Cut me some slack. Emil makes me write his memoirs. He says I face a choice, either write what he says or he'll haunt me for the rest of my days. Tells me his words will make me a famous man. I tell him Hitler was a famous man. Better he'd said rich and much younger but I'd settle for being younger. Week and a half would be nice. Enough time to duct tape the holes in my life before the dam goes.
Anyhow, that's what this aside is about. Futures that'll never happen and pasts that never lived. Don't know about you but I sure have a lot of both. When my mind wanders it leaves time in the dust. I can do pretty much what I want. Sounds pretty wild but it's not. My parochial school days are way too ingrained. Might sidle over to the cliff to see what's down below but never take the leap. 'Course Emil, being Emil, he can choose to fly.
Believe I left him standing alongside his pack atop the bridge overlooking Little John about to set off on the Border Trail. Would have proved a challenge back in September '69 seeing as how the trail was still a few years off in the future. Nope, she's not some ancient path in the woods. Probably's an amalgam of deer trails and overlooks. Same for the Kekekabic Trail he'll join up with in fifty miles or so. Doesn't phase Emil one bit. Remember what he said an entry or two ago? He bounces around in time like any good fictional uncle. Yesterday, tomorrow, what's the difference? His only fear is he'll run into himself somewhere along the way, be forced out of politeness to strike up a conversation only to find he's already heard or thought everything he has to say. So don't go checking Emil's facts on the internet. Won't do you any good. Emil's truth, like any truth, is pretty much relative. And Emil, being my mother's brother, is a relative. Guess that sums it up as clearly as anything.
Off my backside, get this toad on the road. Have the feeling I should field strip my Lucky Strike first. Old habits don't die hard, they don't die at all. Feel much better since I quit smoking but sure do miss that good-bad feeling of burnt lungs. Stopped at the end of the bridge. Looked down at the sand and gravel an inch past my sneaker toes then up the remnant of road. No more than a quarter mile of it left. Yeah there's more roads over the border but a few strides ahead lies the end of this one. What they call a jumping off point. Sounds exciting doesn't it? At the moment it sounds scary. Shouldn't be. The trail's well marked in most places. I've got maps and a compass. Should I wander off course, won't be by much and never'll be far from lakes that'll tell me where I am. Yup, no problems at all. Time to move on.
Looked down once more. Almost started before the thought hit me I was eyeball to eyeball with both barrels of another first step. Will they never end? Get used to it Emil boy. They're all first steps 'til you hit the last. I finally huffed off.
Road bent to the left rising all the way 'til it came to a wall of woods and a sign. Two foot wide by half a foot high brown one nailed to a post beneath a little triangular, metal plate. In yellow letters the board read Border Route Trail with an arrow pointing to the right. Took that to be a clue. On the metal plate the silhouette of a hiker perched on what seemed a craggy overlook towering above a blue lake stretching to the horizon. The hiker with a pack on his (?) back. Must be going somewhere. Thought hit me it'd make sense to find a walking stick along the way. Use it to fend off bears or the Mongol Horde should they feel a need to add the Arrowhead to their empire. Or maybe as a third leg when crossing a stream. Surrounding the tin-plate hiker and lake, one word per side, Border Route Trail. Guess I was in the right spot.
Been on this stretch of trail before but never let you know what it looked like. Eighteen inch wide bare, beaten earth at foot level and doing its best to avoid trees. Every so often another one of the triangular plates'd be nailed to a tree. Must have been short a few thousand to post every tree of the trail as most of the markings from this point on consisted of a dab of blue paint or an occasional cairn. My plan was to follow the blue just as Dorothy's was to follow the yellow brick rod. Pray to God I don't have to deal with all that caterwauling singing like she did. Should I come upon a metal man frozen in mid-chop I'll avoid eye contact and quietly pass by.
Thankfully the path continued its rise. That's sarcasm should you not have been paying attention. Seems the builders who cleared this course liked the high ground. Can't blame them. Had the land around here been bald I'd have always had a view. Might even see a horizon now and then. Wouldn't get anywhere, just stand in awe. The subtle nature of a forest encourages movement (though the face whipping nature of hazel brush seedling tends to do the opposite). Not that every tree's the same, you seen one you've seen them all. No, it's more the trees give comfort and warmth. A feeling of safety and ease of movement. Yeah, vistas are wonderful but usually are one wrong step from me becoming one with the broken boulders below. Given the choice I'll take a forest any day.
'Spose you're like me and've assumed the uphills counterbalance the downs just about perfectly. And, like me, you'd be wrong. Yeah, the distance balances nicely but check your watch as to time and you'll find we both spend way more time trudging up than gliding down. Might almost serve as a life lesson. But no, life lessons hint toward New Year's resolutions. Uphills? They're what you come to as soon as you finish a down.
