Memories

What’s in a Name?

After being my road companion for two weeks on my Circle Tour, Melanie disappeared returning to her life back in Bellingham and once again I was a solo traveler circumnavigating the perimeter of the U.S. Time was no longer an issue so I slept and read.
The campground at Four Mile Creek State Park near Niagara Falls was a perfect sanctuary for me. The campground was spacious enough so that you didn’t feel crowded. It was a good resting place so instead of staying a couple days and then heading out on my journey, I stayed for a week. It was on the shores of Lake Ontario and in the mornings and the late afternoons you could make out the saw tooth silhouette of tiny skyscrapers constituting the skyline of the city of Toronto twenty seven miles across the open water.
The second day at land anchor I went exploring down along the lake shore and on my way back stopped to read a plaque that the park had put up. It described the birds that one might see in the area and it offered up a couple of photos of a loon and a gull. My breath caught when I read the photo credit under each: Photo by O.S. Pettingill. “Well, I’ll be damned” I heard myself whisper.

Long ago as a farm boy living on Eagle Creek near Traders Point, Indiana I attended a school that had corn and soybean fields bordering the playground. As a lad in junior high I took classes in agriculture. In one of those classes we formed up teams for a Pest Contest. The team that brought in the most feet from a list of varmints, won. The list went on and on: two pigeon feet – one point; two English Sparrow feet – one point; four rat feet – one point. My youth burned at being a hunter so after clearing the contest on the home front I armed myself with the family 410 shot gun, a paper bag for bringing in the “game” and headed out for the lower barn. As I crossed the pasture to the barn I spied my first pest and with a boom brought the bird down. When I reached it, it didn’t quite look like an English Sparrow so I bagged in and went back to the house. I was proud of my first catch even though I was uncertain of its species. When I pulled it out of the bag, my mother’s face fell, “Oh, Ron! That’s a bluebird. I think the gun should be put away until thee learns what the birds are.” My proudness quickly flashed into shock and sadness. This was the beginning of my birding life.

From a rural school I transferred to Arsenal Technical High School in Indianapolis where my school bus was the Chicago to Indianapolis Greyhound Bus. My horizons expanded far beyond being a boy growing up on a sheep farm. After I graduated, my world again took a quantum leap. I took my first plane ride to Traverse City, Michigan and then by car to my summer job as a dishwasher at the University of Michigan Biological Station on Douglas Lake just south of the Mackinac Bridge.
It was my coming out party: from a small town farm boy to a high school graduating class of 400 students and then into the world of higher education. I quickly adjusted to my work place and my fellow kitchen crew members one of which was Miki Pettingill. We bonded and the summer soared. There was no threat of anything complicated other than a fine relationship because Miki was two years older than me and was engaged. We would laugh and talk on the beach at night and watch Sputnik traverse the sky. It was 1960.
Along with Miki came her family. Her dad was on the teaching staff at the station. Because I was interested in birding, I was looking for a class to take on my one day off. It so happened that Ornithology was being taught that day so I tried to see if the station would let me audit the class. It helped to know the instructor, Dr. Pettingill. I instantly knew I was in privileged company; our textbook and lab book were written by the instructor. So I spent a summer of bliss being in an environment that made me bloom. On my days off I would get up before dawn and join the other twenty students in the birding class for the full day. I was pulling down a “B” in the course and loving it. Too bad it was an audit. I was just a shadow in the class but when Dr. Olin Sewall Pettingill would acknowledge me, my body glow would radiate out a mile.
My constant companion was my Field Guide to the Birds by Roger Tory Peterson. One day Miki said that her family and she were going home for the weekend and they were going to see Roger. Did I want her to take my book and have him sign it? I fell to my knees and clasped my hands in prayer. “Yes.”

Years later when I was a student at Purdue University I noticed that Dr. Pettingill was giving a speech so again sneaked into the situation and stood in the back of the crowded lecture hall to hear him speak. My summer at Douglas Lake filled my mind. When he was done with his delivery, he walked through the lecture hall to exist. Around him hovered a group of starring eyed students for this man was an internationally recognized authority on birds. As chance would have it he walked right by me. Our eyes met. He smiled. “Hi Ron. Nice seeing you.” And kept walking. I felt myself vanish with amazement.

Again a very deep feeling welled up inside of me as I looked down at the bird photos at Four Mile Creek. An image of a man sweep into my mind then melted away. A summer on a lake, a class, a girl.

All of this moved off into the distance as I hitched up the Jetta to the RV and headed out onto the highway again moving westerly toward the northwest corner of the US. I drove across southern Ontario and reconnected with the states at Port Huron in Michigan. I joined my old Florida friend, Interstate 75, and turned north for the Upper Peninsula. But my memories were still not finished with me. They wafted back in like the smell of distant campfire smoke as I drove past the exit to Pellston/Cheboygan. Douglas Lake and the Biological Station were just a couple of miles from there. Would I turn off the freeway and go looking? No, the memories of that summer long ago were still strong enough that the boy from the sheep farm didn’t need to refresh them. But a warm smile spread across my face as I drove by. My remembering the 48 years that lay in between brought about the smile and it carried me down the road. I have had a blessed life.


[written at 5 o’clock in the morning of August 24, 2008 while listening to the waves on the shores of Lake Superior]