Choffel1
Ezekiel Choffel
November 20, 2010
Old Indians
The sun was rising in the east as we set out for the Great White North. There was a low fog in every overpass we traveled over. The early September sunrise was behind us as we drove towards Manistee; the windows were rolled down, the smell of earth traveled from the surrounding farms.
After months of begging I had finally worn Uncle Jim down. Uncle Jim was taking me to Kenny Land. Kenny Land was a 140 acre plot of land just East of Manistee that was owned by one of Uncle Jim’s childhood friends. At Kenny Land there were at least fourteen car carcasses, seven broken motor boats, eight dead lawnmowers, and a whole bunch of other now useless remnants of humankind. Everything was broken but it all fit the surrounding. The ferns had begun to over grow a bus planted on a large island that was used as a circle driveway.
As our drive north continued I did not know what to expect. Uncle Jim had already asked me to take the wheel of the truck so he could use his hands to roll a cigarette.Uncle Jim was rough and tumble, a man with a lack of tact but a good heart which creates a lot of conflict inside of him, I never understood why he gives others such a hard time and to this day I still can figure it out.
Uncle Jim had long hair with a slow balding circle beginning towards his forehead. It was white, draping over his shoulders but the thinness made it seem shorter than it really was. It was tied back into a ponytail so I could see his eyes and I could tell that he was being serious. I was fourteen; I didn’t know how to keep a car straight if I was driving let alone with someone else driving. I knew Uncle Jim would give me a hard time if I told him I was nervous so I reached my hand over and gave it a shot. Uncle Jim guessed my feelings either way and said “When I was your age I was driving a tractor for 6 hours a day, that’s the problem with you city kids. What if I had a heart attack right now? You would be helpless. That’s what we go to the woods for, to make men out of boys, to wash away that awful smell of sissy and the city. Have you showered in the last few days? If you have, you’re going to get eaten alive, the skeeters are terrible this time of year, I never shower before I go to the Big Woods, I have at least three days of Jim built up”
With that said, it seemed to take Uncle Jim fifteen minutes to roll his cigarette, but I did well in keeping control of the truck. I could tell that we were getting close; I recognized the gas station that we always used as the fill up stop on our way back to the city by the decaying propane tank on the side of the building. The wholes were large enough to see straight through to the other side.
The anticipation was on, and the high noon sun intensified the wait for I knew there would be miles and miles of forest and rivers to explore when we arrived.
After twenty minutes of beautiful woods and extremely bright sun we turned our final right into Kenny Land. Everything was the same, but different, the yellows were past faded and the formally red Volkswagen Beatle resembled a pale pink blob set with a backdrop of fiddleheads and elm. Nothing had been moved. The plants had continued the overtaking of every man made device left alone for too long. No one was outside when we arrived, which was only slightly unusual because Kenny knew we were coming. Its not like it really mattered either way, Uncle Jim and Kenny had been friends for long enough that we knew we would be welcomed under any condition. I always found it amazing how some adults are able to keep their friends for a life time, where I have had very few consistent friends through the years.
Uncle Jim’s two man Camper was buried in a smaller nook of the woods behind all the junk. There were four fifty foot tall oaks surrounding the camper, one on each corner. The view behind the camper opened up to a path that would take you back towards the house and the water pump. The windows on the side of the camper had a beautiful view of endless woods. The door of the camper opened up to the fire pit. Uncle Jim pulled in “his” parking spot twenty feet away from the out house and we began unloading all the essential gear we would need for our week long stay in the woods.
After Uncle Jim told me where to put the last of the items, we went to find some firewood to build a fire that we would remarkably not let die once over the next week. Keeping the fire going for a weekend was tough, but keeping it alive for a week seemed almost impossible. I was confident that Uncle Jim was up to the task but I wasn’t sure if I could handle it, after all I had only heard how much of a city boy I was for the whole ride up North. After we got enough wood I started the first fire while Uncle Jim left to go say hi to Kenny. After the fire was settled and Uncle Jim was back I decided to go down to the river. It was a two mile walk but it was beautiful and worth the trip, because when you got to Moss Point the world collapses and the only thing left is the one standing there and nature. I often found myself wondering while I was at the point how different the land looks today compared to when the first westerners came here to settle. An even more stark realization could possibly come from comparing now to what the first Native Americans saw when they settled here.
