defacing respect

if my father had ever caught me spray painting a statue, a picnic table, or even a rock, i would have been punished, and humbled…reminding me of how small i was on this grand sphere we call earth. and that would not have been a bad thing. because i needed to learn to respect not just the planet, but also the people hanging on to the big blue ball in orbit. 

sure i did some dumb things in my childhood, but i never defaced anything with spray paint. i had common sense, which does not seem to be too common anymore.

this morning, since it was the coolest morning in a month, i headed out onto a popular rail trail to hike for awhile. parking along a one lane gravel road, i hiked in to one of the more remote sections, which was covered in a canopy of trees, until i came to the entrance to a half mile tunnel…

twenty years ago, there was no graffiti on the front walls, and certainly not  on the rocks nearby…

  

the magnificent tunnel, arching high above me, stretched forward, into the dark. but even into the darkness, graffiti on the walls, and empty spray paint cans on the graveled floor, assaulted my senses. thankfully no one appeared to be tall enough  to insult the upper walls and ceiling high above me…

 

years ago, there were a few random pronouncements, mainly from some machoistic boys bragging about their sexual conquests with various girls. now, all manner of garbage defaced the walls of this historic tunnel.

what i want to know is who are these idiots disrespecting America’s natural and historic treasures? are these the masses who were never disciplined, who were never taught the meaning of respect, who never saw value or worth in human beings, nor in anything God created?

surely, these are the signs of a perverse and wicked generation, one destined for self-destruction…unless they are confronted with reality.

 

between a rock and a hard place

how does…a series…well, maybe it was three, no four…times of nightly trips to the cupboard to eat peanut butter….only by the spoonful…effect a wee walk on the wild side?

throaty breathing and slight dizziness….have I walked too far for the state of my body type?

• should I phone the doctor after I get back to the land of network service?
• is that a pain in my side, or a sadistic side of pain?
• should my fundamental plan of action blame it on “old age?”
• didn’t my grandmother suffer from the same thing at this age?

if you go too far into the woods, you have gone too far.

I know. I went too far. ever have a washing machine in your stomach?  the agitator is active…your innards swirling around. but the worst sensation in middle age is build-up in the muffin gut. I have heard of this malady…and it sounds terrifying. almost as frightening as eating the wrong kind of moss, succumbing to a vegetative breakdown, while armed with a “Foraging In The Wild” Guidebook in the deep, dark woods, too far from the parking lot.

they say there is nothing like vacating your colon in the woods. it is part science, and about 3/4 art. one must be careful not to fall into the….

…butt first. green leaves work better than spotted ones. or ones with that burnt-toast look. and, in light of certain Quranic references, small pebbles are really not a good idea…

but…a clean colon is a happy colon. and a happy colon abruptly ends prolonged sentences…of…

so forget about the body type…you can morph after a simple vacation. a walk in the woods can expand into a session long enough for a youtube series on “survival in the wilderness within two miles of your vehicle.” just carry plenty of hand sanitizer, soap and water, or other essentials necessary for your vacation…

back out on the trail…the weight that so easily pulled me down was gone. the trail ahead opened to new possibilities. the topography that once seemed so strenuous became a joy, and I danced up the trail like a young buck.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

a time for every season under heaven

autumn is settling in…

No turning back

where coal trucks once rumbled, the land resembles more jungle than park…and the trail underfoot dusty- the gravel gone and only stripped, bare earth remaining beneath your feet. but it is not a lone trail…birds hiding in the bush sing to you. and as you walk, a distinct croaking sound…off at an angle…reveals a hidden pond or wetland, behind a wall of dark-faded green. this trail is like a run-on sentence; the end-sight from here will become just another tail added to another tail…yet more of the same.

it is not a trail for the weak willed. it is like a life commitment, a covenant made; for once you have traveled far enough in, there is no turning back. no turning back of any kind.

but…you will reach a destination, something worth walking for. and that will make all the difference…just as it does in the walk of life…

 

midwestern dreams

open. sky, grassland, a pond, the dusty trail beneath your feet. nobody’s land; at least, it feels like nobody’s land. maybe the birds. they fly around, their flittering like visiting neighbors. but maybe not. all you see is opened before you like a living picture-book, 360 degrees.

but this is the outback…out back of. it is not out back of your back yard, nor out back of the next town over. no, it is out back of nowhere. a nowhere that time has let fallen into weedy growth, and even this path that you stare at beneath you, bares tracks unlike your own, as it dissolves into sandy soil in the wind…and loses width to the inching ground cover.

