| About Me |
Marked Tree
Life Begins Outside the Window
The Ozarks of the 1950’s were different from those same rugged old mountains and valleys today. We lived in an isolated place, before the days of interstates. The highway that wound past our front door was as wide and well traveled as the average unmarked county lane today. We played softball on the pavement, in between cars. It’s not surprising that I grew up with the woods for a playmate — that’s where we lived, in conditions that hadn’t changed much since the end of the Civil War and the departure of the Baldknobber gangs.
Then I had to go to school. I spent every spare minute staring out the window over the fencewire and hog lot and red clay road, to where the trees began. Daily I plotted my escape, making lists of essentials for the grand day when I hit the trail and left it all behind. At home I assembled my gear, testing it on weekend forays. With bits of Army surplus and the war souvenirs of my father and my uncles I explored the old places within my rather short reach. My father was fond of telling me that I could pick a direction and walk and never find a road. I kept looking for that mythical trail that would take me back in time, but it seemed I always missed it. I’d always find that road, and it would pull me home again.
That was a long time ago, but I haven’t changed much since then. I still have a closet full of gear, enough for any outing I might be able to try. Anywhere I choose to go, I bet I can put together a kit for it. I’ve done survival training in Alaska, hiked the mountains of the Thai/Cambodian border, and been to enough strange places that customs officials used to gasp when they saw my passport, thinking I was going to make their day.
I haven’t been every place I want to go. I still have plans and I still gaze across the fields to the distant trees and think what it might be like to do what Daniel Boone did when he was old, to just hit the trail and wander for a few years. I may get pieces of that adventure yet. Like most of us, I take my wandering a few days at a time. Until my next entry into the old world where the trail will never take you past a road, I look at gear and stay ready. This website is about that gear — what works and what won’t, and the occasional interesting gamble on something that might. I keep an eye out for good things, and my gear closet is full of stuff that’s tried and true.
Someday, I’m going to escape.
Jimmy Two Hats