I sat on the bank of the river watching the waves go with the current. I remembered the first canoe trip I ever went on. It was with Uncle Jim and my Aunt Judy was there as well. We canoed for six hours down the Manistee River and ended up about seven miles Northwest from where I was sitting at a place called Rainbow Bend. It had been a long trip that was capitalized when Uncle Jim pushed me into the river after I had sat down on the cooler for the seventh time, when I knew I was not supposed to sit there. I was very upset and my feet got many gouges from the sharp river rocks, but I suppose in the end I gathered the point of not to sit on the cooler because it threw the whole balance of the canoe off. Talk about a rough way of learning a lesson, but that’s the way Uncle Jim operates, hippie wisdom combined homogenously with “city” logic as he put it.
My stomach started tossing and turning with hunger so I left the beautiful view behind me and began the journey back to food. I got back just as sun was setting. Uncle Jim was cooking a few steaks on his cast iron skillet that he always insists on using when camping, have I mentioned that Uncle Jim is very much a creature of habit? Always, last time, ten years ago, yesterday, were the ways all of Uncle Jim’s stories begin and the constant theme was habit/monotony because for him this brings solace and the ability to deal with the unexpected by creating a list of the expected. After dinner we hung out and talked about anything and everything I could think of. Uncle Jim would always give me answers I had to think about but they were usually good. For example, once I had asked Uncle Jim why some fish only bite during the day and others only in the morning and after the sun sets. Uncle Jim loves fishing, having made it into the fishing hall of fame twice for the largest steelhead caught in Michigan, so I expected straight forward answer instead I got “Well you see Zeke, fish are like people. Some don’t get started until noon, others are up at the ass-crack of dawn, while others don’t even wake up until the sun goes down. It’s all a matter of preference. Some fish like the deep cold waters, just like you like a pair of warm socks during winter. Other fish just plain don’t care one way or another, just like I am sure you could careless that you are going to miss a few days of school while we are making our communion.”
Uncle Jim has referred to his trips to the woods as communion for as long as I can remember. For a long time I thought this was to make casual fun of the Catholics in our family, but the on our first trip up North I was baptized in the River Manistee and made my first communion. This was a no-nonsense matter to this particular old Indian. It was this connection with the earth that has brought Uncle Jim and I close over the years. He taught me how to walk in the woods with making no noise by setting up small field of twigs that I had to cross over until I made not a single sound. After the first day of practice, I woke up before the sun rose and got a few hours of practice in this stealthy matter.
I can remember some parts better than others, but Uncle Jim was “
paying his taxes” on the other side of the small minefield. I crept slowly but confidently up to where he was sitting on top of a five gallon pale with a toilet seat screwed on to the opening at the top.
“Boo” I yelled
I have never seen Uncle Jim so angry, his face got progressively more red as he struggled to remove his back side from the smelly prison I had startled him into. After a few minutes of struggling to remove the pale, Uncle Jim sat down and started laughing, and this was belly shaking laughter. He turned around and looked me in the eye and said “I knew I shouldn’t have taught you everything about walking silently. I knew this would come back to bite me in the ass.”
Of course I found this hysterical given the current pale situation, but this is how Uncle Jim operated. “If one could not find humor in life, one was lost” he had often told me, but rarely had I seen Uncle Jim be the butt of any jokes, and it was just too good of an opportunity to miss, the irony was completed when I finally had to help the old man out of his current predicament after ten minutes of struggling to free himself.
I got mine later that day when Uncle Jim pants me in front of Kenny and his nephew Tanner. An often overused phrase that Uncle Jim likes to use is “what goes around comes around”. This was essential to our relationship. Uncle Jim did not treat me like a14 year old. He treated me like an equal, he got down to my level so I could better understand what he was saying.
At night time during summer the woods was completely quite except for the occasional cricket chirp.
