🤍A Silver Birch Tree.🤍
Perhaps it was for dramatic effect that I told the Buckeye Bigfoot lady, Nance, that I never met the Sasquatch baby or his mother ever again. It seemed like a good way to end the story, though that other writer, Victor, is drawing his story out into a series and with a cliffhanger too!
This is how the tale should have gone.
Perhaps you remember the story we posted on Thanksgiving giving a short history of Ralph’s antecedents? His own parents were called Earnest and Mary Louise, out of sheer puckishness. Their proper Saslingua names are lost to history.
A bit of Earnest and Mary Louise’s lore that I must include now is where they settled when they came to the PNW. This pair seemed to have a preference for second growth timber. The light is better in those forests, more things grow on the ground than in the severe depths of the Douglas firs. Mary Louise was fond of berries and mushrooms. The berries must have sunlight. As for hunting, I’m not sure what you could catch out there, except for mountain beavers, or maybe some sort of birds. There were pheasants back then. There were no rivers nearby, so fishing locally was out.
In this environment there are also plenty of saplings to weave into shelters. There was lots of grass too. It was a rather easy life for them, if not very heroic or glamorous.
So, they settled within walking distance, for a Sasquatch, of the little place in the woods where my sibs and I grew up. There, they raised their eight children, the eldest being Ralph, who was born to rule, albeit with a kind and gentle hand.
Mary Louise was fond of the same solitary birch tree that I liked. She was out there with her first young one the day I met them. She liked to peel some of that white bark off of the trunk and take it home. I don’t know what she did with it. But it is pretty, and a person could draw little drawings on it, if they had the notion to do so. Of course, I did that very thing with birch bark too.
So, Mary L. was busy, and baby got to snooping around and found my sleeping teenaged self. So, yes, that baby was Ralph, though his mama didn’t call him that, of course.
I barely could believe, later in the cold light of day, that I had met them. So, I didn’t expect to see them again. But it wasn’t that cut and dried. Somehow they were “around,” though seeing them was hit and miss.
My parents had a lot of raspberry bushes, in a double row, near the forest. It was a little bit of a battle to manage to harvest enough berries to do much with them. Someone always seemed to have gotten there first. Who could it be? Sometimes I saw him out there. Very briefly. He didn’t stay long. Year by year, he grew, until I’m sure he felt too large to be caught in the berry bushes. He knew I wouldn’t tell on him, but what if my brother or sisters or even my parents saw him? What then?
We always grew corn, pole beans, summer squash and tomatoes, plus potatoes. I’ve mentioned that the kids next door were American Indians, and the littlest girl liked to raid the corn rows. She would eat the corn raw out there in the rows! But, I am sure she wasn’t the only one doing that. Maybe they were both excited to unwrap one of my Indian corn ears? I sure enjoyed that esthetic experience myself.
I don’t know what the Forest people ate in the winter. It might be something to look into.
It was a kind of happy co-habitation. My parents, with their heads in the “real world,” never suspected a thing.
It was right around that time that they started tearing down the near forest, to build condos on the other side of the fence. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that done but it’s quite a process. Nobody harvested these trees for anything, not even firewood. They just bulldozed them into great piles and burnt them. When the workers and drivers of the dozers left at night, we kids and probably, after dark Ralph too, climbed in those piles, using them for jungle gyms.
Once those piles were gone, they built condos.
I think this is when Earnest and Mary Louise took their tribe way uphill into the National Forest. It was also then that our paths separated. It was then that I saw him no more for many years.
So, when Ralph was about fourteen years old, Earnest and Mary Louise began to feel crowded by humans and new building projects in their habitual areas. They lined the kids up single file between themselves, with Mary Louse last in line and walked to the woods out behind Darrington, which was a pretty scary place back then. It was a roughneck town full of loggers and big trucks and a couple of lumber yards. They avoided the place and went on uphill.