'Bout twenty years back I came to know a one armed man by the name of George Hawkins. Actually he had most of his arm, just lost the hand. In place of the hand he had a grasping, hook-like mechanism. Could somehow manipulate it with his arm muscles so as to pick up things. Carried farmer matches and could light a cigarette just as nice as could be. Came to ask him one day how he lost the hand. Said he didn't lose it. Nope, kept it in a jar of formaldehyde in a cabinet above the ice box. Seemed odd to me at first but George said he was a devout Catholic and figured it best to be prepared for the Final Judgement when he and his hand would be reunited. 'Course this was in the days before the Ecumenical Movement. Back then all Catholic kids still learned their religion from the Baltimore Catechism - volumes I and II - that the Lord was eternal, infinite and all that. But Mother Church didn't really see it that way. In particular about body parts and their possible uses through eternity. Seems they didn't actually figure the Supreme Being could fabricate things on the spot. Yeah, George had to hold onto that hand 'cause it was the only one that'd fit his particular model of arm. One of a kind, can't make another just like it, so you best keep it in that jar George. Personally, I figured he kept it for sentimental reasons, seeing as how it was his right hand and he was a natural north paw. Had a lot of good times with it in his youth. Also kept it 'cause having a hand in a jar was a little weird and like most of us, George didn't want to seem too normal. Good man.
Yeah, George was a survivor. Least he was 'til he was done in by a flying squirrel while in the backyard transplanting chrysanthemums. Wasn't any cartoon squirrel either. Gray squirrel. You probably don't think gray squirrels can fly. Well, neither did George. At least 'til this one caught him square on his left ear. Odd thing was the coroner said it wasn't the blow to the head and the resulting cracked cranium that killed George. More likely the heart attack from the shock. What caused the squirrel to plummet was written off as a mystery, fate, kismet, bad karma or sheer dumb luck. Maybe this was just a clumsy animal or even had a suicidal tendency. A call to a clinical animal psychologist at the U of M confirmed the last possibility as the suicide rate among gray squirrels is one of the highest in the animal kingdom. Right up there with the Australian kinkajou. Don't ever want to let a kinkajou get hold of a hand gun. When they figure it's time to leave this world they like company. Particularly redheads. Anyhow, his wife Sophie had George and the rodent buried in the same grave. Even had their nephew Ralph throw together a little squirrel casket in his high school shop class. Wasn't the best of jobs but not bad. Got a B minus and Sophie had to pay for shop supplies.
'Bout then my attention landed back on earth, realized where I was and saw a rump-sized stump that needed mine to keep it from drifting off into the firmament. Break time. Walked forty minutes. Could tell I'd slowed my pace when I hit the trail. Maybe from now on I'll walk 'til I don't feel like it anymore. Good advice. Maybe I should listen to myself more often. Don't know how far I'll make it today but do know my stash of food hangs in a tree better than forty-five miles from here. Threw an extra freeze dried meal in the pack before setting off with the idea I might run out. Didn't think that possible a month ago. Here on the trail's another story. Once again gettin' used to the idea I've no control over anything save the next step. Reminds me of the time me and Archie bushwhacked our way into the unnamed lake in Manitoba. From his point of view I knew what I was doing. From mine, I hoped we didn't die. Seems I occasionally stick my neck out into the land of stupid. Been lucky so far. Guess I'll leave it at that. Close to six miles down with over two hours 'til noon. Was hoping for twenty miles today but'll settle for eighteen. Maybe sixteen.
Seems like my breaks are stretching at about the same rate my stride is shortening. Figure I'll eventually strike a balance. Nature taking its course and me accepting the truth. Just like she did when I hit the bushes, trowel and paper in hand, a minute ago. Good sign I can still squat when needed. Better sign I can straighten up again. Should keep me light hearted 'til the morning. Been a regular guy most of my life. 'Course there was a stretch of six days after hitting the beach on Luzon when I was bound up something fierce. When I finally let go the ground swell from the impact felt like incoming artillery. One of the men in our third platoon was awarded a Purple Heart for breaking his arm when he was knocked over by the shock wave. Since then I've lived in harmony with my bowel.
'Bout a half mile uptrail is the turnaround point of my longest day hike. There the path crosses the portage from East Pike over to McFarland. The thought of a side trip to the shore of my favorite lake has crossed my mind. I'll pass on it for now. Miles to go and the climb back up from the water is a two hundred foot elevation gain. Have plenty of that simply following the trail. Knowing the lake's down there somewhere's good enough. At the moment my stomach says lunch overlooking West Pike will be a pleasure.
Not much to say about the next five miles. They were slow. Thumped along at no more than a long two miles per hour. Surely not three. 'Bout like an Army moves. Fast on the roads, slow in the bush, a tad slower than a snail's crawl when the trail ends. Was pooped when I sat to eat. Might even take a nap.
Felt like an eagle on my lunch perch. Couple hundred feet below, the lake snaked its way west to the portage from Clearwater. Four miles away as I recall. Ghost-like zephyrs left their silver footprints here and there as they skipped up lake. Rivers of current wound willy-nilly toward me trailing their courses of slick. Strikes me as odd there's rivers in a lake. But there they were, plain as day. Their directions looked to be pretty random. Doubt that was the intent. Given the choice they'd have bee-lined from one end of the lake to the other. But, a little shove here, pull there, turned them into drunkards trying to find their way atop the bar stool. Go with the flow they say these days. From up here it appears even the flow has to go with the flow.
A little closer, right beneath my dangling sneakers, floats the pine spiked island where me and Archie'd once spent three days camping. Not many islands in the area. Most of the lakes along the border are glacier cut trenches. Seems the ice was in a bad mood when leaving the Arrowhead. Had no time for any stinking islands. Didn't catch many fish on that trip but the one's we did tie into that late spring were all lakers. Most less than three pounds but each a hoot for their fight. Few animals say northland like lake trout. Have to admit I'm happy to be where I am.
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