something in every clearing, valley, creek, and grove that stimulates the senses, offers different natural views, and opens wilderness windows of perspective that heightens the strength and enhances the aroma of the captivating lure.

I am of the opinion that it is this lure, and all that is inherently related to it, that is the real heart, frame, and meaty muscle that gives meaning to woodcraft or bushcraft or whatever else folks choose to call this thing that comes with a certain set of skills and tools surrounding it. However, every item in the toolbox … without the carrier being a captive of this lure … is merely infatuation that fast grows cold and is regularly replaced with the newest item brought to us by slick marketing.

 Skills? I can teach skills.

Tools? I can recommend appropriate tools that will stand up to the task without breaking the bank.

The lure?

We are surrounded by its curriculum. Its scent hangs heavy all around us. It reveals itself in every morning dew, in every sunrise and sunset, its aroma permeates every breeze, and crackles in every kindled campfire. Its effects are intoxicating and addicting.

I can talk about it. I can lead people into its arena. But that’s about all I can do.

The D.I.Y. Six Dollar Bush Pot

Hydration is an important health issue.

We do not give it a lot of thought as long as we are close to a faucet or can grab a bottle out of the cooler at the grab it and go store. Get away from the settlements and established parks and drinking water has to be either hauled in or processed from whatever sources you happen upon.

We need water to stay hydrated. We need water to flush toxins and other junk out of our systems. Without water we can be dried-out dead in 72 hours. We become debilitated and unable to function before we become dead.

My canteen holds a quart of water.

On a normal day I need to drink at least three canteens to keep hydrated. Let the summer heat come on like it does, along with sweat running out my pores like water through a sieve, and I need to increase that amount. That is easy to do when I can turn on a faucet. It is not so easy to do when there are no faucets and every source of water needs to be considered potentially suspicious.

I really like the Stanley cook pots. They are great for stewing up a small meal or boiling some water for tea or coffee. 20 ounces though is way short of the quart that it takes to fill my canteen. It is also a bit small for boiling a grown squirrel that would be too tough to chew if cooked on a spit over an open fire.

I pondered the cook-pot dilemma for some time and looked at some of the popular bush pot offerings that are be had. They are nice pots but the thrifty side of me balked like a mule at the price they go for.

I was in Walmart a few years ago picking up some things and found what I considered to be the perfect pot for my purpose. Stainless steel with a lid and holds a little shy of half a gallon. It was not in the pots and pans section. It was in, of all places, the pet section and made to hold dog treats.

The pot cost me a whopping $6.00.

My thrifty side latched onto it and brought it home.

The lid had a soft rubber gasket on it that I pulled off and threw away as soon as the pot entered the house. Two little holes were drilled, and a piece of metal coat hanger was attached as a bail.

A stainless cup with folding handles sits in the bottom of the dog biscuit pot. The Stanley pot sits inside the cup leaving room for stuff like a dish rag or pot holder.

The pot comes with some stamped embossing around it. Dog tracks.

I told Shirli that I thought about hammering out the embossing. She told me those were bear tracks and to leave them alone.

Yep.

Bear tracks.

That’s what they are.

This pot has accompanied me on a good many trips over the years. It is still serving its repurposed purpose. Sadly, though, I have never seen another one like it in the pet section of that chain store.

DIY Packable Fire-Irons

I saw the idea somewhere along the way so I can’t claim the idea as an original concept.

I can’t remember where or when I saw it. I wish I could so I can credit the idea. All my Googling turned up nothing like it. That’s not to say there isn’t. It’s just to say I haven’t found it. So if I’m stepping on someone’s patent, I apologize up front. The encroachment is purely accidental.

What I do remember about what I saw was that I liked the idea but it was made from thin flat bar material. I didn’t care for what I saw. I figured the thin flat bar would get hot fast and bend under the weight of something sitting on it so I kept my bucks in my pocket.

Back during the winter, when it was fun to build fires and cook over them, I decided to play around with some salvaged 3/16^th round stock. I wanted to make a set of folding fire-irons that were lightweight but strong and packable … something that would be ideal for solo trips.

This particular metal round stock comes from one of those tripod style flower stands that florists attach arrangements to (commonly seen at Visitations and in cemeteries). Very few of these sources for metal are ever recycled. Most of them are left behind and eventually thrown away.

I cut two pieces 14 inches long, figuring this length would be neither too short or too long, then used my forge to heat one end of the two pieces just hot enough to flatten them a little.

[Here’s a little tip. Hammering and flattening the ends hardens them. Heating them a little after flattening them makes it a lot easier to center punch where you will be drilling the two 3/16^th inch holes that have to be drilled. Without center punching the two pieces, it’s really hard for a bit to get a bite when you start drilling.]

