The hiking trips of my youth are what I remember most about growing up. Mother was studying geology and I remember many many trips into the woods with camping, tents, smoky fire pits and best of all, the very great outdoors.

I attribute my love of nature and the out-of-doors to these expeditions and thank my folks internally every time I look upon with supreme satisfaction at the beauty of this place. I like it, the colors are just right and the simplicity of nature’s creatures continually astounds me into mild jealousy. Wouldn’t it be nice to gather nuts, year after year, and frolic amongst the tree tops of the Sierra Nevada? Wouldn’t it be nice to prance and eat grass around wildflower strewn meadows high in the Stanislaus? And wouldn’t it be nice to have, as your single largest priority, a little nest to build in a granite crack along the shores of Crater Lake?

I say yes. Oh, it might be boring. That uncooked acorn might get to be a little tart on the palette. But your brain would be smaller so it wouldn’t really matter all that much..

One particular trip – I’m not sure where – we scampered along a shadowed and bright trail in the forest just after a recent rain. The wide trail had pockets of puddles that reflected mirrors back at the sky and I remember jumping and splashing, joyous to have nothing to do but breathe deep and contemplate the wonder.

I would hunker at the edge of some pools - letting mom, dad and sister wander a little ways ahead – and root around in them, looking for something interesting. All sorts of fun things are in pools of water if you look.

And I loved to look. The memory is burned into my brain like an indelible footprint and I remember a huge dragonfly, brilliant blue-green and chrome iridescence, desperately trying to free itself from the muddy water in one of these pools. Its wings had gotten wet and almost its entire body was submerged, making it dangerously close to drowning.

I put my little finger under this creature’s nose and watched in fascination as it crawled, seemingly grateful, onto the tip. Standing up and with eyes glued to my finger I began walking, hypnotized by the massive eyes on this winged insect.

It splayed its gorgeous wings and let the mellow forest wind dry them. After what seemed like hours my arm started to hurt so I put it on my hat, just on the tip of the bill. The dragonfly stayed there for a very long time, well past the time necessary for complete wing-drying.

I think it liked me. I certainly liked it. And from that day on I can say with complete confidence that my attitude towards insects changed forever. I don’t kill them. I save them if I can.

Little microcosms of life exist within them. We all should respect that (unless they suck your blood, in which case they are fair game for squashing).

Editor’s note: Spiders don’t suck your blood.

Up Up and Away
Like most students, I was very poor. I drove a 1955 Ford sedan, that Ken kept running using his superior automotive knowledge and regular runs to the "junk yard" for parts. One day, after checking the oil and water, I forgot to latch the hood down completely, and when driving down the road, the hood flew up and smacked into the windshield. Scared me to bits, but we manage to wrestle the hood back down and get home. Not being able to afford a replacement hood, from then on I drove the car with a seriously bent hood, tied down with rope. This allowed water to get into the hood hinge area and without our knowledge, rusted the hinges to the point of failure.

I have tried to learn from mistakes, but sometimes it takes making the same mistake more than once to get the idea. So, one day I again forgot to tie the hood down with the rope. I was driving south on Junipero Serra Blvd, just south of Hicky Blvd, when the hood came loose. I was doing about 50 or 6 MPH as I had not yet managed to lighten up my lead foot. Since there were no hinges for it to pivot on, the entire hood became airborne, and traveled along at the same speed as the car. As I watched in horror and fascination, the entire hood lifted up about a foot above the car, and just hovered there for a few seconds. Very slowly then, the hood began to bank, lift, and ultimately just sailed away over a backyard fence.

Since I had no insurance of any kind, and was terrified of consequences, I just continued on my way in shock. Ken's face when I got home was amazing. We poured over the local newspaper for days afterwards hoping that we would not find a story about a home owner decapitated by a flying car hood, a crushed pet, or worse. Nothing ever came to light in the papers or radio/TV news, but I can imagine the poor homeowner who found a bent car hood, with a rope still attached to the front, laying in their back yard. I'll bet that story is part of their family legacy.

Voice of command

When Alex was very young, maybe eighteen months old, he was visiting Grammie for the day. We went out for a walk in the neighborhood. We met a neighbor outside in her yard and stopped to talk. The neighbor had a young labrador retriever who was still learning obedience commands and was very frisky. Alex was waiting patiently for us to finish our conversation, but the dog was jumping around a lot. The neighbor finally turned in exasperation and said to the dog with a loud voice "sit". We were both extremely amused to see two young butts hit the sidewalk simultaneously. Alex clearly knew the voice of command when he heard it, and was soon sitting on the sidewalk next to the dog, both of them looking a little worried.