My dad grew up in the Thatcher Woods. His widowed mother worked 2 jobs, six days a week. His older brothers also worked.  He went to school, but every other minute was spent running with what he called his “gang” in the forest preserves along the Desplaines River outside of Chicago. He lived wild all summer. He later claimed that he was saved by a scoutmaster and Sunday school teacher. This man gave organization to his native earned skills, and a moral compass. He also acquired a real compass – World War One US army surplus.

The first time I remember seeing this compass was in those very same woods some forty years later. Sometimes he would take me on a Saturday to do something - just me and him.  Our family of five lived in a very small flat, and I guess taking the middle girl-child out of the mix allowed my mother the space to get some things done.

The woods were his classroom; he taught me how to walk quietly through the underbrush without breaking twigs (I was a noisy child – I think this was part of the ruse.) He taught me how to get close to a rabbit by walking silently in a large, but slowly shrinking circle that the bunny perceived as tangential. I learned the look of poison ivy and oak. He showed me how to find north/south by the moss on the trees and east/west by the sun. You had to learn these things before you got to use the compass. I learned how to navigate the woods on or off the trails. Eventually he put me and the compass on a path and gave me a hand drawn map. He said he was gonna drive around to another trailhead and wait – my job was to use the compass and find the right paths and meet him there. I was probably ten.

The process is called orienteering.  It is a Scandinavian invented sport. I bet Boy Scouts in the 1920’s had picked it up. You use observations skills, knowledge about the land, a compass, and sometimes maps to navigate a complex terrain to end up at a specific goal.

I bet my journey wasn’t much more than a mile – maybe 2 at most. But it felt like the Oregon Trail. I did not see another person on my trek. There was at least one fork in the path and I made my choice by my compass and map. I did not get lost. Because eventually the the woods cleared, and there was Daddy, leaning on the Ford Falcon, waiting for me – a smile on his face. We went for ice cream. I have a feeling that mom didn’t get all the details of the afternoon.

I knew I was getting life lessons. But I had no idea just how far these lessons would stretch.

(to be continued)

// posted by Peggy Senger Morrison @ Wednesday, June 01, 2022