I grew up in near East Texas, north of Houston, where the Piney Woods mix and mingle with the more deciduous Central Texas Post Oak Savannah, to the West. Bounded by the San Jacinto, on the east, and the Brazos, to the West.
Our neighborhood, was composed of both types of forest…was somewhat isolated, and had a Railroad as it’s off-center Axis…running north-south.
I remember when I was 5, venturing, for the first time, out of the yard…up a dog-trail, into the Woods.
These Woods would later be the Center of the World…on the slopes of what we called the Hill. A crossroads of two Stagecoach Tracks was situated there…over the years, many artifacts were accidentally discovered…skillets, wagon hubs, and the like. To think that this very oak tree sheltered soldiers and settlers…At the hill, nigh the fence across the road(which was adjacent a big field), ancient bricks were scattered…remains of a sawmill, owned by the man who had cleared this country, and from whom my Grandad had purchased our 10 acres. That man’s house, or the ruins of it, were down the Hill to the west, towards the Tracks, stuck into the belt of almost Jungle that paralleled the Railroad. Remains of kitchen items, lilies from someone’s kitchen garden, now-wild roses…it was an eerie place, especially at night.
In later years, this was the Shortcut to the Tracks…
The Long Way, was by the black top road…which led away north, ere turning west to the Railroad, the Highway(149) and the World, at large. The road skirted the dense Pine Forest, the Presley place…and behind that was Nanduhirion(too much Tolkien), dense Woods, crossed by logging roads, and containing hidden pools, the site of much Reveling in later years…
From that first venture into the Woods, at 5, my World steadily, if slowly, expanded. Folks set limits, which were exceeded, as our audacity grew…before long, we were all over, running through the trails we had cut, in camouflage,(red dawn/Rambo) sneaking up on Train Men, hiding from passing cars(we usually weren’t where we were supposed to be)…eventually Riding Trains…wandering far and wide.
Until I was around 13, I was alone…save for my younger brother…Justin didn’t move in, till then. Brother had buddies his age, while I was apart.
We had great Campouts, at the Hill…the first fort was there…and the first Fire Pit…ashes can still be found, there, at the Center of the World.
Exploding cans of ranch style beans, inadvertently kicked into the fire…trails of burning gasoline in the road, to freak out the paper guy, at 4am…caches of tools, porn mags and explosives…liberated from the Trains and assorted equipment left at the Tracks…
My first drink, New Years Eve, when we were 15…me an ML snuck into Rickett’s Barn, at the hill…after watching their drunken revel for several hours…all staggered home, leaving the barn, and the keg, open. Almost passed out on the tracks that night…which probably should have foretold the disasters to come…awoke to the sweeping headlight of an oncoming Train, horn blowing, rushing up to us…I woke ML, and we escaped…throwing rocks at the wheels, watching the sparks…
I can still taste that first beer…PBR.
All of this is hazy…seen as if through mist…due, I suspise, to the Wreck, and the intervening Wild Years…my 20’s.
I get real nostalgic, overcome with forgotten things, when I return there.The pine trees that were a mere 10 feet tall on the misty September morning when Pop died, are now 50 feet high…the “Stairs”, “Hole in the Wall”,and other fortifications are still discernable, in the Jungle-like growth…staging areas to wait for the Engine to pass, on the sidetrack, so we could board the Trains…by moonlight, and early morning, rain or shine…ride for a while, then jump and roll, on the sand pile, still extant, beside a certain part of the Tracks….then run back and board it again. Talking, at the Crossing, to Trainmen, waiting for a passing freight…on their way to Teague, and on up into the heartland of America, then back, to Houston, the Ship Channel, and the starving people of the World. Wanderlust…engendered by the tales they told, as well as our own explorations…a Wanderlust that has never left me, even now, in my Cripplehood….Further!
We used to communicate, over distance, by “Howling”…just what it sound like…I remember a late summer morning, before the roof of the first Fort was completed, Howling for Justin…a coolness in the air, approaching Fall…the sharpness of the distant stand of Pines…crispness of the air…
And the morning Pop died, we had to meet the bus at Justin’s…there were deer, in the mist, among the small trees in the field…
And the early morning 3am when me and ML, nodding around the fire, at the Hill, heard the coyotes and owls, echoing through the Pines, up from the Creek Bottom…and another, wilder sound…Bigfoot…otherworldly screech/howl…silencing the others…moonlit fog in the pine boughs…
I procured old USGS maps from Gagoo, and, together with stories of my parent’s Wild Years in those same Woods, we set out, beyond the Neighborhood..into the Great Woods, the Creek Bottom (Lake Creek), and the Bog…a deep depression where my Dad had lost a deer, decades before…impenetrable Thickets…a Bald Hill, deep in the Woods, that my Mom spoke of, that I, however, only found once, at sunset…and got lost on the way out…a bic lighter for seeing, and surrounded by Eyes…I made my way out, and home.
Later, (I believe it was Justin) and I crossed Lake Creek, on one of our Wanders…got lost, and spent the night, with a fire, and ten thousand eyes…heard the train in the morning, giving us a direction Home.
When I was 15, an oil rig went up, at the back side of Nanduhirion…me and Justin investigated, by moonlight…his dog kept running from our hide, along the ponds, into the bright lights from the rig…the workmen never knew that they were watched…
Trainmen, too, rarely knew of our presence. Justin overheard them once, talking about the long red headed wild man, in the woods…that was me, of course…my first Mythical Incarnation, as it were…
There were six foot Rattlesnakes, Eastern Diamondbacks, in those woods…I grew up along side them…in retrospect, it’s a minor miracle that either they, or the Trains, didn’t get us…
By the time I was 15, mind filled with Books, the Wanderlust was becoming very Powerful…I’d stand at the Hill and feel the Universe, out there…a Universe of Experience, People, Places…The fuzzy Boundaries of our Neighborhood were closing in…
I began to Leave, at 16…when Mom ran me off for Rebellion….I finally, for real, left, several years later, when the heat was hot, the cops were after me, and there was no question as to whether my two hometowns any longer wanted me around…
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