Random Thoughts from a Random Memory

By Edward Master

Right now I cannot imagine going for a stroll deep into the woods. The threat of bringing back a tick is just too great for me. I’ve never had the occasion nor do I ever want the occasion to occur.

I had a friend from Butler, I’ll call him Doug, whom I worked with at the mine (storage facility) in Boyers. I’ll consider him a woodsman; he was a hunter and often spoke of doing leisurely walks in the woods around his Butler-area home. I remember quite vividly the time he came to work and explained how he had removed a tick from his arm.

I do not recall if he used tweezers or some sort of “snake oil” remedy. I just know I do not want the same experience. I think my brother-in-law Larry had a tick removal with a dog of his.

When I was a wee lad, I lived in the woods. The only misfortune I ever had in the woods was once, after supper, Mom and I went for a stroll across the railroad tracks north of the house and I was barefoot. We crossed the creek and I stepped on a hornets nest in the ground. I got stung a few times and ran home. That was it. I was fairly young, but I know shoes became a priority in the woods from then on. I recall building dams with the McHenry sisters (Linda and Jane) quite a few times in the creek that ran through the woods. I don’t think ticks ever crossed our minds.

I don’t think the tick thing came up until a few years ago. That ticks and lyme disease never was discussed much when we were growing up. Those days of strolls, however, are long past. One of my last walks at dusk time was on a trip to Turkey City and a walk up the old B&O railroad tracks. Up the tracks to the beaver pond.

The beavers had moved in and created a dam that in turn created a pond. When I was young there was a stream running by the railroad, it was a stream and that was about it. I don’t even recall the stream ever having a name. That stream ran into Turkey Run, which in turn ran into the Clarion River below Alum Rock.

Our walk to the pond actually proved quite fruitful, you could say educational. We saw a couple flaps of beaver tails and a huge turtle, probably a snapper. You could see stumps of trees from which the beavers gnawed their dam components. That was probably the closest I have ever come to beavers’ handiwork.

One of my other major past times in local forests was tree climbing. Considering how high I climbed in some of those pines near the bottom of Weeter Hill above Turkey Run, I am very fortunate to have survived in one piece, unbroken. Fifty feet would have been but a short ascent upward. From the near tree tops, I really got quite the view of that Turkey Run valley.

I guess the strolls in the woods are like a lot of memories, gone but not forgotten, just packed away until something ignites that old flame.