I went through a phase where I was fascinated with Native
Americans. It lasted several months –
and I believe I lost interest because I simply couldn’t find, or wasn’t
dedicated enough to the pursuit of this particular facet of knowledge to search
for more information. It was during (one
of) my exploratory phases of life – and I’m sure something else replaced it
.
From the age of 5 through maybe 15 or 16, there was a family
that lived a few houses down from our house with a mother/wife that interested
me.
She was strange – a good strange.
She seemed like a free thinker, like to have a good time and
was genuinely a nice old woman (old to me but younger than I am now as I write,
when I first met her). She would sit on
her front porch with her husband in the evenings and he would drink and smoke
until he was blotto - I’m not sure if she drank – but if I were to guess, I
would say yes.
Their house was dirty and had a funny smell to it (you know
how kids REALLY pick up on these things).
They had too many dogs and a few cats also several older children – in college
or high school.
With all of those barriers to acceptance by a young boy, the
place was still inviting and the mother/wife is what made it so.
Once the children moved out of the house, the husband and
wife moved to the mountains of Virginia.
It’s where they belonged. The husband died shortly after their move and
she occupied that cabin on the side of the mountain alone
.
We visited her once when I was in junior high school. It was late int eh summer or early
autumn. The evenings were cool and the mornings
crisp. Plenty of leaves were on the
ground but there were still ample brown leaves to provide cool shade in the warmer
afternoons. We picked wild grapes with her and made grape
jelly. I found a sturdy stick and
fashioned it into a perfect walking stick.
I removed all the bark with a huge Rambo knife and dyed it a dark brown
with boiled nuts. We slept in her cabin
in a loft that was heated with a wood burning stove – and dried out our
sinuses.
She and her smelly house, her cabin in the mountains all
were brought back to me by Aunt Moon’s Young Man.
Just another memory dislodged from the recesses of my mind
by a good story.
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