The Magic Forest
As new houses crept down Clinton Avenue toward the city limits, progress missed a beat just down from the girls house. A modest patch of mid-western deciduous forest stood undeveloped. The stand of trees was parted only by a grassy two track lane disappearing into the darkness. The land belonged to the man the girls would know as "Old Man Langel." Old Man was spoken as if it were his first name, never Mr. Langel. His occupation, hermit.
Two theories arose as to the motivation for his hermitage. He had been a WWI veteran and suffered from shell shock. Post traumatic stress disorder is what it is called today. He took the money he was given for his service, bought the woods and retired from the world. The other theory is that a house fire in town killed both his wife and child. In his sorrow and grief, he took his insurance money, bought the woods and retired from the world. I still don't know if either of these stories is true. The stories did produce in the girls a sense of tragic sympathy for the old, lonely man cycling through the seasons of their youth.
What the girls did know was that the man did not welcome company or conversation. Stories swirled around about shot guns loaded with rock salt and readily discharged if anyone cared to challenge this theory and pay him a visit. The girls observed this old man from a safe distance as he rode by their home on his bicycle occasionally with his shot gun across the handle bars. On trash day he could be observed more closely as he stopped to examine the throw-aways that could become useful items. The neighbor claimed that she had been startled to find him peering into her window. He struck fear, wonder, mystery and imagination into the childish minds of the girls, which of course they found thrilling.
Jackson Woods
At the edge of the neighbor boy's house the girls discovered a beaten path leading into the woods. A path invites a child like a magnet. No question arose in their minds as their legs carried them into the damp and sun dappled shadows. The ferns brushed their legs as a small shallow pond came into view. The unfamiliar sound of croaking frogs stopped them in their tracks. The girls imaged monsters of all sorts. Frozen in a state of indecision as to whether to continue or flee, the voices of other children rose above the din of croaking. Proceeding cautiously toward the voices, with hearts beating like birds against their rib cages, a group of older boys came into view. A few moments passed before the boys awareness included the presence of the girls. "GIRLS!!!!," they shouted in unison with undisguised revulsion. Advancing angrily with hands full of acorns, they began pelting the intruders. Now, truly frightened, the girls skinny legs carried them out into the day light. Eventually, the woods would draw them back into the magic dappled light, but not for a while.
The boys were about five years older than the girls and soon enough their interest changed to girls and cars. They abandoned the woods leaving it to the girls. The boys had built a dock into the pond, a raft and a tree house high above the ground in a white pine tree. These abandoned architectural features became home to the girls imagination.
This magical kingdom's boundaries were to the west, an ancient rusting and in places, falling down, barbed wire fence. On the other side lie the forbidden and foreboding property of Old Man Langel. To the East was another, better maintained fence which separated the cows and pasture from the hard wood forest. Within these boundaries, the seasons of childhood cycled with nature from the first spring wild flowers to the clear frozen ponds of winter. We simply called it "Our Woods."
Two theories arose as to the motivation for his hermitage. He had been a WWI veteran and suffered from shell shock. Post traumatic stress disorder is what it is called today. He took the money he was given for his service, bought the woods and retired from the world. The other theory is that a house fire in town killed both his wife and child. In his sorrow and grief, he took his insurance money, bought the woods and retired from the world. I still don't know if either of these stories is true. The stories did produce in the girls a sense of tragic sympathy for the old, lonely man cycling through the seasons of their youth.
What the girls did know was that the man did not welcome company or conversation. Stories swirled around about shot guns loaded with rock salt and readily discharged if anyone cared to challenge this theory and pay him a visit. The girls observed this old man from a safe distance as he rode by their home on his bicycle occasionally with his shot gun across the handle bars. On trash day he could be observed more closely as he stopped to examine the throw-aways that could become useful items. The neighbor claimed that she had been startled to find him peering into her window. He struck fear, wonder, mystery and imagination into the childish minds of the girls, which of course they found thrilling.
