When I got old enough, they let me bring me bring my BB gun and I’d shoot at cans or birds as we walked. I wasn’t the only kid enjoying the land though. Occasionally, we’d come across an area in which a kid had set up a mini-camping area and left behind traces of the fun he had. Grandpa seemed to make a mental note and I knew he would be keeping an eye on the area.
I was always drawn toward the little stream. It didn’t cover a lot of land, and best I could tell, it didn’t contain any fish. I just liked the sound it made and I was fascinated by its existence. One winter, my grandpa and I took a walk in the woods. For some reason, I picked up a long stick and used it as a walking stick. The stream was frozen over and I took a short jaunt over the ice. I slipped and fell, jamming the stick into one of my eyes.
Grandpa got me back to the house. He was more upset than I’d ever seen him. I think he was upset with himself more than anything, but I don’t know how you keep a kid from being a kid in a setting like that. I can’t remember what the doctor said at the hospital, but I do remember wearing a patch over my eye for quite a while. After it came off, my eye was fine.
During another trip to the woods, my dad pointed at what we thought was an owl in a tree. Then, as we studied it, we thought it might be a dove. I know, they looking nothing alike. Then we laughed about our lack of wilderness knowledge. But it didn’t matter, because we were hanging out in the woods together. What more could a boy ask for from his father on a Saturday afternoon?
After my parents divorced, my mom, my sister and I moved. Mom bought a painting for our living room of a meandering stream that cut through a patch of trees in the middle of fall. The leaves had already turned to orange, red and yellow. And, of course, the painting became a gentle reminder of those Saturday afternoons in the woods.
I still have that painting. It’s hanging in my living room.