Over the river and through the woods - Do you remember roads from your past?
Not a road, but a path
To gramma's house;
(posted this a couple times now.....but....hey)
When I was about four or five, we lived out in the country.
A sparsely populated neighborhood tucked back in the Chapman hills about twenty miles outta Scappoose.
Our place, and gramma’s place, atop the hill, was separated by five acres of strawberries carved out of a thicket of fir trees.
Ever so often I’d stay at grammas on a summer evening.
She made good pancakes….and the folks were going out.
One time I waited too long at home.
There was just too much cowboy’n to do, and I’d lost track of time.
It was already twilight, and I had several hundred yards up the hill thru a couple clumps of trees to negotiate.
As I trudged thru the first glade of trees, I thought about eyes staring at me.
I’d seen lots of bear sign in my tiny travels, and some bobcat and cougar scat here and there. So, plenty to consider.
(Actually, years later, coming from town one evening, we pulled into the garage, and a big cat jumped down from the rafters and fled into the night. We just saw body and tail, but it was, without a doubt, a full grown cougar.)
Whistling seemed to rid the noises of the stillness in the dark regions of my petrified mind.
A generous moon lengthened shadows, turning stumps into animals of prey, licking their lips, fixated on my dashing form, like Tag would when I showed him the stick I was about to throw.
Ever so often I'd give a quick glance back, but the glaring, glowing eyes that were obviously there would mysteriously disappear.
The clearing, the path, the 300 yard dash.
Breathing came in gasps and pants…or was that the breath of the galloping cougar that was about to sink his teeth into my neck any minute and tear my puny body to shreds.
The folks will wonder in the morning, ‘Where’s Gary?’
Then, days later, they’ll find bits of Oshkosh b’goshes, right at gramma’s door, and shreds of poop stained fruit of the looms, and the brim of my straw cowboy hat, the hat part that once housed my furrowed little noggin now several miles away in a steaming mound of mountain lion poopoo.
The clump of trees loomed ahead, separating me and gramma, good ol’ pillowy armed gramma…..even good ol’ grumpy grampa.
I heard something shriek, or was it a howl…
I don’t recall my feet touching the ground over the last few yards thru their back yard thicket.
I do recall gramma, and her audible laughter, her high pitched teehee, as I hung my coat in the utility washroom of the back porch.
Apparently, my countenance that morphed from bug eyed terror to smiling relief in the time space of flipping a light switch sorta tickled her.
The pancakes were extra good that next morning.