Those were Ralph’s years in the wilderness. The family lived as their people had always lived, with no interaction with human people, except maybe an occasional sighting. They sure didn’t hang around with us back then.
Ralph never talked about those years much. It was like without the English language at that time, he didn’t have much to say about that time. He told me later, after I started writing for the paper in town, that none of them had ever tasted cooked meat, or salt, or any sort of bread. They did eat fruits and vegetables when they could get them. They also dug up roots. He didn’t inform me as to which roots are edible. Sometimes they ate, like their remote cousins, tender leaves and shoots. He said he thought they may have been stronger back then. Earnest could pick up and throw a river rock that weighed what we would call around five hundred pounds.
They slept in big nests made under whatever shelter they could manage. Ten of them made quite a group. They stayed warm just from body heat all together. Caves and rocky overhangs were always preferred to the lean to shelters people sometimes find out in the wilds even today.
Ralph said his parents could vanish and all that, but that like it was a natural physical reaction. It wasn’t as intentional as when he does it. He never saw his dad or mom in the air, that didn’t happen with them. Maybe they just hadn’t thought of it, and he laughed a bit.
“You know, Millicent, I feel like I am looking back into an old dream when we talk about these things. It doesn’t seem real now. Is that good?” said Ralph. “I’ve only seen my father once in years. He was very remote. He never said a word; he just watched me. I think my mother has gone on; I don’t feel her presence anymore.”
“Do you ever see your brothers or sisters,” I asked him.
“Not much. They all live much further north. Some of them have gone Canadian on me!”
“What a fate!” I said, giggling.
“So, Ralph, what’s the most important part of your life, so far?”
“Oh, Millicent! You know the answer! My life was like a baby paddling in shallow water until Ramona made sure I saw her, because she knew what was what. All the slippery pieces of my mind and life fell right into place in the moonlight by the eddy in a river. You’ve heard this story, Milly!”
“I have, yeah. Maybe I just like picturing it,” I said, pouring him another big cup of coffee. I have learned to bring a couple of big thermoses of coffee when I interview Ralph. He is more verbose when full of coffee.
“So, Ralph, what did your parents feed you kids back then, before cooking and hanging around human people. I mean in the winter, when there were no gardens to raid? I can’t imagine what would be edible in the woods in the winter. Maybe I’m not thinking about this right,” I said.
“Oh, we ate whatever animals we could catch. Once we moved up into the National Forest, we had deer. There were pheasants and some other nice edible birds. We had fish all the time. They are easy for even the very young to chew. Roots and shoots. Summer was much easier. A person can live on leaves if they keep at it,” said Ralph.
“Did I ever tell you, Ralph, that I met you long ago? Do you have any memory of a little house and garden with a mom and dad and four kids, the oldest being a girl?” I asked him. “You were just a little guy. We had a nap together in the woods by that white birch tree your mom liked.”
“I don’t remember the nap in the woods, Milly. But I do remember the little house and the raspberries and the corn and the family there. I remember the kids. I remember the big sister best of all because she was always keeping an eye on me. You didn’t tell on me though, did you?”
“No, Ralph, we have been friends for a long time. We lost each other for some time, but here we are! Drinking coffee and talking about the old days.”
“Thanks for the coffee. We have a hard time getting the stuff at home, but that’s okay. It makes a nice treat once in a while. I guess I better ramble. Ramona likes me to come home before dark and she is making dinner! See you soon!”
“Hey, man, give Ramona my love, and tell her thanks for letting you come talk to me. Love to Twigg and Cherry too! They must be getting so big by now.”
With that, he hopped out of the Escalade, my moving office, and took off downhill. We had been parked up on Green Mountain, watching the sky. Sometimes you see interesting stuff up there, mostly after dark. But sometimes before dark too.
After he left, I just sat there and finished off my coffee, looking down the mountainside toward the Sound. You can actually see the salt water from up there. It’s quite a vista.
