Hiking the Knobs

The best memories of my childhood were the days when my dad would take me to the woods.  Along about the time I turned nine my dad started worrying that I was spending way too much time with my head stuck in a book.  His solution to this was to get me out and exercising.  Unlike today, this didn't take the form of enrolling me in a class for this or that, but rather of giving of himself to better my health.  Out of this came a period of several years when we spent every available hour hiking in the surrounding knobs.  (Knobs for us were the foothills of the Appalachian mountains.)

My father was a great woodsman who had spent a lot of his childhood and adulthood in the woods in our state.  As a youngster he spent many hours hunting and fishing in the woods around his farm.   As a young man he had worked as a "spotter" for a lumber company.  This involved working with the forestry service to "spot" or locate timber that would be suitable for logging.  This time spent tramping through the forests of Eastern Kentucky cemented his lifelong love of nature.  The days spent with the Forest Rangers allowed him to learn many scientific things from them, while I am sure, they also learned many practical things from him.  I was lucky enough to benefit from this store of knowledge.

Whenever possible we would drive to a spot giving us access to a section of the knob land, park the truck, and hike up into the woods.  We would then spend a glorious afternoon trekking through the forests while daddy would teach me about the plants, trees and animals that made this their home.  I learned to identify trees by their shape and bark, as well as leaves.  I learned about plants that were poisonous, shy wildflowers that hide under ledges, mosses and lichens that hug rocks, nuts and berries that were good to eat, and wild grapevines.  Grapevines were the best fun.  These thick, strong vines wrap from limb to limb and sometimes from tree to tree in  ropes sometimes as thick as a man's arm.  Daddy seemed to have an ability to find one that could be pulled down and used as a swing.  A good one would be on the side of the hill.  I would grab on as high as I could reach, and launch myself out from the side of the hill.  For endless seconds you would swing out over the trees below then rush back to the safety of the hillside.  (Think Tarzan)  I'm sure my mother would have cringed if she had known how far out I could swing.

Sometimes we would spend an afternoon trying to track a woodland animal.  Most often we saw deer tracks, but would also see the tracks of raccoons, opossums, dogs, rabbits, and once a bobcat.  Every muddy spot or creek bank became a classroom on tracks.  Even bird tracks became a lesson in identification.  Tiny sparrow tracks to huge vulture tracks were laid out before us in the soft mud.  As we identified tracks daddy would tell me about their homes, what they ate, where they hunted, where they hid and how they were useful to us.

From late fall to spring we would ramble through the hills and valleys of the county. ( Because timber rattlesnakes and copperhead snakes make their home in our area we didn't do much hiking in the summer months.)  The hours of hiking up and down hillsides soon tightened up muscles and slimmed down pockets of baby fat but most of all was the building of confidence in my abilities.  I had experiences that none of my friends had and knowledge that few of their parents had.  It gave a shy child that little extra boost of self-confidence that carried me on into high school.  It also taught me that your body, like a car, will go for many miles if you keep it in good shape. 

But better than all the knowledge (I still surprise people by identifying animal tracks or woodland plants) was the companionship with my father that I had.  He gave me the greatest gift a parent can give--his total attention and time.  It was only as a parent myself that I truly realized just what a sacrifice those hours we spent must have cost him.  At the time, all I knew was that he was my confidant, my teacher, and my best friend.

Hopefully, he thought the cost was worth it.