----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Follett" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 04, 2002 5:05 PM
Subject: traveled the Mississippi River


> ... in a handmade wooden canoe…

> For Mr. Peter Gray:

I didn't post back when Peter was pondering a river cruise, because I
was busy, and everyone else was chiming in, and god knows I don't tell
ppl anything about what I think their kids should do or not do anymore.
;)

But a large part of my most very favorite memories of my mom consist of
the times she and my brother and sister and I sat around a campfire of
her making somewhere, and talked about taking a little boat of some sort
by river, all the way down to New Orleans from Cincinnati. It was an
endless conversation, and we kids still talk about the possibilities of
doing it to this day. It's one of a couple of things I'm still thinking
about doing, and yes Ken, the plans included edible wild plants and
squirrel dinners.

(Feral hogs weren't even on my radar until I was in my 20's after
meeting Mr. Deb, who used to tell me "stories" of choosing between
5-miles-and-white-boys-with-22's-in-cars-on-the-road or
3-miles-with-wild-boars-on-the path-thru-the-woods routes to school
every morning growing up in northern Alabama.)

I think it might have been some kind of childhood dream of Mom's, this
river thing, only her version began in Minnesota at the headwaters of
the Mississippi -- and that dream grew out of one of HER most favorite
childhood memories of her dad, the family blacksheep who was not good
for anything but timberwalking since, (and she'd sigh here, and roll
eyes in imitation of her grandfather or an uncle maybe...)  he just
didn't have a head for business, according to his father and brothers,
who were very successful Duluth businessmen.

Just before he died, when she was about 12 and he was running a CCC camp
in northern Minnesota, he had taken her out in a forest to a spring and
small stream, and they had jumped across it and he'd said "Now you can
tell people you've jumped across the Mississippi River", meaning, there
isn't anything you can't do if you get on it early enough, maybe...  she
was amazed that he would even KNOW where the little trickle of water
went from there, and I remember her telling this story many times, and
lots of days "wasted" when travelling, as we took off down yet another
unplanned route to "see where this goes". It goes without saying, we
were late a lot.

It probably wasn't any accident that one of her favorite books was
"Paddle to the Sea." She read it, and "Time of Wonder" to us over and
over when we were kids. And when I was 19, she drove me and a friend to
the Interstate in Cinci and dropped us off so we could begin hitchiking
to Alaska.

Even though I can only imagine her anguish, because she didn't show it,
she was probably terrified I'd be killed, and probably knew we wouldn't
make it to Alaska (Sacramento was as far as we got, and back), but she
only asked the good sensible questions like, did you pack a first aid
kit?, and made sure my friend had an adequate sleeping bag, and she
suggested a schedule -- I was to call collect every Sunday evening
between 7 and 9 PM Ohio time, and Wednesdays too, if possible, but under
NO circumstances was I to come down off a mountain in a wilderness up in
Alaska somewhere to look for a phone on Wednesday nights. The Wednesday
night call was strictly optional.

I can still see Mom waving, standing in front of the family station
wagon at the top of the ramp, as we walked down to the highway and stuck
out our thumbs. I had some adventures that summer, and arrived home a
little battered and bruised some 6 weeks later, but largely still in one
piece. One of the best things about her was that she never said "I told
you so." There were already plenty enough of others around to do that,
and plenty of things I'd done for them to remark on, without her adding
to the chorus. She would usually ask something along the lines of "what
did you do about that?", or "then what happened?", or say "I'm glad
you're back"....

She never got to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail, or canoe the
Mississippi; as soon as the last of us was out of the house she came
down with cancer at the age of 53, and that was pretty much the end of
that. But us kids are still talking about doing those things, and our
kids are still talking about doing those things. So the earlier you get
on these dreams, the better I think. Just remember to pack your first
aid kit, an adequate sleeping bag, good maps, and three sources of
light. Oh yeah, and a buck knife.

deb

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