Buy the book Growing Up Itchy

Crisscrossing the mountain were a myriad of paths; winding and twisting like shredded lace across patches of windblown mountain grass. They ran through low areas, where cool aspen forests drank spring water that soaked up through the ground. The paths cut through high pine woods, where the wind moaned, coating the path with carpets of fragrant brown needles.

Deer stepped quietly along these paths, nibbling daintily on gooseberry bushes that clustered around fallen logs and protruding subterranean bedrock. Coyotes sulked along the paths too, after evening fell. Their tireless legs made miles seem insignificant – they could go anywhere they pleased on the mountainside, and did. Grey heard them nightly. Their chorus of yips and barks drifted far and wide, haunting the darkness. Some listeners might believe there were hundreds of coyotes out there, but Grey knew that one or two could sound like many. Their lonely cry made little eyes open wide at night, as covers were pulled up tight against sleepless chins.

Coyotes frequented the mountain paths, but they were of little consequence. The chickens were safe in a pen, the rabbits were in a hutch, and the sheep were large and guarded by proximity and the smells of people. Bears, as the family recently discovered, weren’t deterred by these things; but coyotes were smaller and more easily frightened away.

In a never-ending effort to live the dream of all serious hippies from California, Mom and Dad built an enormous garden. It rested in a low place between the mountain slope and a hill that overlooked the tiny Canadian town far below. A six foot tall barbed-wire fence ringed the garden, which was at least three times the square footage of the little house. The fence was necessary – armies of deer patrolled the slopes, nibbling on every tasty plant they encountered. You would not think that deer could tire of their usual diet – for it was excellent. Grass, gooseberry bushes, ferns, and other natural mountain foliage was all the deer could ever want or need.

Deer, however, are like children in some ways. They get used to common flavors, and when presented with something new and delicious, they eagerly go after it – like a boy goes after a heaping bowl of ice cream. Have you ever eaten flat, smashed peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches until you could not stand the sight of them? How about bowls of soggy, congealing oatmeal? That’s how deer felt about mountain grass. It was everywhere, and they ate it, but they wanted the good stuff. Peas and carrots are much tastier than grass, so the deer traveled the mountain paths in search of vegetable gardens.

Dad put up the barbed-wire fence to keep the deer out. As great as the fence was, it did nothing to keep the weeds out. That was the responsibility of the children.

Bethany was just old enough to weed now, as long as someone older showed her which plants not to pull.

Today she weeded alongside Grey. He kept one eye on her while he pulled weeds of his own. It wasn’t too difficult, but Bethany had an attention span the length of a little green broccoli worm. She never weeded for long.

“Beth, come back here! We’re not done!” Grey said.

It was no use. He could only ask her so many times before he gave up. She wanted to wander around, so Grey let her slide out of his mind.

He hated weeding – a lot. He disliked most boring things, and weeding was firmly on top of that list, just above “listening to the other kids read book reports.” Weeding seemed to make him hungry. Also, it made him really itchy. The coarse dirt dried under his fingernails. Tracks of sweat tickled his neck and back as it ran down his bare skin. He scratched where the sweat drops ran, leaving tracks of mud – dirty streaks that dried and itched even more.

He looked up, rubbing his neck to get the kinks out. Long garden rows stretched ahead of him, and he knew that the sun was going to go down before he finished with the potatoes. He would probably die out here in the garden, withered away from sheer boredom.

He kept pulling weeds, his fingertips dry and dirty – like using a chalkboard when you’re thirsty. He sat cross-legged in the black dirt. He scooched forward to the next potato plant in search of more tiny green weeds to pull. A big, exaggerated sigh threatened to escape his throat, but no one was around to impress, so he held it in.

There’s no use in pouting when Ash and Bethany were the only ones there to witness it.

A little indention in the dirt broke the soul-crushing monotony – a deer print! Two small half-moon arcs, deeper at one end, separated by a quarter-inch gap. He’d recognize that anywhere. He was inside the fence. In the garden. There should be no deer prints here.

Glancing up from his potato row, he cast his gaze around like a fishing net. Over there, another one.

This was a problem that Dad should know about. Relishing the excuse to stand up straight and take a break from his chore, Grey rose up, kicked his legs and swung his arms to release the muscle tension.

“Ash, watch Beth for a minute.” Grey said.

“Where are you going?”

“I’m going to tell Dad about these deer tracks.”

Grey walked purposefully – but not too quickly – up the slope towards the house. As he approached, he heard the familiar clank of a wrench, coming from underneath the truck. He angled over to where the old Jeep was parked. Covered in grease, Dad lay in the dirt and weeds, his legs jutting out as he sorted out some mechanical problem. This was a common sight. The truck was old – it needed more love than a newborn baby on its first birthday. It was born sometime in the forties, long before Dad was alive. Forest green. It looked like it had been painted to match the pines that grew everywhere. A large “W” adorned the center of the tailgate. It was a Willy’s Jeep.