I used a flat washer on the slotted side and one on the nutted side of the 1/8^th inch threaded screw. I also spun on a nut between the two halves as a spacer before adding the outside flat washer and nut.

The next step was to use side cutters to trim the length of the diminutive bolt leaving about 1/8^th of an inch showing before peening it on the anvil to flatten the excess screw to insure the rig would never come loose. A little touching on the grinder finished rounding the ends.

These stands come with a heavy coat of baked on enamel paint that is a real chore to sand off. I quickly gave up on sanding, built a hot fire, and put the painted fire-irons into the fire. It was a cold Lower Alabama morning and sitting by a hot fire felt good. A quick wire brushing finished the creation process.

It was a fun little DIY project that yielded a very usable take-along tool.

I also found that the 14-inch length is ideal.

What?

You don’t have a forge?

A forge isn’t necessary for a small project like this. 

A good bed of red hot hardwood coals will heat the small diameter metal enough to make if workable.

A Strange Wildlife Episode

[NOTE: One of the outdoor magazines that I grew up on had a feature entitled "This Happened to Me" that depicted out of the ordinary outdoor experiences. This short blog article is a this happened to me thing ... something completely out of the ordinary and a first for me.]

You just don’t know what a day holds in store when you wake up in the morning.

Most days are routine and uneventful. Now and then one comes along that leaves an indelible memory etched into the memory chips.

Today was one of those memory makers despite the ordinary routineness that began the day.

I made a trip down to the other end of the county to pick up some barnwood. The drive down was pleasant. Hot enough to feel like summer but not brutal like it has been lately. Windows rolled down. Wing windows cocked at just the right angle.

It didn’t take long to load the wood onto my truck. I was in and out in less than thirty minutes and that includes a bit of time visiting with the retired Marine Captain and a retired Army Warrant Officer. I drove back out to Scenic 98, the less than ½ mile to County Road 32, and turned East on 32.

That’s where this strange episode began to play out.

It came from the passenger side and made its way to the driver’s side. Across the bottom of the windshield.

I wanted to video it or at least get a picture, but I figured I’d best leave that alone and mind the business of driving safely. Traffic. Plenty of it. Coming at me and following behind me.

I closed the drivers wing window and rolled up the window when it turned the corner headed toward the rear of the cab.

It turned and headed toward the bottom of the door just before the door handle. I’m thinking all the while that at road speed the wind would blow it off the truck. It disappeared altogether from my view and I figured it was gone. Wing window is open again. Driver’s window opened some but not all the way.

There it was again. It was coming through the wing window.

I shut the wing window on its head and held it in place.

What do you do with an Oak Snake ... a four feet long Oak Snake ... that’s doing its best to get into the cab of the truck with you?

I sat at the light at 32 and 98 and waited for the light to change. I couldn’t help but to chuckle and grin. I was wondering what folks in the flow of traffic might be thinking about this sight.

I pulled into the parking lot of the church there on 32, snapped this couple of pictures with my phone, then (without harm) removed the snake’s head from the wing window and turned it loose.

I’m just glad it didn’t travel across the truck in the other direction and find the open wing window on the passenger side.

Farewell To An Old Friend

It’s gone.

It needed to happen.

It took a lot of years, but it did finally happen.

There is a part of me that is relieved that it happened.

There is a part of me that is very sad that it’s a done deal.

Even knowing it’s what must be done … when it’s done … when it’s all said and done and finally a done deal … there’s something about it that’s difficult to wrap my mind around. Maybe not so much my mind. More so my heart and soul. There is a very real side to the deal that causes me to feel like I’ve said farewell to and buried a dear and lifelong friend.

It didn’t look like much there at the end.

Neglect had taken its toll. Neglect has a way of doing that. Decades of neglect take a heavy toll. At its end it looked nothing like its former self … not even a shadow of its former self.

I’ll not postulate on what it meant to others that had their start in life there. Nor will I postulate on what it meant to others that had some related or sterile association with it. Others have their own personalities. Others have their own perceptions. Others have their own experiences.

Personalities, perceptions, and experiences create their own judgments. Judgments have a way of creating either lasting bonds or fractures that endure. It’s one of those realities in life where, at times, even agreeing to disagree is unable to do the work of Super Glue in reattaching the pieces.

It was, to me anyway, a lot more than a familial habitation surrounded by fields and woods.

It was there where my woods wandering nature began to germinate in the soil of my nature.

I didn’t recognize the event. 

Nor was I aware of the seedling in my soul as it emerged and took shape. It was a slow and subtle process … one overshadowed by the life and social happenings that motivated me as a young boy to solitarily seek out the safe and friendly respite found in the fields and woods of that place. 

