Kids and I
in an old faded blue Toyota manual shift stationwagon, (that I purchased for $600 one fateful day –
that car lasted a long time and of course was an embarrassment for all of us!),
taking a tour of the country roads midsummer, a favorite pastime for all. We
would drive on ‘cowpaths’ or anything vaguely resembling a road just to see
where it went. We found wonders during most of our travels, pockets of plum
trees that we relished after filling our buckets, chokecherries as well. We’d
make a game of who could spot something interesting before the rest of us and
then we’d jump out and investigate. Could be an old school building – there
were loads of those – abandoned houses, bends in the river that held a special
interest for their sandy banks and ancient tire swings still faithfully
swaying in the breezes. We were trespassing basically….sometimes we retrieved
odd mementos of the occasion to bring back and put on a shelf. Mostly we just
enjoyed our outings because they weren’t planned. One such journey took us down
a path that I was sure led to some sort of berry pot of gold. We were traveling
at about 1mph because the road/path was barely there and there were trees on
either side. We were alone in the world – or so we thought.
The old
Toyota chugged along and was really quite quiet – I had learned early on in my
car purchasing experience that a good muffler can alleviate a lot of the embarrassment
of driving a junker by not attracting attention with noisy exhaust systems.
It was a
lovely day and so quiet that the quiet sort of entered into our psyches and we
were all hushed as well, just gazing out into the trees to see what might be
there when all of A sudden from the passenger side ditch a movement and then!!!
An amazing sight! A huge white tail buck leapt from the ditch and in one swift
bound passed right over the front of the vehicle so close I could have touched
it if I hadn’t had a windshield! Its body was gleaming and beautiful in the
little splotch of sunlight that spattered the path here and there. We could see
the muscles flex and the coat glisten. It soared over the car in one bound,
crossed the ditch and the fence on the other side and was gone! It was so
exciting and so silent! Just movement and color and light and the amazing body
so strong! It could have taken only seconds but it was slow motion to us. We
were silent for some time before bursting into voices of awe. Oh my god! Did
you see that? Was it real? Where did it go? I stopped the car and we just sat a
minute. Relishing the knowledge that only we saw what happened. Only we
witnessed the majesty of this fantastic moment.
And why at
that moment? Why did we just happen to be passing by in our quiet little faded
blue junker when that huge, gorgeous animal decided to take flight! And it WAS
flight! Its hooves never touched the car, never leapt a second time to clear
the fence, just took it all in one giant bound.
This is what
our rides in the country were all about. Of course we lived out there and had
so many opportunities to see things like this but still, when we wanted to do
something fun we didn’t drive into town to look at people, or houses, or
fences. We just dove deeper into the country to see what we could see…..it’s
out there my friends, marvels like this are out there, you just have to be
there ….
