One January Day, When I Was Eleven

Dateline: 1971

I was eleven. I was alone; and I liked it.

A cold winter day in the woods.

I had a little boy scout fire going.

The world was calm, cold and quiet.

I was all alone; and I liked it.

I'd been going off into the woods by myself for the past four years. I'd been coming to these specific woods for the past two. I was happy that it looked like we'd be staying around here for the next year. Three years would be one year longer than the last town we'd lived in.

When I was in the woods I was out of the way. My mother and sister could do whatever they wanted for as long as I was out here. They never worried too much about me when I was out doing these "boy" things; although my mother always expressed her concerns that I might fall from a tree, or be swept away in the river.

I always promised to be safe. I always was. I always came home.

On this day, I stood in a small copse of pines on the back side of a small hill. The trees were tall. The canopy above stretched some fifteen feet up, blue white sky barely visible. The view out through the last few layers of trees on this hill's wavery decline, looked out across thirty yards of flat, snow covered cow pasture, to a line of trees along the banks of the river.

The river was about fifteen yards across at this point, running deep and muddy. I'd stood on it's banks waving at canoe regatta contestants, two summers in a row now.

This last summer, my uncle's VW bus got stuck in a swampy area and we had to get the farmer to come with his tractor and pull it out. The sight turned the heads of some of the more lackadaisical canoers.

I smiled remembering as I stood near my fire burning orange and bright. It put off very little smoke and a little creosote smell. I'd built the fire from dried out branches which I'd broken off from the pines around me.

I'd cleared a bed in the snow dusted needles, down to bare dirt for several feet in each direction.

I had made a teepee fire lay; whisper thin wooden shoots in the center, graduated sizes of twigs next, then larger than thumb sized sticks on the most outer layer. Pitch infused wood in a cone shape; a small opening on the breeze's side.

The finished product was slightly bigger than a football standing on end.

I lit it with one match.

It burned well.

Most of the heat whisked off on the occasional gusts, but the brightness and steadiness of it's burning warmed me more differently than regularly; admittedly because I had been able to light it with one single match.

Boy Scout pride.

I had a small pile of sticks that would last me an hour or so if I went kind of easy on feeding the fire. I searched around for a couple of platter sized rocks, quite common in the region where I was, then swept the snow off of a couple, carried them close to the fire, and sat on them.

Usually, I would sit and whittle crude wooden speed boats and fin-less rockets which I would later toss in the river and watch float away before I went home. Lately I'd taken up to carrying pencil and paper, so on this day I sat writing and drawing crudely.

My drawings were pitifully primitive. Perspective and shadowing totally lacking. Nothing could be drawn very close to scale. I struggled on a bit, for awhile, then turned to working with words.

On great dead authors' advice, I wrote what I saw.

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Pine trees.

needles poking from caught snow.

crisp blue sky seen only through scattered holes in the dark green roof that turns to a grayish haze from the network of gray dead branches to the grayish brown tree trunks falling straight down to the orange and snow covered ground at their bases and stretching to my feet.

It's cold.

My breath is fog in the air.

It's cold.

I'm going to add more sticks to the fire.

--

I add a half dozen more sticks to the fire then settle back with my knees pulled up and my arms crossed around them. Pen and paper are held absently in my hands. I'm just gazing out blankly at my view; lost in thought for something meaningful to write.

"Indians walked through here."

"..maybe had fires right where I am."

"..nah, more likely down by the river."

"Tom Sawyer grew up on a river."

"..it was way bigger than this one here."

"..this one could still lead to dreams and adventures."

"This terrain is like one of my Andre Norton books."

"..maybe there's a magic circle of stones out in the snow."

"..where I could lay on summer's grasses."

"..right in the middle of winter."

"The moon is bright today."

"..we landed on the moon."

"..I wonder if I'll get to live in a lunar city."

"..like Assimov and Heinlein describe."

"We're supposedly killing the planet."

"..pollution is running amok."

"..why aren't people ecological."

".. it seems to make the most sense."

"Why is their so much strife."

"..busses burning and hippies getting clubbed."

"..aren't people supposed to treat people like people?"

"..isn't this the land of the free?"

"How come humans don't all have equal rights?"

"..aren't they supposed to?"

"..I thought the police weren't supposed to beat people up just for saying things."

"Where's the America that John Wayne represented?"

"..didn't all the WWII vets of off to fight to keep things like freedom of speech safe?"

"..what kind of price would I pay if I died defending my country when the government isn't actually securing the civil rights that I was raised to understand were most precious to our people?"

"Vietnam sure looks like a mess."

"..I'm glad my uncle didn't get sent there while he was serving in the Marines."

"..everybody in the family is glad to."

"I should serve my country."

"..I'm lucky to be growing up here."

"..there's plenty of folks that don't have electricity and running water."

"..and folks that live under dictators that invade their homes whenever they want."

"I'm glad I was born in America."

"Whew, it's getting cold."

My wood supply had dwindled to nothing; and my fire was almost out.

I haven't written anything new.

I mentally review all the things that just wandered through my head and write none of them down. I figure that smarter others are always writing down the day to day things and the goings on, so what could I possibly contribute. I'm only eleven.

I look down at my scratchy drawings and rambling descriptions of the pines, and sigh. Then I stuff the pen and paper back into my pockets and start to get up.

Slowly my stiffened legs and knees start working and I rise to drop handfuls of scooped-up snow on the fire until it's totally buried. Then I tamp it down with my foot a bit and make sure there's no more smoke eking out; then trudge on my way.

Home in fifteen minutes.


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24 January 2008

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Bill's Spirit is an Artist, Writer, Poet, Philosopher currently wordsmithing from a humble digital forge in small town Ohio.

The works of the man behind Bill's Spirit have been published in small alternative and amateur presses since 1986. Before that, they just filled notebooks, decorated walls and gathered dust in piles and boxes.

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