The Ile Camera
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
From the Gables
Mark McPherson
PUBLISHED: January 11, 2008
On the late morning these words were written, I set out for a sodden walkabout. That, after the gentle sound of raindrops tattooing upon my library rooftop.
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Comfy, a good book, a final cup of coffee, I felt the desire to do - what? To go out into our local wilderness.
Lately my favorite stretch of ground is that which reaches out between the high school's easterly perimeter and the middle school's southerly side. And there betwixt a veritable glen fit for rabbit, bird or deer, go I.
'Round about Thanksgiving you may have read my thoughts about cleaning up that stretch; also of how our own Nature Conservancy has plans to do so next spring.
But for now? Well, I've begun to see and survey those woods with a warden's eye.
Matter of fact, I talked about them in a roundabout way in our little holiday publication, "The Deerest of his Reindeer."
That, as a rarified few who purchased it to benefit the historical society's yuletide boutique may remember that those woods were the setting - a deer was the co-narrator - and yours truly was the scribe.
Anyhow, I have made the pilgrimage through what I've dubbed The Wild Wood since Oct. 29. I know that for certain, out there is an inscription on rock that attests to the date.
Thereafter, I have gone on Thanksgiving morning, Christmas Eve Day, and now, for my first return jaunt of the new year.
Originally today, and even as I entered into the thawing domain of that forest, more than gumbooted, ankle deep in water, I toyed with what this week's column would involve.
I thought it might be along the lines of how most of us seem to sail into the post-holiday doldrums about now.
You know the drill - bills, postponed doctor appointments, income tax preparations - all those good things that await our attentions after the warm glow of the Christmastide has ebbed back to sea.
And now, rather than singing "I Saw Three Ships," here we are, I stoically mused, feeling the leaks as we slosh through the mud and slush - both literally and figuratively as well. Then after a bit, I chanced to find literary inspiration keeking out at me.
Now for those of you who wonder, the term "keeking" is a Scottish word which means "peeking out."
And that was what I saw, looming out of a loamy, leafy burrow, tinted in bright green. I neared to it, wondering if this was the bald head of a hibernating leprechaun, eager for St. Patrick's?
As I got closer I realized that "bald head" was the shining lime-green surface of a stitched softball! Seeing it, obviously near the softball field where I stood, made sense.
It also made me recall my summery travels over near the tennis courts. For there on not a few occasions I've found an errant tennis ball or two, or three or four.
Times such as those I've wondered at the largesse of our local players, who obviously aren't worried about the cost of a misfired ball flown over the fence.
Luckier they than we, I've sometimes thought, remembering when I went over to the Berkley public tennis courts with a high school pal, having less than a can's worth of balls between us.
But this, as I've long reminded myself, in both past and present terms, is Grosse Ile. Land of plenty. Realm of replacements. City of surpluses, albeit in lawsuits, monies for them, or even, I suppose - education-based sporting equipment!
The point was furthered a bit as I walked through the woods.
The claxon went off when I now found not a softball, but a stitched hardball - wet, but in excellent condition. I put it into the pocket of my duffle coat. And I walked, only to find another hardball!
Curious, I thought, as I looked behind toward the softball field. Batting practice with a large box of balls, perhaps?
Then, like some cost-cutting unofficial designate of our Grosse Ile schools purchasing department, I began to estimate the cost of such rogue sporting equipment - nearly $50 for a dozen baseballs - i.e., a loss of about $70 for that which I chanced to discover.
Now before someone gets crotchety about my rant about finding a couple of balls - what about my discovery, even as I walked the perimeter back to the rear side of the high school and along my woods, of another baseball, and another, and another - well, you get the picture.
Sixteen additional balls in total. Also, at least two that were too worse for wear for use. Factor in a few tennis balls, golf balls, even a netted volleyball at the forest's cen-ter. Move over, you sporting goods vendors!
So what's the point? One is that before long I found so many objects that I couldn't fit them into my ex-pansive pockets.
So I rooted through the excess of other bits of diversified trash within those same borders and found a new, wet, but serviceable plastic trash bag.
Ergo, I redeposited the morning's trove of 20 or so samples of our "tax dollars at play" - tied the knot onto my stick's end, and like a damp hobo headed homeward.
When I got home Miss Dori had a visitor who happens to live near the woods.
She has often despaired of the lit-ter along Gray's Drive, and of late, within the woodlands periphery. We've both chatted about the extent to which the malefactors might be - indirectly - the chronic building project for the high school's expan-sion.
But be assured - that is apparently not, as is said, "the whole enchilada."
Nor does it explain the foodstuffs, the transported classroom furniture, the gym equipment, the pop and liquor bottles, the cigarette cartons, etc., in the middle of, rather than on the edge of that soiled bit of paradise.
Having doffed my stalking togs, I chatted with my wife and our friend about how I couldn't help but to keep my eyes "on the ball" for my recent walk.
Then, too, my chum (we'll call her Margie - which isn't her name) said: "You know, I've got an idea. With our young people being so gung-ho about all these 'green' projects, maybe they ought to get out of their classrooms for a while - or even after school, and do some environmental project work picking up and policing the grounds? Matter of fact, they could all wear green buttons to say, 'I cleaned up part of Grosse Ile.'"
"I'm not certain how popular the idea would be," I injected. "It's easier for all of us to salve our con-sciences by buying a few curly-cue light bulbs, or to refrain from using plastic containers. Getting down and dirty is not only less 'correct,' but much less fun.
"Nix 'green' buttons, 'green' T-shirts, or worse, `green' K.O.I.B. (Keep Our Island Beautiful) pullovers. Nope. I doubt you could sell the idea of this as a youthful 'vested interest.' Easier perhaps for a few of us old folks to go over with our waders - or in a few months without, and become 'wardens of the wood.'"
And that's my story. For now, the trash is over there, and accumulating like desert sands between intermittent snowfalls.
And as for those smaller examples of valuable sporting equipment? You might wander over there if you're anticipating running some bases this year.
I guarantee it that if you seek, you shall find all you require to keep your batting average active. Better than that, you needn't ask permission.
After all, you've already paid for those softballs and baseballs, tennis balls and golf balls, etc. And hey - if our students don't wish to use them, why shouldn't we?
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