Jackson Woods
At the edge of the neighbor boy's house the girls discovered a beaten path leading into the woods. A path invites a child like a magnet. No question arose in their minds as their legs carried them into the damp and sun dappled shadows. The ferns brushed their legs as a small shallow pond came into view. The unfamiliar sound of croaking frogs stopped them in their tracks. The girls imaged monsters of all sorts. Frozen in a state of indecision as to whether to continue or flee, the voices of other children rose above the din of croaking. Proceeding cautiously toward the voices, with hearts beating like birds against their rib cages, a group of older boys came into view. A few moments passed before the boys awareness included the presence of the girls. "GIRLS!!!!," they shouted in unison with undisguised revulsion. Advancing angrily with hands full of acorns, they began pelting the intruders. Now, truly frightened, the girls skinny legs carried them out into the day light. Eventually, the woods would draw them back into the magic dappled light, but not for a while.
The boys were about five years older than the girls and soon enough their interest changed to girls and cars. They abandoned the woods leaving it to the girls. The boys had built a dock into the pond, a raft and a tree house high above the ground in a white pine tree. These abandoned architectural features became home to the girls imagination.
This magical kingdom's boundaries were to the west, an ancient rusting and in places, falling down, barbed wire fence. On the other side lie the forbidden and foreboding property of Old Man Langel. To the East was another, better maintained fence which separated the cows and pasture from the hard wood forest. Within these boundaries, the seasons of childhood cycled with nature from the first spring wild flowers to the clear frozen ponds of winter. We simply called it "Our Woods."
YEARS LATER
When we were about 13 years old, a group of neighborhood girls challenged each other to follow a path into the woods that led to Old Man Langel's cabin. Yes, we knew all the scary stories about a shot gun loaded with rock salt, a noose hanging on a tree and more. We had been frightened by him for so many years but yet he seemed harmless on his bike and scavenging on trash day. Could he be just odd, lonely and old? On a warm summer day, before school started 4 girls started down that path on a thrilling adventure. Hearts pounding , flushed with excitement, holding hands but determined, we stepped into the shady woods. Progressing in silence, hardly breathing, we inched forward soon engulfed by trees. Someone stepped on a stick, it snapped, we screamed, startled and stopped in our tracks. But we had made a pledge, we would continue down the path until we could see his one room cabin. We didn't think of it then but nature was having its way with our teenage brains. The thrill overtakes caution, new adventure, testing the limits and challenging our assumptions were all in the cards that day. We didn't know the term "dopamine rush" yet but our brains did not need the words. So, we inched down the path not knowing what would be around the next corner. And then we saw the small simple cabin, tin roof rusting, outer walls grey aging planks, one step. We froze and scanned the scene. We were shocked when we made out a man standing by a lean to in old blue coveralls. He glanced toward the group of girls, some screamed, turned and ran. I kept walking toward him, my eyes locked with his. He seemed amused, kind and not at all scary so I continued my approach. Once beside him, we exchanged some words. I glanced toward his out building/lean to and saw a few tools. He walked toward the space I had noticed and showed me what he was working on. Wooden spatula shaped cooking tool. I held it, ran my hands over the smooth edges and marveled at the grain of the wood. "Ironwood" and then "take it with you." Looking back into his eyes, I saw a different soul than the one I thought I knew. This man seemed at peace in his woods. Later, when I would read Thoreau's Walden Pond or Sand County Almanac, by Aldo Leopold, I would think of Old Man Langel living in the undisturbed hardwood forest, bathing in the river, living off the land like a hermit monk. I'm not sure what happened to the spatula. Perhaps, I just imagined him giving it to me. He did give me a gift though. The gift of not judging people on hearsay and that still waters run deep.
Years later, on a weekend visit home, I heard that he had died, alone in his cabin. The property was still intact, so I made a second visit to his cabin. No thrills this time, just memories and a sadness seemed to cling to the trees. When I got to his cabin, the door was open, one room, a simple wood burning stove, a bench/bed, a window for light empty except for an old Montgomery Wards catalog from the twenties or thirties. I took it with me and still have to this day. There are some pages dog eared and the mice probably chewed the back cover a little. The dog eared pages are the ones of women's undergarments. That discovery just made him seem more human and perhaps lonely. Everyone should have a hermit to wonder about, get to know and in the process discover something about themselves.
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