On moving to the small town, I was ecstatic to find that, no matter what direction I might walk in, a woods was no more than a mile away. Our new home bofdered on a filed which led to a vast marsh and a woods which surrounded a lake, uninhabited but for some campfire girls at various times during the summer. I could leave my house, take but a few steps, and be in nature. It was a reprieve from the condemnation of the industrial city; it was freedom.
To my surprise, I quickly found out that none of the other kids in the neighborhood cared much for hiking in the woods. Such disregard for nature was inconceivable to me. Much later in life I would be shocked and repulsed to find people who actually hated nature. to me, such feelings were a mental illness to be equated with hating life or hating yourself. There were some I made friends with who took part in woodland activities such as fishing, hunting and foraging, and I was always ready to partake in such activities. I found some pleasure in selecting sites to build forts, and in working on these constructions. With the closest of my new friends, I enjoyed riding bicycles through the fields and woodlands, far ranging and attempting such daredevil trails as the path down Dead Man’s Hill. Yet all these were human activities which did not allow me to observe and commune with nature as I loved to do.
I would go on long walks, with only my dog for company, exploring the lands around me, ever extending my range. And I would go out alone to find a spot where I might hide quietly and observe nature. Rabbits, skunks, snakes, turtles, squirrels, possums, woodchucks, chipmunks, frogs, raccoons, fox, partridge, geese, ducks, muskrat, insects, owls and hawks; I watched them as they went about the business of survival. Carefully hidden, I watched a fox carry the body of a young woodchuck to the burrow where its pups were lodged. Once I saw a large hawk swoop down across an open field, then rise back into the sky carrying a small rabbit. I exersized caution on my outings, knowing that nature will strike down the foolish. In a swamp which I frequented, a boy unknown to me was fatally bitten when he picked up a can in which a massasauga rattler was residing. Such instances brought home the need for caution, but ther did not cause me to fear nature nor to put off my excursions. Life and death flourished around me, and I was delighted to be in the midst of it.
There was, diagonally across the field from my house, a magnificent specimen
of willow on the edge of a swampy lagoon, known affectionately to
all the children for miles around (and to many of the adults) as the Big
Tree. It is doubtful there is another to match its girth in the entire
county, if not beyond. I never took measurements of the Big Tree,
but its trunk was too big for three of us to stand around while clasping
hands. Its limbs alone were so wide that a child could easily walk
along them, and two kids could pass each other on mid-limb without much
difficulty. Children were drawn to this tree as to a playground,
and I would not hazard to guess how many tree forts it had held down through
the years. I know that my first sight of it filled me with awe, and
with something more: a sort of communication or touching of souls, as though
this giant willow were making my acquaintance. The Big Tree held
a special significance for me, and I would go there to commune with nature.
One day I met my cousins halfway between our houses. We were going to explore an area where none of us had ever been before, and it would turn out to be one of my favorite hikes. It was a warm and sunny day. We met at a small shoppng center, and set out across a long field which stood as a buffer between the depth of nature and the shallow core of civilization. There was no trail; we found our own way. Across the field we came upon thickets and immense stands of a sort of bush which I have encountered many times yet never learned the name of. From outside, these bushes are a show of green leaves and white, waxy berries, yet, when you cross an open spot or a place where the branches are thin enough to give admittance, inside you will find much room between the limbs of the separate bushes, which form navigable corridors and veritable mazes. For this reason, many animals like to use these stands of bush for concealed pathways.
We traveled a long time in the midst of these bushes, marveling at the secret places hidden within. After perhaps half an hour, we passed out of the shadowed branch tunnels and into a tangle of blackberry thorns, stunted and fruitless. Picking our way carefully through this bramble, we next entered a dense, closely knit stand of choking, spindly trees. I remember not what kind of tree they were, but all suffered from the competition for sunlight, and many were dead. We battled out way through this impenetrable woods to a small ravine through which flowed a murky creek. We crossed the creak with a leap to the muddy opposite bank, and then crawled--bellying up and over the bank--beneath low brush overgrown with thorny briars, reminiscent of a barbed wire patch in a war zone. Then more trees like the others, only so close together that we could hardly squeeze through between. If it had not been for everything we had already come through, I do not think the mystery of what lay ahead would have been enough to lure us onward.
But the woods came to an abrupt end and we found ourselves on the edge
of a large field, rarely seen by human eyes. the grass stood as high
as our shoulders; my cousin and I had to part it ahead of us and beat a
path for his smaller brother to follow. We felt as though we had
discovered some unknown land, far away from the rest of mankind.
We were privileged, but it was a privilege earned. Outside of time
we swam through the tall grass as through an ocean of life. Coming
to an area where some animals, probably deer, had bedded for the night
thus folding down the grass to make a clear spot, we stopped to take a
break, looking out through faces of unadulterated glee over the undulating
golden and green, flower-speckled expanse. After spending an hour
or so in this untouched land, we reluctantly returned to civilization,
splitting up at the shopping center to go our separate ways.