A Dad’s Eye View
Daddy’s Lost Patrol BY RICK EPSTEIN
“A
FEATHER!” SAID 4-YEAR-OLD SALLY, picking it up off the trail. We had been visiting friends when a minor crisis at their house had sent us to go kill some time at the town’s nature center. My wife sat on a bench nursing the baby while I took the two older girls for a stroll along something called the Butterfly Trail. It was tame even for us. The path was wide and paved with chipped bark. But the surrounding woods were hot and damp enough for mosquitoes to be taking a lively interest in us even at midday. Looking at Sally’s feather, her souvenir-oriented 7-year-old sister Marie asked, “What else are we going to find?” “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe a piece of shell from a bird’s egg. But we’re not shopping; we’re here for the experience,” I said. “Close your eyes and listen.” “I hear birds chirping,” Sally said. “I hear a woodpecker pecking,” Marie said. This was perfect! We had almost completed the loop through the woods, when I saw a slightly more rugged parallel trail just on the other side of a half-scattered
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stone fence. Figuring that the nature center offered a second trail, I led the girls onto it. They were getting tired when the trail narrowed to about the width of a bunny, with poison ivy on each side. Then it emptied onto a paved public road. Marie said, “I want to go back to Mommy. My legs itch.” “All right,” I said, “The quickest way back is to walk along this road.” By keeping to the left, I figured we’d
eventually get back to the nature center. Sally was wearing out, so I put her up onto my sweaty shoulders, and we shuffled along. As me made our next left turn, Marie said, “This is the wrong way; the nature center is back that way,” pointing back the way we’d come. “No, I’m sure it’s this way,” I said and promised her $5 if I was wrong. The road was narrow, wending its way through a tasteful and moneyed neighborhood – lovely homes with curving driveways nestled among tall trees. There was no one around to give us directions. With no traffic or voices, the only sound was the far-off thwocking of a tennis ball. It was eerie, walking amid unpeopled opulence, but feeling hot, exhausted and desperate, leading my demoralized troops. The road ended unhelpfully in a cul-de-sac and I realized that my ever-leftward plan wasn’t working and we might never find our way back. I imagined a lean woman, dressed by L.L. Bean, calling the authorities to have our lifeless bodies removed from her fern-bed. I told Marie, “This is a dead-
end; we’ll go back the way we came,” and handed her a fiver. She smiled, but Sally said, “Give me $5, too!” “No way!” I said. She began crying and I lowered her onto the pavement so she wouldn’t drip onto my head. She could cry and walk at the same time. Back in the woods, Sally found another feather and cheered up, reminding me that kids get happy as easily as they get unhappy. Marie was already happy; if she got $5 every time I was wrong, she’d have one sweet franchise. Once back through the stone fence, it was easy to see we’d re-entered the tended grounds of the nature park. Betsy and the baby were sitting where we’d left them. “How was the Butterfly Trail?” she asked. Our season of hopeless wandering quickly shrank into the little 45-minute span it had actually occupied, and although the kids tattled with wide-eyed gusto, I made the official report: “It was fine.” Like our little Death March, child-raising years seem really long, but not in a bad way. This time is so crammed with emotion and adventure that it defies normal measurement. With the intense living involved with three childhoods all going on at once, it’s a wonder that time moves forward at all. But it will, and one day I’ll be hoping my daughters will trust me to take my grandchildren to the park. ✦ RICK EPSTEIN can be reached at rickepstein@yahoo.com.
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