Family, Nature, Parenthood, Travel

Rochester: Into the Woods

This past weekend we went to Rochester to celebrate Grandma’s birthday.  In between the frequent meals, the snacks, the cookies and the birthday cake, we managed to squeeze in an afternoon walk in the woods.  My husband wanted to show our daughter a spot much loved by him and his boyhood friends.  Enjoying a freedom from adult supervision nearly unknown to kids these days, they met there on their bikes after school.  Using found lumber and fallen trees, they built hideouts and forts, which they outfitted with discarded furniture.  They shot their BB-guns at cans (and occasionally, at each other, but with a strict one-pump rule).  They made campfires for roasting hot dogs and for the sheer joy of watching things burn.  Responsibilities were divvied up, and H brought the explosives.  (It’s no coincidence that he went on to study combustion in grad school).  He hadn’t set foot in these woods for decades, and he was worried that they had been developed or modified beyond recognition.

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We were relieved that the entrance to the woods, several streets away from H’s childhood home, was just as he remembered. As we walked, it became apparent to him that some paths had been widened, neatened, or rerouted. But thankfully there was no sign of encroaching development, no nascent parking lots, shopping malls or townhouse complexes.  

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The weather forecast had predicted a full day of rain, but early morning showers had given way to a sunny afternoon. The light on the turning leaves suffused the canopy with a golden glow. The woods took on a magical, enchanted aspect.  Our daughter appreciated their appeal as keenly as H had when he was her age.

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Rochester’s fall palette was bright and varied.  The yellows and oranges of the trees were especially brilliant.

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The ground was carpeted with green moss and colorful fallen leaves.

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Perfectly formed mushrooms, the small white kind that fairies rest on in childrens’ books, were a frequent sight underfoot among the leaves.

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Beech trees, their leaves just beginning to turn yellow.

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The kindness of trees:  one member of this group of trees, having lost its base, is supported by its neighbors.

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Our ultimate destination was the secluded pond where H and his friends had focused many of their boyhood activities.  D and I followed H as he wandered, searching uncertainly through the swampy, heavily tangled brush, looking for landmarks to point the way, such as the tree on which they had carved their names.  As my feet got soaked, I regretted not stuffing my hiking boots into my suitcase.   Repeatedly, the pond wasn’t where H thought it should be.  He began to fear we wouldn’t find it.  Finally, with the help of the GPS system on his phone, he located it.   It looked the same as it had all those years ago, H said, except for the greater accumulation of algae on its surface.  A small boat was tied up in the reeds by the shore, suggesting that the pond continues to be the haunt of local explorers.

The walk back to Grandma and Grandpa’s house was a happy one.  It was enormously satisfying to see that every once in a while, despite the fleeting pace of time and so-called progress, we can return to a place that still matches up with its treasured memory.