Into The Woods

   Without the slightest effort, the words began rolling off my tongue seasoned lightly with sarcasm and served with a condescending tone. As silly as attacking Russia in the dead of Winter, one of my teenage boys openly lamented about having to go work in the heat. As I wove a tapestry of parental wisdom for my boys, my mind drifted back to a day in the back of the archives. A day I will never forget. It was a...


   ... hot muggy morning shortly after sunrise on a late June day in 1980. My brother and I stood on the side of an extremely desolate dirt road in rural Wilkinson County, Georgia. My Def Leppard t-shirt was already as wet with sweat as my boots were with dew from the knee high grass. Sweat dripped off my unbrushed mullet, as well as the tip of my nose, as we stood waiting patiently for our instructions. My Great Uncle Willis produced a crumpled napkin from the dirty floorboard of his old pickup, onto which he scribbled a crude rhombus. He pointed to the lines on the napkin and in his deep, commanding, and humbly Southern voice, instructed us, ..."Boys, follow this fence line, here, follow it South all the way to the corner post. You'll see a great big Sweet Gum tree down in there. The corner post is just past that tree. The line turns East from there. Follow it all the way back up and you'll hit this very road several miles from here. I expect it will be about lunch time when you reach the road. I'll pick you up there and we'll go grab some chicken from Maebob's. Now, there's been a good bit of rain these past few days so it might be a bit soggy in the low spots." My older brother and I grabbed our tools from the back of his pick up and within a minute or two the sound of his Chevy had faded into the distance and the constant buzzing of the cicadas was all we could hear. We stood there for a moment, as the depth of our isolation soaked in. This was the third week of our first "real" job. My brother and I were marking property lines on my Uncle's timber tracts in Middle Georgia. Uncle Willis was truly a larger than life figure. An accomplished attorney, hunter, farmer, fisherman, story teller, WWII veteran, and long-serving Superior Court Clerk. He was a strong, but a gentle soul. His presence, like his voice, was commanding yet reassuring. He spoke deliberately and with authority.

   Having only one daughter and being a man's man, he was noticeably pleased to have the backs and shoulders of my brother and me for the summer, and our job was quite simple, but far from easy. Our tools consisted of orange spray paint, a two handled bark scraper, and a 2' x 2' piece of metal flashing with a 12" diameter hole cut in the center. Our job was to would follow the property line and every 100 feet or so scrape a spot of outward facing bark from a tree on or near the line, place the flashing over the tree, and then paint an orange circle on the bare spot of the trunk. Simple enough. I was thirteen and my brother fourteen, as we set off into the woods without a cell phone, pistol, hunting knife, or even a canteen of water. We both wore knee-high hard-plastic wrap-around snake leguns to protect us from snake bites, however, they also trapped heat making it even hotter, if that were possible.

    Methodically we made our way through the briars and thickets exchanging few words. Our arms were streaked with scabs from thorns and bushes we had pushed through over the past few weeks. As young teenagers, both of us were slowly figuring out who we were, but it was fairly clear that we were remarkably different from each other and those differences had manifested into rowdy fistfights, as of late. My brother was off the charts brilliant and that morning he was eager to tell me every minute detail about each character and the storyline, in the Leo Tolstoy book he was currently reading. I feigned interest as best I could, while entertaining thoughts of a cute girl from Vidalia I had met, skated with, and lured into the corner at the All-Night skate a few days earlier. No, we weren't on the same page, hell, we weren't even in the same chapter. We slowly made our way along the Southern border of the property line, following what was left of an old rusty fence. The Loblolly pine straw was thick on the high ground, but after a mile or so, it gave way to decades-old decomposing layers of oak, sweet gum, and elm leaves, as the property line began sloping downward towards the creek. The shade from the hardwood canopy was a welcome reprieve from the relentless sun, which had scorched our necks and arms, on the Southern line. "Soggy my ass!", my brother muttered as an expansive swamp began coming into view ahead. The handiwork of a few industrious beavers coupled with heavy rains had backed up the creek and flooded the entire creek basin. The old fence went right through the middle of the swamp, and we both knew that veering off course was simply not an option. With little hesitation, we entered the swamp and continued tracking the fence line. After just a few steps the water was above our snake leguns and within fifty feet we were waist deep as we pushed forward. The water was dark and dank with a pungent stink of algae and rotting organic material. We pressed on, all the while stumbling against and stepping over underwater limbs and logs, which was extremely unsettling.

   At some point, while in waist-deep swamp sludge, we lost the submerged fence line, however, we managed to spot a massive Sweet Gum tree, which we rightly concluded was the one close to the corner post. We reached the Sweet Gum, which was on higher ground, marked a few more trees, then turned ninety degrees and headed East, which continued right back through the middle of the swamp. After only a few steps, the spongy ground dropped off several feet and we waded forward with tools and paint held high. In no time, we were all the way up to our necks and although neither of us said a word, we both realized that an unpleasant encounter with an alligator or a snake could dramatically change the outcome of the day.  My heart was racing, as I closely scanned the thick water for the slightest ripple. I held the bark scraper high and on the ready, in the event, it had to be used to ward off some savage swamp creature. The situation was dicey now, but there was no way either of us was going to turn back and face Uncle Willis and report that the job was unfinished. After about the length of two football fields, we could finally see dry land and soon the ground slowly sloped upward, as we made our way toward the edge of the swamp. The nasty sludge had cooled us off a bit, but now our soaked jeans and boots were heavy, and we still had a good bit of ground to cover before we met up for lunch.  We stood there for a few minutes and caught our breath and sighed heavily, as water poured and dripped off of us. The swamp was rough, it had been scary, but it was behind us now.

    My focus returned to my two teenage sons, who were still standing there looking at me and politely listening to me ramble on and on about when I was a kid. They stood their dressed and ready to walk out the door to go to work, where they served as lifeguards at a community swimming pool. Side by side they stood, just like my brother and I had done so many years ago. They had cell phones, Gatorade, sunscreen, lunch, and a few books and no, they weren't covered in nasty swamp water. I teetered on the brink of extending my lecture when it hit me. I was neck deep and scared in nasty swamp water and now they carefully watch over clean water to make sure everyone is safe and having fun. More importantly, they work together, play together, and get along with each other quite well. They're definitely better off than I was, in many ways, and that's been the plan for years. I thought to myself, "Shut up Greg, shake their hands, and wish them well, as they head out the door." Their challenges in life, their swamps, will be difficult, but vastly different from the ones I encountered. One thing I know is that they will encounter swamps. Like every parent that cares, my hope is that when each of my kids finds themselves deep in the woods neck-deep in a swamp that they will face it, learn from it, and keep pressing forward to boldly face.... the next swamp that life has in store for them.