Motivated is too weak of a description. Drove is honestly a more accurate way to describe it.

Woods do not recognize social status. They do not impose peer pressure. They do not sponsor sibling rivalry or pecking orders. There is a rhythm of saneness in the woods … a wild and appealing rhythm of saneness … a rhythm of saneness that has a way of teaching and encouraging without ever succumbing to tactics involving personal humiliation.

I don’t remember who she was talking to. It may have been someone there in her living room. It may have been someone on the phone as she sat in her chair. I do remember my mom telling someone that David took to the woods after his daddy died.

The truth of the matter is that I took to the woods a long, long time ago … long before my dad died. That little seed that sprouted and quietly grew into a tree rooted in my inner being has cast its shade and influenced me a lot of years now. It’s always been there. The sorriest and worst times in my life were the years I ignored its shade and tried to blend with the other trees growing in the forest of life. 

At this point I can do no better than to live in its shade.

I admit that I spent a lot of time in those woods after my dad passed from this world.

I did a lot of reminiscing out there. I did a lot of mental sorting and reasoning. It was a convenient place to simply go for a solitary walk. Shirli and I went there to wander on a number of occasions. I used the fields and woods as an outdoor classroom for teaching bushcraft skills. There was also the looming reality factored into the equation … after the For Sale by Owner sign went up … that one day, sooner or later, the land title would be transferred, and I would no longer be able to wander those fields and woods except in memory.

Here’s to you, old friend.

Thanks for the memories.

Good Medicine

I knew nothing of W. H. Murray until a few weeks ago.

Robert Macfarlane recounts Murray’s life in one of the chapters of The Wild Places. Murray was a Scot that found himself attracted to wild places and first began adventuring into wild places in Scotland during that hard time in history referred to in this country as the Dust Bowl Years or The Dirty Thirties.

Wildness, for Murray, took on a near-mystical importance.

The mentally embedded images and experiences discovered in wildness, during the dire years of mortal combat and imprisonment in German prison camps soon to follow, kept him from succumbing to total despair. He was, in the very worst of hard conditions, able to venture in his mind to beautiful and peaceful natural places unaffected by the insane brutalities and ravages that surrounded him.

I think, and this is just me thinking, that the vast majority of people on the planet are unable to see the insanity that surrounds them. It’s easy enough to see and hate the obviously insane violence that constantly fills our news feeds. What’s harder for most to see, in my oldering opinion, is the insanity created by the commerce and consumerism that daily surrounds and drastically affects all of us in large degrees.

The Mount Rogers National Recreation Area occupies 200,000 acres in SW Virginia. The area contains Virginia’s loftiest terrain and hosts some 500 miles of trails … the most notable being the part of the Appalachian as it wanders its way through Virginia. Mount Rogers, hence the name of the recreation area, stands 5,729 feet tall.

Shirli and I spent a few days in one of the campgrounds situated at above 3,800 feet. The signs of Spring, in the world down below us at 2000’ elevation, were well formed. Here, in the climate created by elevation, the hardwoods were just beginning to bud.

I stood at the overlook admiring and soaking in the views of the valley down below and the mountains on the near and distant horizons … land that once belonged to one of my bloodlines. My Cherokee bloodline.

There are times when, in respect for this line of my heritage, I feel compelled to make an offering.

This was one of those times.

I reached into my pocket, took out a pinch of tobacco, acknowledged the Creator and my Cherokee ancestors, and let the tobacco settle to the ground.

Mere seconds passed before a Raven made an appearance.

It lingered. Circling in near effortless close circles directly in front of me. The closest part of its flight circle brought it to maybe fifty feet from me. The circles got larger and farther from me as it drifted away and then went on its way.

I stood there. Halted. Amazed. Feeling in my insides that something out of the ordinary had occurred. Not knowing what out of the ordinary had occurred. I needed to know more, sought the more, and discovered the more about what I had experienced at the overlook. The Cherokee believe that birds are messengers between earth and heaven, between the People and Creator. The Raven, Turtle Dove, and Eagle are significant representatives.

People can believe what they choose to believe about this. I’m good with believing that the Creator, and my Cherokee Grandmothers and Grandfathers, were pleased and responded with a messenger showing their acceptance of not only the offering but more so of the offeror as one of theirs.

There is good medicine in wild places.

The solitude found in wild places is a highly medicinal thing. It offers us an opportunity to disconnect from and take a break from the routine of our normal synthetic lives. It forces us to reckon with ourselves, with what we have become, and with what we can become.

We are, when we open and allow ourselves to experience the interior processes of this wild places solitude, irrevocably changed.