“Is that you, Grey? Why aren’t you weeding?”

“A deer got into the garden,” Grey said. “I saw some footprints. I think it was eating the vegetables.”

Dad muttered something under the truck. Then he paused for a moment. Grey stood by, waiting for possible instructions.

“OK, I’ll have to deal with it later. Can you pass me that socket?”

“Which one?” asked Grey.

“The one I’m pointing to,” Dad said, “right there, by my leg.”

Grey looked closely for it, but couldn’t see any socket there.

“I can’t see it.”

Dad grunted and shifted around under the truck, until his greasy, blackened face appeared.

“It’s right there!” Dad strained from his awkward position to see where his hand was pointing, and there was no socket there.

Grey shrugged, trying to look neutral; as innocent as possible. It seemed like Dad was always losing tools and it made him snappy. Grey learned long ago that it was a bad idea to point out Dad’s mistakes. Dad was always right, no matter what anyone else thought.

“Get back to weeding.” Dad said sharply.

Grey turned and moseyed back down to the garden, Dad’s muttering diminishing behind him.

Later that evening, they went out and checked the fence over. Grey plucked the barbed wire strands, but they were all tight. The fence was in great shape.

“They’re going over, not through,” Dad said, frowning. “Six feet of fence and they jump right over.”

Dad began to hunt that deer. On weekends when he wasn’t working at the sawmill, he would get up early before the kids were awake. He would go out again in the evening after dinner, and stay out late, watching the garden from a hiding place. The Winchester was with him, propped up on a fallen log.

Grey knew that he would probably hear an unexpected shot when he was least prepared for it, and that it probably would make him leap right out of his shoes, had he wore them. A boy needed to be prepared for things like sudden loud gunshots, so that he wouldn’t jump and look like a scaredy-cat. This tension hovered over him whenever Dad was hunting this deer, and stayed with him until he went inside for the night.

He never did hear the Winchester’s loud report, but after a few days his lunchbox felt extra heavy. Something new – a little glass jar, with a wide, brass-colored lid, the same size as his water jar. The words “Mason” across the side gave him no clue about the contents, but it appeared to be meat.

Mom winked and said “Don’t tell anyone at school about that. OK?”

He nodded gravely, not sure what she was talking about.

The new item in his lunchbox turned out to be venison. It was the best meat he had ever tasted!

Tasty deer weren’t the only reason Dad built the fence. Cows wandered the mountainside too, but unlike deer, they couldn’t jump over tall barriers. They couldn’t really jump at all, and so they plodded over everything. The fence did a decent job of keeping them out.

Grey was accustomed to the ever-present sound of the cow’s distant lowing. It was a nice sound, once it had been filtered by miles of clear mountain air and acres and acres of trees and grass. The long, low sound gave him a pleasant lonely feeling, one he couldn’t understand or explain. They were out there on the slopes, forever wandering. Each cow had a plastic colored tag on its ear, and they belonged to someone. Grey never knew who the owners were, but there was never any people around, only the cows.

They were “free range” cows, and they provided many hours of entertainment for mountain boys. Grey and Ash often said, “Let’s go chase cows!” And they often did.

If you have never chased cows, you have missed out on one of life’s greatest thrills. To cause the earth itself to ring with thunder was a great achievement for young boys. With whacking-sticks in hand, they would trek the angled paths running to and fro along the mountainside. They headed towards distant mooing, and knew when they were close by the state of cow pies on the path.

Most kids have been taught that ancient people used to burn cow pies in their fires. Grey knew this was possible – when the pies had dried for weeks in the sun, they became almost like paper. They were the most natural of all paper types, consisting of nothing but organic grass fibers. You could pick one up once it had been dried, and it was lighter than driftwood. Cow pies would often dry in a full unbroken disk – well-suited for throwing, Frisbee style. They were lying all over the place, and you had to watch your step whenever you neared a herd of cows. The closer you got to the herd, the fresher and wetter the pies became.

Perhaps you’d pass on the potential cow-chasing excitement after learning about the feeling of stepping in a fresh cow pie with bare feet. It happened often. When running full speed along a mountain path, one doesn’t have time to watch too closely, looking down at one’s feet is dangerous, unless walking slow. The trick was to simply keep moving and let the icky feeling naturally go away. The ground wore the goo off.

“Eww.” Ash had just stepped in one.

“I know,” Grey said. His own feet were slightly damp from one a hundred yards back. He paused, rubbing the side of his foot on a hillock of grass.

Ash crouched down on his heels, resting a moment. “I bet they’re over the next rise, past that ravine.”

