As I was walking through the woods the other day, I thought
about how far I’ve come since I was a kid. I’m referring to the days back when
I was the world’s biggest city-slicker; the days when the only way I would have
gone into the woods would have been if I were blindfolded, hog-tied and slung
over someone’s shoulder.
I also thought about ticks. The latest news reports are
saying they already are out in such abundance, by the end of the summer they
pretty much will have multiplied to such astronomical numbers, they will be
taking humans as hostages.
I grew up in the heart of the city of Manchester where
pigeons, squirrels and an occasional chipmunk were about the only wildlife I
ever saw (aside from the neighbors’ dog, Ghostie, better known as the pants
shredder). A bee or any bug larger than a grain of salt would send me screaming
into the house and begging my father to buy a flame-thrower.
But once a week, I was exposed to a few hours of country
life when my mother and I visited my grandmother, who owned a farm.
I guess my cousins Eddie and Carla, who lived next door to
my grandmother, should be given a lot of credit for attempting to transform me
into a pseudo country-girl. Eddie, who was my age, and Carla, who was four
years older, were seasoned country kids who didn’t think twice about running
around barefooted or catching frogs, and they didn’t have much patience for a
city kid who was wearing patent-leather shoes and lacy white socks. The first
thing they did whenever I came to visit was make me shed my footwear.
Feeling my bare toes in the cool grass of my grandmother’s
field for the first time wasn’t half as terrifying as I’d expected it to be,
even though I couldn’t help thinking about all of the snakes’ heads I might be
stepping on or the tarantula-sized spiders that might be trying to crawl up my
pant legs.
Unfortunately, my
grandmother had a couple milk cows that regularly grazed out in that field, so
I ended up stepping in something that I hadn’t anticipated…but I will spare you
the details.
A major part of running around shoeless at the farm also
involved wading in streams or in a small natural pool that Carla and Eddie
dubbed the “Little Ledge.” It was an
area made entirely of granite where water pooled to about three feet at the deepest.
It was a great place to cool off…if you didn’t mind sharing the water with
tadpoles.
Naturally, being from the city, I hadn’t had the opportunity
to make the acquaintance of too many tadpoles, so after initially leaping out
of the water and screaming that I was being attacked by “hideous slimy things,”
I actually became pretty fascinated with the little critters. And when some of
the tadpoles started to sprout tiny legs, well, I thought that was just about
the coolest thing I’d ever seen.
Carla and Eddie also taught me bravery…well, sort of. I will
never forget the day they took me into my grandmother’s barn and showed me
something “fun” to do. They both climbed up into the hayloft and then flung
themselves into the haystacks below. “You HAVE to try it!” they excitedly told
me.
Well, I climbed up to that hayloft and took one look at the
hay below, which seemed like 150 feet down (it actually was more like 10), and
started to tremble. My knees knocked, my heartbeat zoomed to 200, and beads of
sweat popped out on my forehead. I froze. I absolutely froze.
At first, Carla and Eddie were patient and understanding,
shouting words of encouragement up at me from their places in the hay below.
“Come on, Sally! You can do it! We’re right here waiting for you!” But as the minutes dragged by and I still
hadn’t budged, their patience rapidly began to wane. “For cryin’ out loud, ya
big chicken! Jump, will you! We haven’t got all day!”
When Eddie finally threatened to climb back up and “help” me
jump (a.k.a. give me a well-placed shove), I closed my eyes, sucked in my
breath and leaped. The plunge was a
huge letdown. In a flash, I was lying face-down in a pile of itchy hay, which I
spent the rest of the day picking out of my clothes and hair.
Carla and Eddie also taught me the fine art of raiding my
grandmother’s garden and eating vegetables in their natural state. When they
first suggested that I eat a raw potato, I thought they were suffering from too
much sun. I mean, eat a potato that hadn’t been cooked and mashed with lots of
butter and milk? Never!
But they dared, and even double-dared me, so I took a bite.
Raw potatoes actually tasted pretty good; a little starchy, but nice and
crunchy. The same for corn on the cob. No salt, no butter, just raw corn,
gnawed right off the cob. I think, after all these years, I finally understand
why Carla and Eddie rarely were sick.
Raw tomatoes were no problem because I loved them just the
way they were. And it was fascinating to see them actually growing in various
stages of red and green in a garden instead of sitting in cellophane packages
in the grocery store.
Soon, however, I discovered something about tomatoes that
horrified me: the tomato hornworm. Let
me tell you, that worm is the biggest, fattest, ugliest, greenest creature on
the face of the earth. The first time I saw one, I nearly broke a blood vessel
from screaming. I mean, the thing was the size of a hot-dog and it had a big
ugly hook on its hind end (or it might have been its head; it’s pretty hard to
tell which end is which on a worm). Never in my life had I seen anything like
it, so I was certain the creature had escaped from some alien
Yes, Carla and Eddie really did teach me a lot. I learned to
drink milk straight from the cow’s udder (and I’m still alive to tell about
it!). I learned that if you touch a wooly-bear caterpillar, it will curl up
into a neat little ball that you can roll around in your hand. I learned how to
shimmy up a tree (well, only about four feet up, actually) and grab an apple,
then try to outrun my grandmother’s cow that thought it was a bull. I learned
that some wasps live in the ground and you never should stand barefooted on
their nest-hole unless you want to learn how to do steps worthy of Riverdance.
My grandmother has been gone for nearly 50 years now, and in
place of her farm and field are many nice new houses. I miss running barefooted
through her field, especially since back then I swear I never saw a tick, even after I
rolled in the knee-high grass. If I were to try that today, I’d probably end up
covered with so many of the nasty little buggers, I’d need a transfusion.
Oh, and I DO eat and enjoy fresh tomatoes now…but every time
I’m about to buy one and have to pick it up to inspect it, I still can’t help
thinking that a giant, ugly hornworm is going to pop out of it and attack me.
Some childhood traumas never die.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an award-winning humor columnist and the
author of “There’s a Tick in my Underwear!” “Heed the Predictor” and “The
Common-Sense Approach to Dream Interpretation." Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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