I was thinking about this interview. Would I write it up for the paper? I finally decided not to. I would just keep this one under my hat.
I drove home as it was getting dark under all those trees, but I know the road pretty well. No problem.
This is how the tale should have gone.
Perhaps you remember the story we posted on Thanksgiving giving a short history of Ralph’s antecedents? His own parents were called Earnest and Mary Louise, out of sheer puckishness. Their proper Saslingua names are lost to history.
A bit of Earnest and Mary Louise’s lore that I must include now is where they settled when they came to the PNW. This pair seemed to have a preference for second growth timber. The light is better in those forests, more things grow on the ground than in the severe depths of the Douglas firs. Mary Louise was fond of berries and mushrooms. The berries must have sunlight. As for hunting, I’m not sure what you could catch out there, except for mountain beavers, or maybe some sort of birds. There were pheasants back then. There were no rivers nearby, so fishing locally was out.
In this environment there are also plenty of saplings to weave into shelters. There was lots of grass too. It was a rather easy life for them, if not very heroic or glamorous.
So, they settled within walking distance, for a Sasquatch, of the little place in the woods where my sibs and I grew up. There, they raised their eight children, the eldest being Ralph, who was born to rule, albeit with a kind and gentle hand.
Mary Louise was fond of the same solitary birch tree that I liked. She was out there with her first young one the day I met them. She liked to peel some of that white bark off of the trunk and take it home. I don’t know what she did with it. But it is pretty, and a person could draw little drawings on it, if they had the notion to do so. Of course, I did that very thing with birch bark too.
So, Mary L. was busy, and baby got to snooping around and found my sleeping teenaged self. So, yes, that baby was Ralph, though his mama didn’t call him that, of course.
I barely could believe, later in the cold light of day, that I had met them. So, I didn’t expect to see them again. But it wasn’t that cut and dried. Somehow they were “around,” though seeing them was hit and miss.
My parents had a lot of raspberry bushes, in a double row, near the forest. It was a little bit of a battle to manage to harvest enough berries to do much with them. Someone always seemed to have gotten there first. Who could it be? Sometimes I saw him out there. Very briefly. He didn’t stay long. Year by year, he grew, until I’m sure he felt too large to be caught in the berry bushes. He knew I wouldn’t tell on him, but what if my brother or sisters or even my parents saw him? What then?
We always grew corn, pole beans, summer squash and tomatoes, plus potatoes. I’ve mentioned that the kids next door were American Indians, and the littlest girl liked to raid the corn rows. She would eat the corn raw out there in the rows! But, I am sure she wasn’t the only one doing that. Maybe they were both excited to unwrap one of my Indian corn ears? I sure enjoyed that esthetic experience myself.
I don’t know what the Forest people ate in the winter. It might be something to look into.
It was a kind of happy co-habitation. My parents, with their heads in the “real world,” never suspected a thing.
It was right around that time that they started tearing down the near forest, to build condos on the other side of the fence. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen that done but it’s quite a process. Nobody harvested these trees for anything, not even firewood. They just bulldozed them into great piles and burnt them. When the workers and drivers of the dozers left at night, we kids and probably, after dark Ralph too, climbed in those piles, using them for jungle gyms.
Once those piles were gone, they built condos.
I think this is when Earnest and Mary Louise took their tribe way uphill into the National Forest. It was also then that our paths separated. It was then that I saw him no more for many years.
So, when Ralph was about fourteen years old, Earnest and Mary Louise began to feel crowded by humans and new building projects in their habitual areas. They lined the kids up single file between themselves, with Mary Louse last in line and walked to the woods out behind Darrington, which was a pretty scary place back then. It was a roughneck town full of loggers and big trucks and a couple of lumber yards. They avoided the place and went on uphill.
Those were Ralph’s years in the wilderness. The family lived as their people had always lived, with no interaction with human people, except maybe an occasional sighting. They sure didn’t hang around with us back then.
