Walking Memories

November 2023

Emeric Conrad.  That’s my grandson’s name. I think it’s a beautiful name.  It is certainly a complicated one, reflecting the complex times into which he was born and will grow up.  One thing is certain; he will rue the day when he needs to sign a mortgage or take a loan out on a car. If there are such things once he reaches the age to want one. That’ll be a heck of a signature!

Emeric is three years old now.  And he is such a little man.  He comes and visits his grandparents three or four times a week. One of the things he loves to do is take walks with grandpa.  It doesn’t matter if it’s hot, freezing, raining, snowing, windy or whatever; he loves to take our walk.  I too, thoroughly enjoy our little strolls.  So today I ponder the memory-making-machine of taking walks with my grandson.

We live near the city but equally near the country.  As the crow flies, there is a large corn field not ¼ mile from my house.  We also have a very nice neighborhood path that goes off into a forest and ends at a stream, right near a small waterfall.  There is abundant active wildlife in the area. It is all very pristine. So, it offers a great deal to see and enjoy.  For both of us.  Basically, I just enjoy being with my grandson.  Just us, and nature.  Two of my favorite things.

Emeric may only be three, but he is willing to walk almost a half mile to the stream by our house, and another half mile back. He’s been doing this since he could barely walk. Now he mixes walking, running, dancing, and acting like a plane.  Climbing up rocks and logs and jumping off them. He never tires. He never asks to be picked up.  In fact, he is just not a “pick me up” kind of kid.

So, we walk.  And we talk. Or I guess I should say, he asks questions and I answer them.  I try hard to reply with a question back to him.  “Why is it windy grandpa?”, Why do I have a shadow?” “What’s that noise grandpa?” “Why are the leaves wet?” “Why does the water make that sound?” “Why is there a rock here?”  And my replies are usually, “Why do you think, Emeric?” You get the picture.  It’s an invigorating, circular conversation that lasts the entire journey.

Unlike his grandfather, Emeric is already more knowledgeable about tools and construction equipment than I was, or ever will be.  His dad is a handyman, so Emeric knows stuff that most adults don’t know.  I’ll say, “Emeric, check out that bulldozer!” His reply will be “That’s not a bulldozer, that’s a Skid Steer.”  Or, as on this day, we were by the corn field, and I said, “Check out that huge tractor!” Quickly, he provided a rebuttal, “That’s a Combine Harvester, Grandpa!”.  I looked it up when we got home.  He was right.

Today, it was a lovely fall day. A little windy.  There were garbage cans that had blown into the road from some of our neighbors, so we had to make sure we picked them all up.  We visited a house well decorated for Halloween; it had a huge inflatable mummy in the front yard that he was enamored with.  He completely grasped the way the blower kept it inflated, and the ropes held it down.  But he just could not get the whole “Mummy” concept.  That’s a tough one to explain.

As our path enters the woods, we pick up black walnuts that have fallen from the trees.  At this time of year, they are plentiful.  Emeric loves to throw these in the river.  Mainly because, unlike rocks, we can watch them float away, versus sink.  We often run quickly downstream to a point where we can watch them all go past.  He waves at each and tells them goodbye.  I have heard “Where do they go Grandpa?”, so many times.  I never get tired of explaining it to him. A little different every time.

Today he notices the clouds. They are very fall-like, puffy, low and with a dark greyness accentuated by the low sun of the season. “I don’t like thunder”, he says.  An interesting statement that comes out of the blue.  “Will those cloud make thunder Grandpa?”  I reassure him they will not.  Just to show how quickly he moves on; he picks up a stick and begins pretending it’s a leaf blower.  He starts making believe he is blowing the leaves in the forest. Then he walks behind a bush row that has a small, window-like gap in it, and he quickly transitions to an attendant at a drive-through window.  “How can I take your order?”  He has a great imagination.  I worry how hard society will work to take that away.  I play along of course.  I always ask for Chicken nuggets. I still have my imagination.

The walk continues; we follow nearly the same route each time.  And each time, we must go off the path and pass through a thicket he calls “the caves”.  There are places in it he can hide, and he loves this. There are fallen trees he can climb and big stumps he can jump off.  It is secluded and dark in the summer with all the foliage, but now, in the fall, it is open, so it is not truly cave-like.  Regardless, he doesn’t care.  He’s with grandpa, we are outdoors and playing our little games.      

We are only a few hundred yards from home now, in a field that lies behind our house.  We always follow a drainage ditch, so we can use the bridge across it that our neighbor built, fondly known to Emeric as “Brian’s bridge”.  That is our neighbor’s name, of course.  As we walked there today, we examined two deep, muddy tire tracks, that proceeded along the ditch.  We had not seen these before. “Pick-up truck got stuck”, Emeric exclaims.  How can I refute that? He’s probably correct.

We cross the bridge and soon we are back in our yard. As is typical of fall in Michigan, it’s gotten colder; the sun has hidden itself behind the clouds.  It looks as if it might even rain. We quickly make our way across the lawn and inside. Not before Emeric grabs a stick and makes believe he has the nozzle of a power washer to quickly clean my deck as he walks across it. To keep with tradition, I make Emeric some hot cocoa, which is how we conclude our walks if it is cold.  “Ahh delicious!”  As we sit and drink our cocoa, we recant the walk to grandma, who asks Emeric questions, and in his own way he tells her the story. Incorporating many more questions into the dialog.

Ahh, what a life! Both for him and for me.  This is time so well spent!  I truly hope he retains memories of these walks. I also hope he still wants to take them as he grows older, when other things become more important.  When he has more options.  When grandpa is older, slower, and probably not as much fun.  For now, I will just soak all this up.  Enjoying every step, including all the questions.  The whole experience makes me have questions of my own.  Like, does it get any better than this?