Thursday, May 04, 2006
toad-O-vision
This is a beautiful time of year, these first weeks of May. It does tend to change, usually from a tad too warm to cool & blustery, shifting back & forth until it's become undeniably summer. I went out for a atroll around 8 pm, an idea of wandering down toward CVS, which is good for a browse & a cold bottle of water. Instead, I went in a circle, enjoying the nice front yards, blooming bushes & trees. A number of couples out for walks with & without their small dogs. No one was in a hurry.
This was how my parents used to take walks; rarely around our neighborhood, but nearly always when we were visiting somewhere pleasant. They would just set out in some direction, on a road or sidewalk, our little nervous dog Susie running out ahead; it was usually an after-supper kids-optional journey but I always went along. Dad was an observant man, he often stopped to examine whatever caught his interest, particularly if we were in a wooded area. He was especially fascinated by springs, water seeping from rocks or the ground. He certainly didn't know the word "ecosystem" in the 1950s, but that's what was catching his eye - small, contained ecosystems with their own vegetation, flowers & animal life distinct from what was growing only a few feet away. Dad also had great toad-O-vision; he'd spot tiny hopping amphibians where I only saw dead leaves. He loved the beach in the early evening (there's a memory for a summer blog post). Houses with open shades were like partial views of aquariums or cages to dad, a glimpse of someone else's life in the time it took to stroll by: "Did you see the weird lamp in that house?" We'd come full circle back to the starting point or mom would suggest we'd walked about as far as we ought to go, & we'd turn around, pick up the pace, & get a second look at everything.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
This was how my parents used to take walks; rarely around our neighborhood, but nearly always when we were visiting somewhere pleasant. They would just set out in some direction, on a road or sidewalk, our little nervous dog Susie running out ahead; it was usually an after-supper kids-optional journey but I always went along. Dad was an observant man, he often stopped to examine whatever caught his interest, particularly if we were in a wooded area. He was especially fascinated by springs, water seeping from rocks or the ground. He certainly didn't know the word "ecosystem" in the 1950s, but that's what was catching his eye - small, contained ecosystems with their own vegetation, flowers & animal life distinct from what was growing only a few feet away. Dad also had great toad-O-vision; he'd spot tiny hopping amphibians where I only saw dead leaves. He loved the beach in the early evening (there's a memory for a summer blog post). Houses with open shades were like partial views of aquariums or cages to dad, a glimpse of someone else's life in the time it took to stroll by: "Did you see the weird lamp in that house?" We'd come full circle back to the starting point or mom would suggest we'd walked about as far as we ought to go, & we'd turn around, pick up the pace, & get a second look at everything.