Ralph never talked about those years much. It was like without the English language at that time, he didn’t have much to say about that time. He told me later, after I started writing for the paper in town, that none of them had ever tasted cooked meat, or salt, or any sort of bread. They did eat fruits and vegetables when they could get them. They also dug up roots. He didn’t inform me as to which roots are edible. Sometimes they ate, like their remote cousins, tender leaves and shoots. He said he thought they may have been stronger back then. Earnest could pick up and throw a river rock that weighed what we would call around five hundred pounds.
They slept in big nests made under whatever shelter they could manage. Ten of them made quite a group. They stayed warm just from body heat all together. Caves and rocky overhangs were always preferred to the lean to shelters people sometimes find out in the wilds even today.
Ralph said his parents could vanish and all that, but that like it was a natural physical reaction. It wasn’t as intentional as when he does it. He never saw his dad or mom in the air, that didn’t happen with them. Maybe they just hadn’t thought of it, and he laughed a bit.
“You know, Millicent, I feel like I am looking back into an old dream when we talk about these things. It doesn’t seem real now. Is that good?” said Ralph. “I’ve only seen my father once in years. He was very remote. He never said a word; he just watched me. I think my mother has gone on; I don’t feel her presence anymore.”
“Do you ever see your brothers or sisters,” I asked him.
“Not much. They all live much further north. Some of them have gone Canadian on me!”
“What a fate!” I said, giggling.
“So, Ralph, what’s the most important part of your life, so far?”
“Oh, Millicent! You know the answer! My life was like a baby paddling in shallow water until Ramona made sure I saw her, because she knew what was what. All the slippery pieces of my mind and life fell right into place in the moonlight by the eddy in a river. You’ve heard this story, Milly!”
“I have, yeah. Maybe I just like picturing it,” I said, pouring him another big cup of coffee. I have learned to bring a couple of big thermoses of coffee when I interview Ralph. He is more verbose when full of coffee.
“So, Ralph, what did your parents feed you kids back then, before cooking and hanging around human people. I mean in the winter, when there were no gardens to raid? I can’t imagine what would be edible in the woods in the winter. Maybe I’m not thinking about this right,” I said.
“Oh, we ate whatever animals we could catch. Once we moved up into the National Forest, we had deer. There were pheasants and some other nice edible birds. We had fish all the time. They are easy for even the very young to chew. Roots and shoots. Summer was much easier. A person can live on leaves if they keep at it,” said Ralph.
“Did I ever tell you, Ralph, that I met you long ago? Do you have any memory of a little house and garden with a mom and dad and four kids, the oldest being a girl?” I asked him. “You were just a little guy. We had a nap together in the woods by that white birch tree your mom liked.”
“I don’t remember the nap in the woods, Milly. But I do remember the little house and the raspberries and the corn and the family there. I remember the kids. I remember the big sister best of all because she was always keeping an eye on me. You didn’t tell on me though, did you?”
“No, Ralph, we have been friends for a long time. We lost each other for some time, but here we are! Drinking coffee and talking about the old days.”
“Thanks for the coffee. We have a hard time getting the stuff at home, but that’s okay. It makes a nice treat once in a while. I guess I better ramble. Ramona likes me to come home before dark and she is making dinner! See you soon!”
“Hey, man, give Ramona my love, and tell her thanks for letting you come talk to me. Love to Twigg and Cherry too! They must be getting so big by now.”
With that, he hopped out of the Escalade, my moving office, and took off downhill. We had been parked up on Green Mountain, watching the sky. Sometimes you see interesting stuff up there, mostly after dark. But sometimes before dark too.
After he left, I just sat there and finished off my coffee, looking down the mountainside toward the Sound. You can actually see the salt water from up there. It’s quite a vista.
I was thinking about this interview. Would I write it up for the paper? I finally decided not to. I would just keep this one under my hat.
I drove home as it was getting dark under all those trees, but I know the road pretty well. No problem.
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