Boys & Bones

I have been sorting through decades of stuff lately around the house. Purging, leaning down, minimalizing. I have now dug down into long forgotten boxes that sat beneath boxes and duffle bags…boxes that contain ‘treasures’ that had to be kept thirty some years ago. Young boys in the wilderness or camping along rivers and lakes came upon treasures that were special enough they would cart them back to camp, their collective faces sweaty, covered in grime and peach fuzz showing excitement and imagination.

Often such treasures were bones. Bones of various animals that had met their end and this generated a multitude of questions that allowed my furtive imagination to provide exciting answers and possibilities. Today I found an old jaw bone and teeth, a skull, part of a spine and even an old shark jaw from Mexico. As I stood in the last light of the day, the moon once again rising in full majesty, I recalled so many years ago little guys that today, as men, still enjoy the outdoors and the camping, fishing, hiking and roughing that goes with it. An old, musty box on the bottom shelf of the shed long forgotten. I am not getting rid of the bones. Grandchildren need to hear about these bones.