I’ve always been one of those guys that thought the grass was greener the next state over. Climbing to the top of one mountain only made me want to see what was over the next. But there’s a lot to be said about familiar grounds, grounds you grew up on, grounds that grew you.
My grandfather bought what we call “the farm” nearly 26 years ago. I was just a young boy. It’s got everything an outdoorsman could want in some amount or another. It’s got ag land for dove fields and afternoon sits with a rifle, pine stands and hardwood bottoms, there’s a bass pond and a little swamp the beavers never let run dry, and it backs up to moving water that floods every winter. That piece of ground is probably the closest thing to paradise I can find in this state and I’ve been thinking that since the first time he brought me out here.
Papa died a few years back and left all the land to my mom, aka my stepdad. Don’t get me wrong, my stepdads a good guy but we don’t always agree on things. Since he has taken over, some changes have been made that make it hard to swallow. For starters, imagine having to ask for permission to come to the place that holds so many of the “first” experiences you treasure so much, the experiences that shaped your way of thinking, the life lessons you learned the hard way, the memories that make you who you are.
Truth is, as much as I like adventure, I don’t like change. There’s comfort in knowing that what is familiar is still out there waiting for you to return. When my grandfather left he took a big piece of my familiar with him. I’ve got regrets in this life but most of them don’t hold a candle to the time I didn’t spend with him.
Strokes are a brutal thing. I’ve seen first hand how they can maim a man, leaving nothing but a shell of what once was. A young man when it happened, I found it hard to look at and take in. Not stopping by his nursing home, it was easier to pretend he was hunting or fishing out of state again. Besides, heroes aren’t supposed to be tied to hospitals beds.
I’m older now and he’s long gone. So I still come out to this place to sit the old deer trails he showed me and listen to the woodducks cry their morning sounds. Some days I’m quite certain that I’ll look up to see him walking down the path to greet me, that’s the beauty of familiar grounds.
The Fall Experience 