John and I

DOWN THE ROAD
A PIECE
By Milt Gross

I’m reading a 510-page book about John Muir, which around page 155 made me realize he and I had a fair amount in common.

John wandered around the U.S. from the Midwest to Florida to some islands, to New York, to Panama, and finally to California. In California, he came across mountains and valley with no “ordinary,” my quotations, folk such as he had known earlier. These were primarily agricultural workers, but he had found a land with which he fell in love.

The hills, valleys, and mountains of California. The book cover shows him standing by himself, admiring a stream and a cliff. These were his discoveries. He was in his mid-20s but continued his love of nature until he was elderly.

My love affair with land began when I was about 10. I say “about” because I can’t recall for sure, as I was only about 10. We came to Maine by Pullman train, got off in Augusta (try that nowadays), and ended on my Great Aunt Amy’s farm out in Belgrade where I fell in love with the quiet, the fields, the woods, the old barn, and a distant view of hills and valleys off to the northeast.

Muir made California his home. I eventually made Maine mine. I’m reading about his early experiences there. Mine were both as a kid and as a young adult. And as a slightly older adult, where I am stuck now, being slightly older and somewhat more frail due to this and that.

I also fell in love with Maine’s mountains, starting with Katahdin to which I drove our family in my great aunt’s 50-something Plymouth. I’ve been there a number of times since, climbed Maine’s highest mountain, called “Greatest Mountain,” a half-dozen times.

I’ve also claimed a good number of Maine’s other mountains, having been a member of the Maine Appalachian Trail Club since about 1980, some 15 years after my move to the Pine Tree State.

But as a kid, I fell in love with the farms, an old country church with a hand-pumped organ with Maineiacs dressed in their Sunday best black suits, hauling hay with a neighbor, drinking his cows’ fresh milk, traveling to most parts of the state, and living in several.

I fell in love with those first bumpy paved roads with rocks sticking through the pavement, the woods roads that took me into strange, quiet country, and Maine’s people.

I remember, during World War II, my mother talking to a truck driver who had stopped along a Maine road. I’ve talked to a fair number of Maineiacs since, most whom I found pleasant or helpful.

I wonder whatever happened to those other kids I saw – and still others I taught – after they grew up. I sometimes wonder if that’s one of them I see in the supermarket, which is new since I first came here. I’ll bet some of those kids are taller than I am.

I see some of the politicians I knew when I was a news reporter. They’ve gotten a bit more gray in their hair but I still recognize them. One of them is a leader in Maine’s legislative bunch. He looks a bit older now, but not much. Back when I was a Republican, a Democrat state senator and I used to visit folks who needed help. We worked together then.

But most of all I recognize places I’ve been besides Katahdin, Camden’s Mount Battie where I slipped and tried to break my neck once on a short trail in the woods and where a school kid I supposedly taught produced a feed of frogs for us once. (Once was enough.) A fair number of western Maine mountains have put up with my sneakers and boots over the years. Some of her fields are still familiar to me, as we drive around.

Oh yes, what I started to say was that John Muir found his “heaven” in California.

I found mine in Maine.

Milt Gross can be reached for corrections, harassment, or other purposes at lesstraveledway@roadrunner.com.