In 1976 my family moved from town to the country. Dad had bought a 5 acre piece of land that was chockablock full of pine trees. We quickly began thinning some out and building big fires to burn off the cleared timber and pine knots that we had piled up. To a ten year old, 5 acres seemed like a section of land. I felt like one of the members of Lewis & Clark's team as I explored, in my young eyes, never seen before land. Squirrels jumped from limb to limb high above my head. It seemed like I had forever to roam before I came across a fence that marked the property line.
Timber companies owned the surrounding land. They grew these pine trees as crops and every so many years some would be cleared for pulp wood. Boise Cascade had a plant in a neighboring town that manufactured plywood and OSB. Another neighboring town to the north and west made paper from the trees harvested. But until the land was clear cut, it was as if the Amazon rain forest was at my disposal.
We made forts and dug holes that served as bunkers in WWII war games. We found shelters in those holes as the Germans sent mortars that exploded around us in the Battle of the Bulge. About that time my parents bought us a Honda Z-50 mini bike. We cut trails through the thick woods and built ramps and raced that mini bike through the forest, pretending to be racers or spies. We had a zip line (we called it a shoot to shoot) where we would launch off a platform and glide 50 feet across the woods. We discovered sassafras trees and would dig the roots, smelling the "root beer" fragrance. After washing them good, we'd put the roots in pans of water and make sassafras tea. It was red and fragrant and delicious. My grandfather taught me to hang the leaves of the sassafras tree until they were fully dry. Then we'd grind the leaves into a powder, making gumbo file'. Gumbo file' is added to gumbo to thicken it and add a rich 'earthy' flavor to chicken & sausage gumbo. I still use it today.
We'd hunt in the woods, dropping fox squirrels from the pine tree tops with a bolt action 410 shotgun. The 'tree rats' would make a dull thud when they would hit the ground. Farther back behind the property line some old unused irrigation canals held water and wood ducks adopted that habitat as their home. I killed my first wood duck back there. We found a swampy area that had mayhaw trees in it and would collect the berries for making jelly. From time to time we ran across old trash dumps where, in years long past, people threw their trash. We'd 'excavate' the old refuse piles, finding old bottles, specifically Purex bleach that was in brown glass jugs, old extract bottles and others that didn't have screw on lids, but had corks. I still have some of those bottles stored away in a box in the attic probably at Mom & Dad's house. We had to be careful because the land was full of black widow spiders. Amazing that we never got bit!
There was so much adventure and excitement in the woods. I couldn't wait to get home to see what kind of discovery we'd make back in the woods. Of course there were no cell phones back then. Mom and Dad knew that their explorers were on important expeditions and would be 'out of pocket' for quite a while. What happened if they needed us? How do you contact a couple of guys that are out on an important and dangerous expedition far, far away from civilization? Smoke signals?
They crafted an ingenious form of communication. They erected a cast iron bell atop a 4x4 post. When they needed Hernando Cortez or Ponce De Leon, they could ring that bell. The bell called us home for supper or for school or to baseball games or trips to the library. The bell rung loudly and we could hear that cast iron bell calling us home. Had that thing not rung, we might have finally discovered the fountain of youth or that chest of gold that we sought in those woods.
Sometimes I wish that we could throw away these cell phones that tether us much too close to civilization and that we could return to simplicity of the tolling of the cast iron bell. It may be my imagination, but there are days where, if I sit very still, I can hear the bell calling me home.
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