Leafing Through Life

Autumn has come and the leaves are turning. Soon they will fall, and the wind will push, and the rake will pull them into piles. It has been a long time since I raked any leaves; I rely instead on my lawn mower and the breeze, which seems to blow through the yard without ceasing.  But now the obligations of being a grandfather call me to have a pile of leaves to jump into – not this year, but perhaps next year. There is a large cottonwood behind the barn with enough leaves for dozens of piles.

At our last house there was a giant cottonwood tree standing tall in the front yard; it was so big it dwarfed the one behind our barn. The leaves it dropped were so numerous they had to be raked and removed just so we could see out the first-floor windows of the house (I may be exaggerating).

When I was kid, very few people bagged their leaves; they burned them instead. People my age may be the last ones to have enjoyed the woodsy smell of burning leaves. I am sure we can have a discussion concerning burning leaves, bagging and burying them, collecting and composting or just letting them lay where they fall, but that’s another day.

I grew up in a time where kids raked leaves into rows to create a floor plan for a modest one-level home and played house in its small walls all afternoon. After supper the house was demolished and their father would burn the remains. He would stand there tending it, as if he were smoking his pipe, fussing with the dried leaves periodically while he enjoys the aroma and relaxation that goes with the task.

I don’t know when burning leaves fell out of favor, but I suspect it was about the same time burning barrels were outlawed. Most backyards had a barrel where the household garbage was burned, never completely, of course, as not everything burns. Like most others, ours was an old, rusty fifty-five gallon barrel that stood next to the utility pole between the garden and the alley.

I watched in horror one day as my favorite stuffed animal was thrown unceremoniously into the fire. I had been quite ill, and the theory was the big blue dog was harboring the black plague or some such thing.  Despite the pleadings of me and my compassionate older brother, the dog was burned alive in the barrel. 

I don’t remember the day Dad found out he could no longer use his barrel to burn the trash, but I know it bothered him. For one day I was watching him work the soil in the garden when his eyes rested on the decaying empty cylinder.

“I don’t know what’s the matter with this country, you can’t even burn your own garbage anymore,” he announced, leaving no room for disagreement or comment.

That was many years ago, but it seems like yesterday. Things change as fast as the seasons. I love this time of year, but I cannot help feeling a bit melancholy. Summer ends, the temperatures drop, and the sun goes down earlier every day.  

But it is also the time of year life begins to quiet and move indoors; I recognize the need to make some changes. Colorful sentences don’t get written and musical instruments don’t sound better without daily discipline. I guess you could say I am turning over a new leaf. 

Retirement

I am reminded, almost weekly that I don’t look my age. “So, when are you going to retire,” people will ask. It’s not quite as bad as asking a non-pregnant woman who appears to be in her second trimester when her baby is due, but I can’t help sounding defensive in my reply, “How old do you think I am?” Perhaps they are just making polite conversation, or maybe they are being rather forward in their thinking.  

Personally, I don’t view half-way between fifty and sixty as the age to retire, unless, of course, you hate your job and have enough to live on for several decades. Neither is true for me.

People work past sixty-five for a variety of reasons: a sense of loyalty, they find the work cathartic, they love the job, they need the money, or they need something to do. When my grandparents sold the farm and moved to town Grandpa got a job at a lumberyard for several years. He finally retired at the age of eighty-five. I got a job at the same lumberyard three years later when I was sixteen.

One day we were short-handed, and they called Grandpa to help out. Andrew, as he was known around the yard (I never called him by his first name, not even once), showed me that age is no yardstick of ability. The two of us spent a memorable summer afternoon unloading a train car of lumber by hand. Grandpa laughed at how I struggled to keep pace with him.

His son, my father, passed away before he reached eighty. I hope to pass by that age in good stead. However, I am quite sure I do not want to be unloading train cars at eighty-eight years old, with or without my grandson (alright, maybe just one afternoon). But do I want to be sitting in my office at that age? Probably not, but how will I know when enough is enough?

A friend of mine, who is about ten years older than me, is contemplating retirement. She talks about retiring sometime next year after she has marked a work anniversary. But someone asked her a question the other day that broadened her perspective. “What if you knew your time was limited, would you wait another six months to retire?”

The truth is time on planet Earth is limited for each of us. So now what? It gets kind of confusing. How do you choose to spend your remaining days – work, leisure, or somewhere in between? I know, too many questions and not enough answers right?

For me the answer lies somewhere in the middle.  Work is good for the soul, but all work and no play makes Jack and Jill too dull to fetch anything but ulcers. If you can, find work you enjoy, and if not, find enjoyment in the work you do. Develop a hobby, learn a new language, play a musical instrument (some would say a banjo doesn’t qualify), volunteer, play with children, visit the elderly, read a book, take a walk, live life.

Live a life that has purpose, satisfaction and contentment. That’s what I’m trying to do.  I don’t know when I will retire, but apparently I look old enough. 

Public Housing

Having stayed at a private campground after attending a wedding in Wisconsin, my wife, Rhonda chose to extend our trip and camp at a state park for a Walden Pond-like experience without all the fuss.  It wasn’t that we couldn’t have driven straight home after the wedding, but that defeats the whole point of camping – staying somewhere else when you could be at home. The countryside in that part of the world is beautiful, so we decided to see it during the daytime instead of dodging deer at night.