It was after dinner and For the first time that I could remember I really looked at Uncle Jim. I could see the years of drug use. I could see the years of adventure. His forehead had a steady slant backwards. His hairline would have been naturally high, making his forehead look larger than it really was. His bushy eye brows hid a set of eyes that were always alive and glad to be alive. His eyes were an intense steel blue. He had a very Roman nose, very sharp and steep that pointed down to square jaw. His shoulders were not broad but they were powerful. His right hand was smaller than his left by a measurable amount. It was the same with his right foot and left foot. Both his right hand and right foot had a curve about them. They were deceiving. They led you to believe that there was no power there, but I had found out the hard way that they held more power then I could handle more than once. Uncle Jim is the oldest of 8 and is remarkably the smallest of build. His brothers were mean, one of them even fits the evil bank robber stereotype, and they did not care about chronological hierarchy, all of the boys, Uncle Jim included, were un-biased in their harsh rough housing. I would listen for hours to Uncle Jim’s childhood stories of the card game he and his brothers would play called “Sock in the Mouth” which consisted of the winner punching the loser with the smallest hand in the mouth. His experiences were so vastly different than mine, I had one sister who was twelve years younger than me, and while some of the stories from Uncle Jim’s childhood sounded fun, the contrast between him and I was so deep on this issue, I did not understand how anyone could enjoy siblings like he had. I have never met any of Uncle Jim’s brothers, but they do not sound like people I would get along with.
As I sat and watched the flames rise and fall with wind, I asked Uncle Jim the most important question I had yet to ask. I asked Uncle Jim what he meant when he said he was the richest man in Michigan. The phrase had been around for as long as I could remember Uncle Jim, in fact the oldest memory I have of Uncle Jim is him saying that. I didn’t know what to expect, but the answer I received blew my fourteen year old mind.
Uncle Jim sat up straight and looked me straight in the eyes. He on one side of the fire, I on the other and with great seriousness his words finally progressed to the heart of the matter.
“Zeke, some people have money and some people don’t. I have never had any money I could count on for the long term, but I have something better. I have a heart that can love, and now I have a family that brings me the most joy I have ever had in my life. With those things I can live through anything. With those things I never feel like I am alone. So while the people with money are cold but rich, I am rich with love and poor with money. Meeting your Aunt Judy was the best thing that has ever happened to me. If it were for her, I would have never met you, we would not be here today, living and giving thanks for the woods around us.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. The answer floored me. How could this man, the man I had always associated with cynicism and neuroticism be able to feel and believe in something so deep and beautiful? I was lost for words. I had to sit and chew on the new bit of fat I had been given, and after a few minutes of sheer confusion I decided it was time for bed, so I went into the camper and unpacked my sleeping bed and changed by the light of a propane lamp. The brightness of the camper prevented me from seeing the outside, but I could hear the fire crackling outside and I could smell the smoke inside. It was with the simple thought of this is too crazy that I fell asleep.
I will never forget how quiet and dark the nights were up at Kenny Land. The sleep is the deepest kind, the kind where you wake up and feel like you just slept for two day straight which is surprising seeing how we had only sleeping bags and a few recycled couch cushions to sleep on. The only other place I could sleep like that was at my grand parents house, where I knew nothing would harm me. It is kind of funny because I sleep terribly for the most part, but certain places and certain times the sleep is so deep and so great I am able to sustain for months at a time, surrounded by these times when the sleep is perfect.
When I woke up I found Uncle Jim had started breakfast. I had big plans for the day. I was going to go explore the farthest reaches of Kenny Land and possibly beyond. As we ate breakfast Uncle Jim began to tell me what to do if I got lost. He told me that all I had to do is find water and follow it to a house or a road or if I see something I recognize. I finished my breakfast and headed out. I picked the only path I knew I had never trailed on.
As soon as I was out of eyesight I light up a cigarette that Uncle Jim was not supposed to know that I had and started thinking about what Uncle Jim had told me the night before. I started to think about if the same things were enough to keep me going, if the same things were enough to keep me strong in times of weakness. The more I thought about it the more the thoughts consumed me. Here I was in the beautiful big woods and all I could think about is, how can I find security and strength in something I had never really felt before. I had never had the sense of belonging within a family. I had only been living with Steve and Sandy (also my Aunt and Uncle) for a few months and I didn’t know how that was going to work out, I barely knew them, but they were family and after things with my mom had gone sour they were the ones I had to cling to. I knew I had my grandparents but that had only been during the summers. Could I learn to have a loving heart? The thought scared me. I had no sense of security and I had not learned to love myself yet. How can I make myself into a man that sees himself as rich based on love and family? Would I be able to let the people in to find out?