Does your father sometimes walk a trail along with you, even long after he’s gone? I invited my dad to hike with me today in the Trust’s Pappenheimer Preserve, to get a head start on Father’s Day. I wasn’t sure he would come. While loving, thoughtful, and dependable, he was somewhat of a mystery to me.
Pappenheimer is one of our more modest, lesser visited areas, 101 acres of undramatic Connecticut deciduous woodland. But as I discovered, there is change happening here and for certain trees, it’s happening fast. The first part of the path leads through second growth with occasional mature “wolf” oaks, tall, sturdy, and dignified. Stone walls are tumbled and jumbled, their stories lost to history. Both are standard sights in our locale. The second part of the hike reveals a much different forest.
I have the only painting my father ever did. It’s hanging in my foyer, a still life in oil, a classic vase of flowers. We talked him into it after he retired, had to twist his arm, after he took us on many trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the other NY museums, and the Bronx Zoo. Lots of train rides. He loved art, music, and books. I say “hello, Dad” to the painting as I walk out the front door in the morning to get the paper. Talk with me now, Dad, ok?
Deeper in the preserve, it’s dry and a surprising helping of sun shines through the canopy onto the ferns. Sparse blooming ephemerals along the trail are all tiny. Wild geraniums and azure bluets, both once used as herbal medicine by indigenous people, share the stage with blue-eyed grass, coralroot, and cinquefoil. All are cheerfully replacing shade plants. But that’s not necessarily a good thing. To this non-forester’s eyes it looks like most beech trees have succumbed to their multiple infections and joined ash trees in permanent horizontal rest. This sector appears to be in hospice care.
Dad appreciated nature too. I think he was thrilled to trade Manhattan, where he began work at 14, for rural Sandy Hook, CT. Our many road trip vacations included Howe Caverns, Shenandoah and Acadia National Parks, and picnics at State Parks. With books as guides, he taught us and himself birds, trees, and wildflowers. He would have enjoyed Cornell’s Merlin bird app. Right now it’s identifying 20 or so birds for me by their songs, more than I can hear and too many to list here. Is my old man conversing in birdsong, painting me a picture through flowers?
He was quiet and got quieter. Maybe we lost some rapport when Beatlemania, followed quickly by the Haight-Ashbury scene, captivated me while I was in high school. I was then engaged with the guitar instead of bringing home various wild creatures. And he was already in his fifties, much older than the average parent. Right around then he was transferred too, and his commute got twice as long. He got Paget’s disease and was in pain, quietly of course, all the time. Never complained. That was the end of any city or country adventures. Was I hurting him being the revolutionary long-haired psychedelic-dropping draft dodger I metamorphosed into during college? He didn’t say.
This dried out forest is getting old. I can relate. I am long past the years my father was able to enjoy physical activity. I’m slower but still going, now coming to the end of this ramble. Here’s the oddest-looking hemlock I ever saw. A damaged tree that never gave up. You’ll recognize it when you see it.
Next, we cross a bridge made of three huge flat stones. Some bridges take a lot of time and effort to build. Some you never complete. You have to be at peace with mysteries, stories lost to history. So thanks for the walk, Dad, and for clearing up some things.
George Jacobi
