Paths

DOWN THE ROAD
A PIECE
By Milt Gross

I’m currently, while stretched out on the sofa, reading Charles Kuralt’s “America”, which has some interesting stuff. It looks back on Kuralt’s travels here and there with enough nostalgia thrown in to keep you from forgetting how to spell “nostalgia.”

In the bit I just read, while still on the sofa, Kuralt was in Alaska somewhere walking along a woods path. “A thrush kept me company,” Kuralt wrote, describing how when Kuralt would pause to examine something, the thrush would also pause and look back to see if Kuralt was still following.

This reminded me of a partridge that accosted me one day, while I was sitting alongside a path that enables one to gaze up at the steep trail up a little mountain by the sea in Acadia National Park. My partridge joined me and began pecking at my shoelaces, which I supposed partridges in national parks are allowed to do and are likely to do.

This reminds me of Kuralt’s thrush.

Which also reminded me of lots of paths along which I’ve walked, hiked, climbed, rested and whatever else one does on or alongside paths.

I remember the path in Baxter State Park my father and I walked along until we met the cow moose. She, if I remember incorrectly, was about 16 feet tall and we could have walked under her to reach the pond off to her right side. But we didn’t, because she looked at us. We weren’t in the habit of walking under cow moose, especially when they looked at us.

I remember a path through a peaceful woods in Acadia National Park, below the Jordan Pond House, which wound alongside a brook. It was a pretty, peaceful path, and nothing happened along it to startle me. Funny why I still remember that peaceful path.

Maybe paths, unlike roads and highways, are supposed to be peaceful.

I remember the path back in boyhood Pennsylvania, which had been peaceful until the day I discovered a shack or cabin built alongside it by or for the Boy Scouts. Somehow that cabin removed the peacefulness of those woods.

It was about a hundred yards north of that cabin when a dog frightened Little Guy, the ancient thoroughbred I had been riding, and Little Guy raised up on his rear feet and threw me. Still farther north along that path “they” later build a subdivision, which meant while you walked you were always subject to somebody’s dog barking at you.

A path is not peaceful when a dog is barking at you.

Nor was the path peaceful in Valley Forge State Park the day I was walking along a ridge top with my first wife before she became my first wife. I slipped on the leaves and she caught me. What a way to climax a peaceful walk in a state park, which I think by now is a national park.

I remember part of the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey along which my big brother and I walked one day. It was quiet and peaceful despite being near all those Pocono Mountain vacation spots that were noisy and not peaceful. Our part of the trail was just east of the Delaware River.

My first wife and I one day walked along the AT not far south of there in Pennsylvania. I was curious where the trail crossed the river just ahead. So I asked a “local” person. He had the answer, “Georgia,” he said.

“Where does it go south right here?” I asked our knowledgeable acquaintance.

“I don’t know,” responded our acquaintance who probably lived five or six miles from where he was when we asked our question. Leave it to a “local” not to know where the trail under his feet leads in another hundred yards. I found that path to be a bit confusing and not peaceful.

I remember a boyhood path that led me out of the woods, where a house nearby was background for a lovely girl with long, beautiful legs. Funny, I can’t remember exactly where that path was. Nor do I recall what the house looked like.

I have climbed the rocky cliff out of Grafton Notch, where the “path” was so steep I had no plans to climb down it again. Instead I “chickened out” and went down a path from the summit that headed west down a much easier path.

Some paths in Maine are quite steep, so steep I’m not sure I’d call them paths. Other paths in Maine are along ocean or lake shores, quite pleasant along which to wander.

The Hunt Trail up Katahdin has places that are steep enough for hand-and-foot going. A path around Eagle Lake in Acadia National Park was so easy, I walked it instead of climbing it.

Someone, meaning to be thoughtful, one day recently asked me what I would do if I fell while walking. I’ve done that a few times, once even causing a knee to bleed.

My answer, “I’d get up and keep walking.”

I don’t do steep climbing now days.

But I keep walking, as did Kuralt.

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