and then, as suddenly as it began, you stand at the end of divided tracks, atop of rise, where tree, bush, and grassland have mingled to eat away the remnants of a once busy road. it is summertime, and you are faced with a plethora of greens, a wall in the picture-book fabric.

there is nothing to do but turn around. to follow your old prints back to the car, to submit to the season.

you shall return. if you can. when the snow flies and the trail opens to a sky and field more brown and beige than green, when even a wall of wildflowers cannot stop you from entering an undiscovered remnant of what once was a way…

a walk by the river

out this morning for a walk in the high mountains…with this beside me as I went. 

a slice of life on a cloudy spring day

it wasn’t sunny…but this snake found a spot by the creek bank to soak up the fragrant air of a cloudy spring day. 

…a snake’s view of the creek and scenery below…

and on another part of the trail, a smaller slithering creature surprised me…

before a spattering of rain dampened my boots and sent other creatures home to their beds…

or under some leaves….

walking across america

Aubrey Benmark started out from Brooklyn, New York, on Saint Patrick’s Day, and crossed the bridge over Blennerhassett Island into Ohio today. I saw her this morning, but did not know it- she crossed the highway with some kind of thing that looked like a baby carriage. When you’re going 60 mph, it is difficult to focus on a far moving object on the other side of the road. 

Today I traveled the four lane to a popular hiking spot in Ohio…

where i took photographs and watched other people taking pictures of each other with a wild natural wonder in the background. After they all left the area, I snapped this shot of Ash Cave from the trail leading back to the parking lot.

 

I also saw strong evidence of Ohio’s growing preoccupation with converting rational interchanges into troublesome roundabouts… all in a state known for erratic driving habits. While your Ohio farmer is driving 25 mph down the unnecessarily narrow road, weaving into the other lane…another vehicle traveling in the opposite direction will top out at over 80 mph on curves in the shape of a twisted colon…

 

…which makes being obsessed with roundabout creation….even double roundabouts…in a state where 99% of the population have never seen one…a very dangerous proposition.

     Heading back toward “Almost Heaven,” it was nearly mid-afternoon when I drove past a figure walking west on the berm of US 50. I pulled off at the next exit and turned around, made a turn and stopped a hundred feet in front of the now stopped cart. When I slipped out of my seat, I discovered that the walker was a woman and her cart declared that she was “walking across america.”

      She said she was walking across America to prove that there was still kindness in the world…

      After giving her some supplies, she told me that she was relying on the kindness of strangers.

      When I asked her about  West Virginia, she said that some people in Pennsylvania were telling her she would be in danger in West Virginia. She learned first hand that many in the media degrade the friendliest state I have ever been in, which is quite sad. She told stories about how people in the state had been so generous, one even letting her stay in a luxury guest house for free.

      She is heading through southern Ohio for Louisville…so if you see her, do as a disciple of Jesus would do and offer her what you have, take her to lunch or dinner, or give her a spot in your home or cabin out back. I ask all disciples of Jesus within southern ohio and northern Kentucky to be on the lookout and be ready to bless her.

 

    

 

Coming Home

when nature presents herself, naked and unafraid, in the cool winds of a lingering winter…the quiet in the woods sinks down into the very dust, and i am left with more wondering than wandering to do. she is brazen, but somewhat sleepy. she has not heard the call to awaken fully, and so it is with a tender shoot under pecan-dust smelling leaves that i find her heartbeat, and sit near that heart on a log overlooking a deep ravine.

she waits for her Master…her small streams trickling with the energy of a hibernating bear. she sounds…tentative…her bird alarms more croaking than frightening, her branches scratching each other so quietly, one could doze off in a deep sleep and wake hours later. 

but as i rest against a tree…the sun rays beat dreamily on open trail and i feel an upwind warmth invade the vale. the baked cool ground is warming, and i must be off, for spring is calling…calling me home.

 

 

a hike back into history

if you are like so many people in North America, you are tired of the bitter cold. So- I decided to take you back to a short hike I did one day into the woods near a historic late 1800’s/early 1900’s oil field area. 

This is a photo journey…

It was a beautiful sunny day, but chilly. As I hiked deeper into the woodland, more rock outcropping revealed ice…

...and shelter for small animals…

…and trails crossing small streams, as shadows formed in the wood….

and up hills…

...the trail  bringing me to history hidden beneath the tree canopy…

remnants remaining of an oil field more than a hundred years old…

...for a pleasant hike back into the pages of history…