Into The Woods…
A couple of weeks back I took Breanna (my ten year old) to the Timaqua Preserve Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, in northeast Arlington, part of Jacksonville, Florida. This used to be one of my favorite places to just get away and be with God and nature (the other area is Mandarin Park, southern end of the county). I love being outdoors. I was raised on a farm in the Mandarin area, once a small farming community prior to the consolidation of Jacksonville. When I was young, I couldn't stand being outside; I had been sick for a long time when I was much younger and was confined to the indoors and grew fond of television, and now here I was being deprived of it. In time, though, I preferred being outside. We had a few acres, most of it wooded, and nearby there were woods of turkey oak that were crisscrossed with trails. Why watch "Skipper Ed & Bozo" when I could blaze trails! And I braved the depredations of ticks and golden orb spiders to see where those trails went.
I always had images of finding the most bizarre things. I knew that there had been numerous plane crashes in the area, or at least fantasized that there may have been, due to nearby NAS Jacksonville. In all my searches, though, I only found dumped washing machines and the rusted hulks of very old cars.
Still, I learned much about what was wild in northeast Florida at the time. I discovered things that should be avoided, such as stinging nettle and its vicious, stinging hairs. I learned the different sounds of the woods, from the riotous call of a blue jay to the high pitch shriek of annoyed kestrels. And I learned to appreciate the silence of an early spring day, as the sunlight painted golden colors as it passed through the pale, new canopy overhead.
Children today here in Jacksonville, perhaps elsewhere, seem to have lost something. There was a time when it was safe for a child to wander safely through forests that were probably owned and technically off limits. The owners weren't usually around, and the ones I happen to know never really cared, as long as no shenanigans took place. Nowadays, we're afraid to let our children go around the block unsupervised, worried about what might happen to them, or to a lesser degree what they may do themselves. Forget going into the wild unsupervised.
Yet we read with fascination those tales spun more than a century ago, about the exploits of the young in a young and mostly untamed America. The world may have indeed become a more dangerous place, or is it that we have changed? Perhaps both?
So Breanna and I wandered deep into the oak forest on the edge of the St. John's River, where, centuries before, Timaqua Indians and French settlers once trod, over ancient sand dunes and oyster mounds now buried under the debris of countless oak, holly and hickory trees. We wandered until we reached the bird watching platform overlooking Round Marsh, where the ten year old in me imagined it to be an ancient meteor crater (which it is not). I climbed the stairs to the top of the platform and looked around while Breanna played below. It felt good to be here again, since I hadn't been here in almost two years.
Breanna seemed to just love it.
I just wish, though, that she had known the world the way I did. Perhaps she does, and I'm wrong, who is to say.
But the wonder of it all is still there.
I always had images of finding the most bizarre things. I knew that there had been numerous plane crashes in the area, or at least fantasized that there may have been, due to nearby NAS Jacksonville. In all my searches, though, I only found dumped washing machines and the rusted hulks of very old cars.
Still, I learned much about what was wild in northeast Florida at the time. I discovered things that should be avoided, such as stinging nettle and its vicious, stinging hairs. I learned the different sounds of the woods, from the riotous call of a blue jay to the high pitch shriek of annoyed kestrels. And I learned to appreciate the silence of an early spring day, as the sunlight painted golden colors as it passed through the pale, new canopy overhead.
Children today here in Jacksonville, perhaps elsewhere, seem to have lost something. There was a time when it was safe for a child to wander safely through forests that were probably owned and technically off limits. The owners weren't usually around, and the ones I happen to know never really cared, as long as no shenanigans took place. Nowadays, we're afraid to let our children go around the block unsupervised, worried about what might happen to them, or to a lesser degree what they may do themselves. Forget going into the wild unsupervised.
Yet we read with fascination those tales spun more than a century ago, about the exploits of the young in a young and mostly untamed America. The world may have indeed become a more dangerous place, or is it that we have changed? Perhaps both?
So Breanna and I wandered deep into the oak forest on the edge of the St. John's River, where, centuries before, Timaqua Indians and French settlers once trod, over ancient sand dunes and oyster mounds now buried under the debris of countless oak, holly and hickory trees. We wandered until we reached the bird watching platform overlooking Round Marsh, where the ten year old in me imagined it to be an ancient meteor crater (which it is not). I climbed the stairs to the top of the platform and looked around while Breanna played below. It felt good to be here again, since I hadn't been here in almost two years.
Breanna seemed to just love it.
I just wish, though, that she had known the world the way I did. Perhaps she does, and I'm wrong, who is to say.
But the wonder of it all is still there.
posted by Robert at 10:55 AM
2 Comments:
It's the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve
Dear Anonymous,
Noted and corrected. When I was a child, though, we simply knew it as FT. Caroline, the Ribault Monument and old Willy Brown's place. That was a very long time ago...
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