Culture
Sons in Heavy Sunlight
by David VanHamlin, SUNY Cortland, April 18, 2008
The weight of sunlight on my shoulders lifts as I step into the shade of the trees. My dad is few yards ahead of me on the trail headed uphill into the woods, and my son, Liam, is just in front of me, tromping purposefully after his grandfather. When we get to the top of the hill, the trail will turn to the right and lead us down towards the bog that fills this little valley. Puffs of cigar smoke drift passed me, gray-blue, and I inhale my childhood, remembering. I’ve been here before, or, rather, places like this.
Sundays were my dad’s little vacations. He spent six days a week carving other people’s names into tombstones and setting them in cemeteries like mints on morbid pillows. From the time I was eight years old, I helped him haul the monuments from his business to the graves they marked. This was my first job, the one I don’t list on my resume.
I ran the hoist, the crane-like arm that was attached to the flatbed of a blue, one-ton truck. When the straps were in place around the tombstone, I’d press the button to engage the hoist’s hydraulics, which hummed tunelessly. Once the stone was high enough off the flatbed, my dad would swivel the hoist around over parallel two-by-fours set on the ground. Then I’d open the release valve, slowly, and lower the tombstone into place.
After six days of sweaty, labor intensive work, my dad liked to get out into the world on his own terms, to be outside where and when he didn’t have to be. As his son, I was expected to come along. Sometimes we’d go fishing for trout early in the spring. I started out with a fly rod longer than I was tall, but never really got the hang of casting. There aren’t many wide rivers around central New York, so most often we’d hit streams and brooks with lots of brush and over-hanging branches to snag my line. Dad taught me to drop the bait just upstream from where I thought a trout might be hiding, and to let it float past like it was actually caught in the current. I caught some trout, but not a lot. For a long time I snagged more branches than fish.
If we weren’t fishing, then we’d just go for a hike somewhere. This often meant bogs. My dad would light up a cigar, usually a Dutch Masters or a White Owl, to keep the mosquitoes off of us. This was bug repellent, and it worked. I’d follow along behind as he’d pick a trail into the bog, letting clouds of cigar smoke wash over me along the way. Most of the black flies and other biting insects gave us a wide berth.
Today, my son’s hat has been dowsed with canned bug spray as an extra precaution. Since he was a toddler, mosquito bites have made his face swell. He’s had some very funny school pictures.
My dad stops by a rotting log to look at some bracket fungus and moss. He points out the shelf-like fungus to Liam and says that some people dry them out and then paint pictures on them. Liam nods and they both move on. We are getting deeper into the woods now, and the ground is getting wet. Pooled water extends from the left side of the trail, and the amount of cattails and skunk cabbages increases. Liam asks why they’re called skunk cabbage, and my dad breaks off a leaf to show him. He holds the crushed leaf out to Liam, who sniffs carefully and makes a yucky face.
“That stinks,” he says, and my dad laughs, nodding.
We are here for the orchids.
As we go farther into the bog, the trail will change from packed dirt to a raised, wooden walkway above the water. Hummocks of long grass and ferns grow alongside the path. If the orchids haven’t bloomed, then they will appear to be stalks of grass, only slightly longer and a different shade of green. If the orchids have bloomed, then we will see tiny purple-pink flowers, delicately alive.
Liam is looking forward to seeing the pitcher plants. Plants that devour insects fascinate him. At my aunt’s house we examined a small pot of Venus flytraps. When no one was looking, I gave Liam a small piece of roast beef that he dropped into one of the traps, but it didn’t close.
“We have to trigger two of the trigger hairs before it will close,” he whispered. “I saw it on a nature show.” I smiled and told him to use his fork.
The end of the wooden walkway is surrounded on either side by a cluster of skunk cabbage. As we approach, I can see the leaves start to sway as something inside fusses about. I tell Liam to stop and look as a skunk hops out of the skunk cabbage and heads away from us. Liam smiles and my dad puffs on his cigar. We wait a few moments before we continue, giving the skunk a chance to get away.
Out on the walkway, we step back into sunlight as the path takes us out onto the bog and out of the trees. The weight of summer heat climbs back onto me, and I yawn. Insects buzz around us, and the pitcher plants.
Although the orchids haven’t bloomed, my dad shows Liam several of the grassy stalks and tells him all about the orchids. I’ve heard it all before. An orange newt crawls out from under some dead leaves. I pick it up and carry it to where Liam listens to my dad. When I show him the newt, Liam peers at it cautiously, holding his hands protectively in front of his chest. It takes me a while to get him to pet the newt with one finger, but after that he asks to hold it. He puts his hands together, making a platform. The newt sits there for a few moments as Liam watches. When it moves, Liam drops the newt in surprise. He laughs nervously as it runs into the water.
We continue on our way until there is no more wooden path in front of us. I know what’s coming next. Instead of turning around, my dad steps off the walkway and onto the bog. Liam stands beside me, watching as his grandfather heads toward the far tree line. Kneeling down, I have Liam climb onto my back, just like my dad used to do for me when we left the paths behind. His little arms hold me tightly; his weight on my back wakes me up from the daze of sunshine.
Looking at my dad out ahead of us, I step off the path, carrying my son across the heavy sunlit sky.
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