Welcome Penn
( I have a better, more tightly edited version of this somewhere and I’ll update with that version soon. Sorry.)
The snow blows like stink above the ridge at Eddie’s High Nowhere, my favorite place in the world. The spume kicks across the rocks, cutting through my goggles. It’s up at Eddie’s, while six of my fingers are numb, that my partner points to the valley and says, “spring is coming, you can feel it, we’ll be biking soon.” I couldn’t feel shit, but I trusted him because he has a weird Rain Man like connection with the weather.
Spring is a kick-ass season, top three for sure…and it always seems to come right when you need it. When your knees are shot from endless turns, your shins reduced to rubble and you just stone-cold need a break from the relentless nature of Old-Man-Winter.
My son was just born and my aspirations on day one were simple; keep him breathing. Days two through thirty it was all about keeping him from turning blue. And then I just began to hope that with hard work I could keep him from one day ending up in a bell tower with a high-powered rifle. I’m not aspiring to eagle scout status in parenting, a man has to know his limitations.
But as spring comes along I start to think about what I have to teach him about the outdoors…the simple stuff like, wet = cold or sand in your bathing suit just plain sucks. Somewhere along the way I was taught to laugh at rain, to revel in it rather than being one who scurries, head bowed …I hope he gets that. He will learn to pack light…probably by packing heavy a few times. He will learn that the answer to the question, “how far to camp” is always answered with “about a mile.” Somewhere, accidentally, he will learn that he has far more strength than he ever thought possible. That when others in the group are hitting the wall, wigging out about being lost, or are just plain cold and miserable…he will have reserves deeper than he ever knew and be able to help the group move on.
The gift of the outdoors often starts simply, as it did for me, with a beautiful brass whistle and compass from my grandfather, Big Bill. I didn’t understand what he gave me but I raced through the Vermont woods shrieking with the whistle and failing completely to navigate anything with the compass…and I rubbed them raw as I played with them and tried to understand their purpose.
I’m not sure how I’ll foster Penn’s gear addiction, but I’ll probably start it with something simple, permanent and beautifully made like a Gerber multi-tool. Shortly afterwards he’ll get his first pack, sleeping bag and tent. When he has these pieces the world will expand for him, first to the backyard, then to a campground and one day to the whole world.
Welcome to your first spring Penn. –John Bresee
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