I have in my quiet hours been attempting to write a book, a disoriented memoir if you will. I have a resolution, or is it a revolution, this year I will finish it. I thought I might offer up but one small section of the book that I hope to call, “The Red Queen and the Feral Child Within.”
Starting at a young age, I have had times I thought I was feral, as did others including my Old Man. It is, I suppose, a stretch, but it represents a desire, maybe an effort, to live apart from the normal everyday we all live. These experiences, while always simple in nature, have offered me jewels of memories, and appreciations of those things close to the land.
The Red Queen is from the Lewis Carroll’s The Looking Glass. In the book there was a problem for Alice and she said the following to the Royal Highness, the Red Queen, "Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else — if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." "A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" I see this one statement as a metaphor for life in America---and a very brief explanation of the title.
A canoeing episode down the Fox River and into to the Wisconsin River, age nineteen:
As we dropped into the Wisconsin River I remembered the smells changed. It was a big river odor, one that had memories in me. It was as if the Wisconsin River itself has a smell. It is not to say other bigger rivers aren’t similar, but to this day I think this river is unique. I suspected then, and know now, this may well be true, for each river has its own fauna, its own chemistry, its own distant origins. The river has always been a good smell to me, maybe it is about those childhood things, those first memories there with the shiny SkipJacks, the Skipjacks that lived in the river at Sauk City not that many years earlier.
Toward Sauk City we floated, stopping on sand bars, camping, fishing a little, but mostly just exploring and wondering about rivers. Just above my first home in Sauk, we approached the hydroelectric plant where we would have to portage the canoe full of gear over the east river bank. As we stood on the top of the dam’s berm, I saw a gentleman approach who clearly was a worker at the dam. A pleasant chap it would seem, so in good Wisconsin form we chatted him up inquiring about the workings of the huge power plant. In time I told him that I had spent my first years right across the river, just up by the railroad tracks, a block or two off River Road.
With a little small talk I learned he had been here all his life. He asked my father’s name obviously thinking their trails may have crossed. On telling him it was Bob Wright his eyes instantly lifted and a knowing, half smile slipped over his face. He slowly looked down while shaking his head, as if to say, “I don’t believe this.” There was a brief pause as he gazed around searching memories. “I know your old man. He’s a writer. Bought a newspaper up north. Ya, I remember. Been a few years but we had some good times together right here on the river and over in the Baraboo Hills.” Again there was a cautious pause after some exchange. “He ever tell you about the time he stuck an arrow in a farmer’s pig? “ He knew he had a revelation and his sly smile almost told more of the story.
I am sure my eyes opened wide, not in shock but with a hint of pure entertainment. We were a family with a hunting tradition, so I knew the Old Man thoroughly enjoyed being in the woods stalking deer, but a pig, particularly a domestic pig! “Your not shitting me, are you?” I asked. “Oh no, He did it. I was with him. I don’t know what got into him but he did it. Musta been bored ‘cause there were not many deer in those days. You gotta ask him about that one.” After a few more reflections on other years and other people, we moved down the slow river.
All through the years I had heard the rants on ethics in the woods, and safety, and respect and here was this guy who had a few skeletons tucked away in the hills, not that it was all bad ,but still, there was a touch, of say, feralness to it all. He was a loose canon, a man not totally in control, maybe a hunter needing an experience of killing a food source. I remember as we continued the float, wanting so badly to tell him the story and literally relishing the moment because here was a situation, a little black mark that might generate a most colorful explanation of a dubious deed. My Father was full of humor and no doubt he would have to move in that direction to cover his ass. The disclosure might also eliminate any comments he might ever have on my own misdeeds. I’m sure my companion, Ron my classmate, was even more confused, and suspicious about our family’s past than he was before. Were these people moonshiners?
We were retrieved by a friend not too far from the Mississippi and taken back to my home in Marquette county, and to the old man who, I might add, was now in his mid-forties and a stalwart of the community. “Hey, how’d it go?” He immediately asked. “Great, man what a trip”. We stopped at the power plant there at the dam and we met this guy Bill Nelson”. In an instant my old man’s head dropped and he shook his head in a regretting way, mumbling some inaudible profanity. When he looked up the first question was, ”I supposed you heard about that damned pig? That was the dumbest thing I ever did and there isn’t another person who knows about it and you have to run into that son -of-a-bitch. But I want you to know, I went to the farmer and told him I did it---and I had to pay for the damn thing. Keep in mind, it was out running around in the woods, not like a normal pig.” The old man stood there, I’m sure half laughing but fighting it.
In looking back all those years, it seems obvious he had been feral for a least a brief moment---or should I say an outlaw. He had been outed as the wild man I had suspected. Not for a minute did I ever judge him badly for it---he was a human, a hunter (of sorts) and his genetics, his prehistoric man had just come shining through. It was also a rare moment in my young life.
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