A Walk in the Woods
February 9th, 2009
I don’t know why boys do it. But on bright, cool, days of late winter we liked to walk in the woods, with no purpose or destination in mind. We just headed for the nearest wooded pasture and walked for the thrill of being away from houses, streets, and perhaps parents. My friend, Roy Edward and I practiced this pass time often.
This particular day the weather was just right, the temperature perfect, and we felt that primeval urge calling from the pastures like Ulysses’ sirens. With a gentle breeze to our backs we headed for the woods. We heard a yell. “ Hey guys, where are you going?” a voice called. It was Donald Guy Hicks. Donald was an ok guy, but a little round all over and considered a little sissy. And he was just a kid. Roy and I were fourteen years old and almost grown, and this boy could not have been much older that ten or eleven. “We are just going walking,” we said. “Hey, I want to go too,” Donald said. With some disappointment we agreed, but he would have to leave that stupid rope. He said he would walk behind us and be quite, and besides we might find a tall tree to swing from. “Ok, but the first problem you cause, it’s back home you go,” we demanded.
The pastures, meadows, and woods were particularly pleasant that day. We walked for some time and came upon an old abandoned quarry. The scar in the hillside made by the equipment and the cutting of stone had left a jumbled, other world landscape. We climbed tumbled rocks, and boulders, jumping from one to another with glee. Exhausted, we found a comfortable place to sit and toss pebbles into the pond of blue green water at the bottom of the quarry. Hunger is never far from young kids thoughts. So Roy and I hatched a plan. We sent Donald back to my house for something to eat. I wrote Mother a note asking for bacon, potatoes, bread, and a frying pan. Donald soon returned with the food. We built a fire, fried the bacon, fried the potatoes, and even fried slices of bread in the bacon grease. We ate it all. Like three fat dogs we lay on the warm rocks and talked of far away places, with strange sounding names, and expansive white sandy beaches.
Suddenly we were aware of the fact it was getting late. We hurriedly scooped up all our stuff and started towards home. In my hurry I took a short cut close to the forbidding pond. A sand covered rock, and my hurry caused me to fall into the greenish water, skillet, sack and all. The walls around the water were all perpendicular and proved impossible to climb out. I yelled and splashed about looking for a handhold. Roy was running around the edge yelling. But Donald coolly uncoiled that stupid rope, tossed me one end and he and Roy pulled me to safety. That was one cool walk home, but a happy one. Donald Guy looked a lot older that day, and he wasn’t as fat, or as sissified as we first thought.