They listened. The mooing was certainly closer now, perhaps only half a mile away, not far.

Grey nodded, and whacked a mullein plant, sending the seeds flying. “Let’s go get ’em.”

They meandered along the path, stepping carefully as they passed rugged outcroppings of rock, and before long they were trudging up the other side of the ravine. The sounds of birds chirping rose up from the aspen grove behind them. The birds usually hid and were silent when they passed, but made up for it in extra song after they were gone.

The boys neared the top of the next rise, and slowed. There was a big clump of boulders up there, and they angled over to them. They’d make great cover; some of the cows knew them and wouldn’t hang around if they were spotted coming up the path. Grey knew the boulders were a perfect place to plan their attack.

Once a herd had been located, the boys would circle around and drive the cows across the slopes with their whacking sticks. They would whoop and toss pebbles. Getting a single cow to move was simple. Creating an earthquake of pounding hooves, tossing horns and acres of running beef was an art. Grey and Ash excelled at this art. No other kid could move mountains like they could. Mountains of beef, that is.

The sun was hot overhead when they reached the boulders. Grey pressed his hand on the cool wall of stone as they reached the shade. The earthy smell of fresh cow-trampled ground washed over him.

“Look, there they are!” Ash pointed out a lone cow. “She’s got friends too.”

Grey circled around the boulder to get a better look. Careful, slowly. Perfect! That brown and white bovine had many friends, and not one of them had spooked yet. The herd grazed, slowly contemplating nothing; oblivious to the impending exercise. They seemed content. Small birds flitted high, their songs gracing the hillside with cheerful twittering. Green grasshoppers sang a contented, buzzing song.

It was a perfect set-up. If we don’t make any noise, Grey thought. This herd was primed and ready for a surprise attack.

“We gotta get close enough to hit them,” Grey said. “We’re still too far away. They’ll see us coming.”

Ash nodded. Actually nailing a cow with a stone was the ultimate challenge. They hardly ever got close enough before the herd bolted away.

“Let’s go this way,” Grey suggested. “We’ll attack from over there, the small boulder out nearest them.”

Grey looked down at his feet, it wouldn’t do to spoil the surprise now, by stepping on a stick or something.

“Don’t make any noise.”

The brothers crept along, keeping the boulders between them and the herd. The big stones they passed grew smaller and smaller as they neared the edge, and at last they crouched, hunched over almost double. They waddled in this manner until they got to the last big rock, the one closest to the cows. Finally positioned in their attack point, Grey peeked over the top of the stone to check out the herd.

The closest cow was facing them, its head up, alert.

“Wasn’t she facing the other way a minute ago?”

Ash shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“I think she may have heard us coming,” Grey whispered.

All was not lost, because the cow hadn’t run yet. It was acting mighty suspicious, however. The gears turned slowly in cows’ heads. Despite this, they wouldn’t have long before she would figure out something was up, get jittery, and move out to merge with the herd.

Grey looked down and found a nice flat rock. It felt perfect in his hand, like it had been made just for him to throw.

He looked at Ash, and nodded. “Ready?”

Ash readied his stick, his legs braced for an explosion of movement. He returned the nod – the final signal. Time to attack!

Grey moved a bit – sliding out from behind the boulder until he had the space to run. He could just see the nearest cow. Its head was turned away now, looking at the herd; It seemed nervous, about to flee. They had scouted this herd almost perfectly and were in a tactical position George Washington himself would have envied.

Grey cocked his arm back for the throw, like the hammer on a gun. He took a running step out from behind the boulder, just about to go into full sprint – when a sudden clattering broke the silence. His foot had dislodged a stone! It rattled loud, disturbing the peaceful summer afternoon. Too late, he was running full speed now.

Bovine heads lifted, turned. The nearest cow, the designated target, swung her ponderous gaze around. She bellowed the alarm.

They were spooked! Let the earthquake begin!

With a mighty leap, Ash charged forward, whacking-stick spinning above his white hair, stones flying. Grey knew when he was in range, the cow had turned now and was pounding the ground, bellowing the alarm to the rest of the herd. Grey’s fingers tightened on his stone and he let fly. The rock homed in on the fleeing target. Her massive legs tore up the earth as she bolted, tail straight up, running hard from Grey and the flying stone.

A single “eye” looked back from under the cow’s upturned tail, and the stone struck this target dead center with a delightful wet SMACK.

Grey whooped! What a shot!

Even better yet – so unbelievable if he had not seen it himself – the rock stayed where it struck, glued to the fleeing cow by its own natural adhesive.

Asher’s eyes widened and he burst out laughing. “It stuck to its butt! Its butt!”

Grey joined him in laughter as the colossal herd fled across the slopes. They doubled over, rolling on the ground; laughing so hard they cried. It was their proudest moment.