The next day, with a trailer still in tow, we pulled into Interstate State Park. That particular state park has a Minnesota side and a Wisconsin side, with the St. Croix doing its best to keep them apart. We chose the Minnesota side, as we didn’t want to wear out our welcome in Wisconsin, and we already had paid for the season pass, which grants unfettered access to all the state parks in Minnesota.

The private campground had prohibited tents; the state park encourages tenting but limits the length of the vehicle-trailer combination. Fortunately, (or not) we were able to make the cut-off for length at the state park so I backed into a spot with a beautiful view of the river.

Several times during our stay we saw a paddle-wheel boat laden with waiving passengers. The first time or two I waived back, but after that I only nodded in their general direction, as I was grew annoyed at their tour-boat style of enthusiasm.

A site or two from ours was a young family in a tent. The vinyl-lining of the tent did little to dampen the sounds of the mother hollering at the toddler and the toddler crying in response. On the other side was a trailer so small that my father would’ve said, “you couldn’t change your mind in there,” yet three adults crawled in there that night to escape the rain. The mind reels.

Before I started a fire to cook our hot dogs, I mistakenly volunteered to go for a walk. I knew Rhonda wanted to go for a walk, and I had calculated that walking around the small campground circle would have us back to our trailer in no time. However, I had not counted on the walking trail, which was partially hidden from view, but it was too late to back-out, hence my offer would be seen as shallow and insincere (which, of course, it was).

Rhonda loves to walk, I enjoy sitting, but there we were walking in 80 plus degree heat. Luckily, it was also humid so I could sweat through my shirt while avoiding poison ivy and certain death should I stumble off the path and fall hundreds of feet into the waiting waters of the St. Croix.

I struggled to keep up; it really is amazing how long a mile and a half is when you are going up and down over hills and through woods. We finally reached the end where it was suggested we take another way back.

We followed the fill-in-the-blank style of directions to get us under the highway, through the town and back home, or at least the camper. The return trail was on an old railroad bed, which had the advantage of being on an even grade without all that up and down business that nobody likes. Other than the distance, the only problems we encountered were the missing trestle and the hobbit-size culvert.

Many years ago when the train was running there was a trestle that spanned a deep ravine, but it was no longer there, so we had to negotiate our way, first down then back up, on steep stairs with only a smattering of hand-rails. The trail ended at a dank culvert, where we walked hunched-over. When we finally reached our camper Rhonda suggested I go shower, as it looked like I had just walked out of one.

So ends Part II of this travel essay. I apologize for the length, but in the words of Henry David Thoreau, “Not that the story needs to be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”

Camping

Last week after we got the camper fixed, we dragged it across the border to Wisconsin to attend a wedding. The camper wasn’t invited, so we parked it nearby at a campground. In my experience I have found that there are generally two types of campgrounds: the public (State or National Parks) and the privately owned campgrounds. Both offer advantages, but in the end it comes down to a lifestyle preference. As I prefer to stay home, I don’t like either one of them – but eventually you have to park somewhere for the night and most people are opposed to letting you park in their driveway, run an extension cord and build a fire in their yard – even if you bring your own firewood.

For the first night we stayed with the private sector in a campground at an old resort on a chain of lakes. The “office,” shared a corner space in a wood paneled bar, where you could have a beer, play pool, watch the game and eat a pizza. I dropped fifty cents and played pinball instead while I listened to John Prine and Iris Dement sing “In Spite of Ourselves” on the juke box.

From its hilltop perch, the bar had a panoramic view of the lake. Outside, ancient concrete steps dropped unevenly to a shore line boardwalk, where a series of white docks with peeling paint exposed rotting piers. Rental rowboats saddled with outboards restlessly tugged on their moorings. Further down the line pontoons bobbed up and down; the waves slapped their sides sounding a hollow, tinny report luring fisherman to their decks.

Having ventured out to the one of the docks, Rhonda and I sat a bench and took it all in. Looking back towards the bar a sign, which was hung high on the building, flashed OPEN, OPEN, OPEN across the water. Every lighthouse should be so welcoming.

While we were sitting a little boy, about nine or ten years old, had carried an inflatable boat down to the water. For only a moment or two we watched him struggle trying to get into the boat without falling into the water. Always the motherly type, Rhonda asked if he needed help.

“Okay,” was all he said.

Rhonda bent down and held the boat while I held his fishing pole. Soon he was sitting amongst his two oars, his yet-empty wire basket, his cup of worms, and his can of root beer.

“Looks like you’re going fishing,” Rhonda said – trying to extend the conversation.

“Uh-huh,’ he said.

“Where’s your life jacket?” I asked.

“Uh-oh,” was his trademark two-syllable reply.

“You want us to hold your boat while you go get one”, Rhonda asked.

“Yes, please.”

In a few minutes he was back safe and sound. We helped him in the boat and wished him well. As we walked back to our camper we wondered which camper was his and where were his folks. Many of the campers were situated in a semi-permanent stage. They ranged from almost new to forty some years old.  Some had decks attached, some had screened-in porches adjoined to their trailers. Many had the green and yellow Packers colors flying proudly next to the Japanese lanterns and “Welcome to our Cabin,” signs.

“Where you folks from?” we were asked by the Fred half of the “Fred and Carol’s Camper.”

“Southwest of Minneapolis,” I said. Fred went on to explain that he and his wife, Carol, come here every weekend. Carol would be joining him later because he had been at his grandson’s football game.  Wanting to avoid getting dragged into a Packers/Vikings discussion, we excused ourselves and went to the camper to get dressed for the wedding.

Tomorrow night we would stay at a state park.