Ben-B-Bloggin

Son Ben can entertain you with many stories about our trip to Ireland, but our time at the southernmost part of the enchanted island will stay with me for some time. For me, old Dad, that time was a throwback to earlier periods,,,,,,starting with the first years of the Nineteen
Eighties. Ben would have been three or four then. We were living in Oxford, Ohio, An activitiy that both of us enjoyed was taking bike hikes. I did the pedaling and Ben sat, like a little prince, in a buggy that was drawn behind the bike. Often Ben’s friend, Andy Zak, would share the little chariot with Ben. Most often we would have as our destination the town of College Corner located on the boundary line between Indiana and Ohio. Usually on these occasions I would strap on a camera ……preserving these moment.

On many days Ben, Andy, and I just ‘hung out’ as kids say these days. One of our favorite haunts was the old covered bridge near Oxford. There we would skip stones in the creek underneath the bridge, maybe even throw in a fishing line. Any unsuspecting toad or tadpole would have been in grave danger if Ben or Andy caught sight of them. Some times Andy’s dad……the incomporable Mike Roach would join us.,,,as well as Ben’s younger sister Becky. Naturally these occasion were captured on film. One photograph of Ben throwing a stone in the pond below the dam still might be seen in the Oxford library next to one taken by a local photographer, George Hoxie some thirty year before depicting George’s son.
Now move forward in time and place to the Verde River some twenty miles from Mesa, Arizona on the Papago Indian Reservation. The time would have been after 1986 until 1990 or so. This time the group consisted of Ben, Becky, and some neighborhood kids. Nearly every Sunday afternoon ‘going to the river.’ We actually developed a pattern where we would gathered trash—-the grossest national production according to Wendell Berry–into a pile. Then we would light the fire keeping the flame going with more trash, Once we light an old abandoned tire of which many littered the river bank. I remember we had to start a fire inside the tire to get it to ignite but once it the results were spectacular. Soon a big plume of black smoke was risinng in the air. We became alarmed when we heard the sound of a helicopter coming closer and closer until it circled our location. We hastily put out the fire and quickly vacated the area.
Once we placed a discarded aerisol can in the fire expecting the escaping gas to make quite a dsplay. What happened was more dramatic! The can exploded sending sparks, sand, and burning debris all over the island. The Verde’s channel was always in flus creating small island and it was on such an island that the can exploded. One of Ben’s great joys and one of his accomplishment in which Ben took the greast pride was changing the course of the Verde. Huge tadpole lived in the quiet backwards of the river. Ben would flood the peaceful waters with the main current of the river scattered the talpoles in all directions.
The main source of entertainment was swiming …..a least for Ben and Becky. Once when Becky was swiming she dropped her favorite doll—large rag doll of Minnie Mouse–into the Verde. Minnie sunk below the surface and we feared her to be lost. A few minutes later Becky pulled a thoroughly soaked and muddy Minnie from the river. One look at the pitiful Minnie told me that she was a total lost. I wanted to abandon her on the bank, but Becky gave me such a look of repoach—-it was her favorite doll–that we tried to resusitated Minnie. We squeezed what water and mud we could out of her rag body. Then we hung her on a tree to dried. Minnie wasn’t dry when we left. At home the Arizona sun turned Minnie into a dried out stiff dog, but Becky nursed her back to life. Becky keep that dog for years afterward. Thank God I didn’t bury Minnie on the Verde River bank.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS