Me and Walter Mitty: A Great Deal In Common

 Have you ever met Walter Mitty? He's a friend of mine, well, not in any kind of real sense, but he and I share a great deal in common. Walter Mitty, if you are not familiar with him, is a fictional cartoon character, created many years ago by James Thurber around 1939. Walter was this guy who liked to daydream and in his daydreams became a swashbuckling, bigger than life heroic character. The reality of his life fell a great deal short of that, as he was actually quite timid and mundane. Yet, his alter ego transported him into a world of adventure far removed from the boring and simplistic world in which he lived. 

There are times I still feel like Walter Mitty. Growing up I lived so many daydreams I sort of got lost in them at times. Daydreams like becoming an astronaut, or a great athlete were common, but my favorite was dreaming about being a fighter pilot who ruled the skies zooming here and there challenging the bad guys in duels of bravery. Needless to say, none of those things ever came true. I suppose there were many reasons for that, but truth was, my dreams were bigger than my ability to turn them into reality, at least that is the excuse I fall back on when those melancholy thoughts about how, windows of opportunity have closed, begin to resurface. 

Recently, I re-read Chuck Yeager's biography called "Yeager". Chuck, of course, was the guy who first broke the Sound Barrier flying the research airplane the X-1 way back in 1947. He was just a country boy who grew up in the hills and hollers of West Virginia who became a war hero ace fighter pilot who turned test pilot. He went on to become one of the most celebrated pilots of all time. I guess what captivates me about Chuck is how he jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself. He said about himself, "I was at the right place at the right age in the right time of history..." And, so he was. He was not highly educated but had an uncanny understanding of mechanical things and a natural instinct when it came to flying. It was those instincts that pulled him out of some pretty hairy situations. He also said, "The secret to my success was that I always managed to live to fly another day..."

Chuck was no Walter Mitty, he was who Walter wanted to be but never was. I've read about a lot of bigger than life characters, but Chuck Yeager stands apart from all the rest, and I believe America needs more Chuck Yeager's now more than ever.

Yeager also wrote another book called 'Press On'. It's a follow up to his biography but concentrates more on his hunting, fishing and outdoor related adventures. Mixed in with all of those stories are tales of his flying exploits. It mostly takes place after he retired from the Air Force and what impressed me about it was how he just kept on going trading one kind of adventure for another. I would have expected nothing less from the guy.

By now you may be wondering where I'm going with this story. I guess it is to encourage anyone to keep on going in spite of your age or circumstance. It's okay to have dreams and its okay not to have all of them come true. Even though Walter Mitty an I have a lot in common, there are differences. You see even though I never fulfilled my wildest of daydream, I did manage to have some adventures along the way. Those four years I spent in the U.S. Coast Guard performing search and rescue work, for example, were without a doubt the closest I ever came to a swashbuckling adventure. I still claim those years were the defining moment of my young adult life and who I am today is still influenced by what I experienced way back then. I more than likely would never have pursued the outdoor adventures I've managed to live in recent times had I not served those few years so long ago. I have hiked and backpacked parts of the Rocky Mountains, hiked long stretches of rustic beaches, canoed crystal clear waters and spent time simply laying on the creek bank soaking in the moments. I met and fell in love with the love of my life, Kris, who has been my life partner for over 41 years now. I've learned about how to capture the natural beauty of the world through photography, and pursued and finished a thirty year career as an IT specialist. And now, I am retired.

Oh, I still daydream from time to time and wonder...what if...had I challenged myself when I was younger to follow through with those daydreams. Even so, as I've grown older, I realize just how important those daydreams were, for they helped to mold, encourage, and lift up a young boys imagination, and self awareness enough to where his reality and Walter Mitty's deviated away from each other ever so slightly to where he and I live different lives, and I would not change any of it.

Behind The Scenes: More Than Just a Photo

 I love all four seasons, it's just I love the fall season a little more than all the rest. There is something about the allure of fall. It is as though nature is providing one last splash of color and drama before the dormancy of winter sets in. I suppose that may be why I reserve a portion of the fall season to get out and explore not only photographically, but explore the inner self as well, by testing and challenging myself to step deeper, stride longer, and search with more depth for a more fulfilling moment alone with nature. 

In recent years and through various seasons, I have taken a bunch of photos most of which are ordinary captures of ordinary moments. However, a few stand apart for they tend to capture a moment in time captured within the realm of an extraordinary experience. This single fall scene photo taken in the backcountry of Mammoth Cave National Park is one such photo. On the surface it appears to be just another woodland photo highlighted by early season fall colors. Behind the scenes, it represents a favorite discovery where time and place blended with an unusual circumstance.

I was backpacking into the backcountry of the park early in October of 2022. My troublesome hip slowed me down as it has done before. Slowed, but not detoured, as I stumbled onto a old cemetery where a good number of old and weathered headstones stood. Dates on some of the headstones drifted back well into mid-1800's. Somehow along the way, I had missed a turnoff I needed, to head down to a campsite I had reserved for the first night. By this time I was tired and my hip hurt, so, I decided to setup camp off in the woods a few yards from the cemetery. The next morning I would continue on to my intended destination at a second campsite, my favorite, called The Bluffs.

All through the day, I kept hearing the laughter of a small child. Faint as it was, it was clear enough to catch my attention and I kept looking up trying to determine from where it was coming. I never did. I kept faintly hearing it at random with no discernable pattern or direction. Also, all through the afternoon, I struggled to capture any kind of meaningful photos. I just wasn't feeling it.

Eventually, I meandered back to the cemetery and took a closer look at the headstones. To my dismay, there were a good number of young children buried there having died long ago at very early ages ranging from as few as a couple of months to a few years old. As I was looking at the headstone of a young boy, I again heard the distant laughter of a child. Because it was windy that day, I figured it was just the wind creating an odd creaking sound through the tree branches. But the laughter continued randomly off and on up until just after sundown.

The next day I broke camp and hiked the short distance to The Bluffs. After setting up camp a second time, I spent a good part of the afternoon continuing to search for a meaningful photo...and ever so often, I would hear the faint sound of a child's laughter, only this time it seemed to be coming from in the direction of the cemetery, about a mile or so away in a straight line.

Late in the afternoon, I worked my way around the edge of the bluff and up the slope on the far end, about a third to half of a mile or so from the campsite. Across the canopy the trees were in their full fall colors, with some of the lesser vegetation still green. Nothing was jumping out at me photographically until I arched my way closer to the far end of the bluff and looked up. Standing there was this one dead tree, seemingly anchored along the edge of the bluff and reaching toward the sky. Surrounding it stood a myriad of other trees and foliages. I framed the shot and snapped the image. Oddly enough, when I think back on the moment, after taking that photo, I cannot recall ever hearing that laughter sound again.

Every photo has a story that surrounds it, within and through it. This one was unique in that it was captured during an unusual, somewhat haunting span of time. Since then, I have wondered what it was I heard on trip. Was it the wind...or was it something that simply cannot be explained. It matters not, I just know there is more to a photo than just the image. Each one is connected to a story, and serves as reminders of moments from times past, much like the headstones that serve to remind us of the lost stories of those children buried in that old cemetery. Since that day, I have wondered about their stories, but I suppose I will never solve the mystery from where the haunting laughter of a child came.

Other Links

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Video Link

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A Look Back: Old Stores

 

The near ancient timbered floor creaked in time with the deeper reverberation created from the clomp of each step. That clomping sound seemed to flow outward, but not return, only to be absorbed by the brick and mortar and wooden framing within the walls. Old buildings tend to sound the same, feel the same with their often tired yet not yet broken spirit. They have a feel about them newer buildings will most likely never have. It is a feeling of time and place, of history and story. Their sounds, their feel, their aroma, all provide a manner of time travel where one is instantly removed from the here and now and transported back to earlier days. They were days which held their own hopes and dreams as different as they might have been from today, yet just as real, just as important, maybe dare I say, more so than today.

Wister circa 1915

A few years ago, Kris and I made a stopover visit to my old hometown in Oklahoma. While there, we entered into an old building on the south end of town across the old railroad tracks. The building was an antique shop at the time of our visit. I remembered this old building from my youth. As soon as I walked up the weathered stairs onto the front porch area and entered, I was transported back to my youth growing up in southeastern Oklahoma in the small, Mayberry-like town of Wister. Even then in the mid-1950’s Wister was an old town and all the buildings were made of weathered and faded red brick, on the sides of which were painted the remnants of advertisements for Big Chief writing tablets or Bull Durham tobacco. My grandparents for many years ran a “Dry Goods” store known as “The Dixie Store”, a two story, long squared off building.

Made of brick like all the others it stood alone just on the south side of the railroad tracks. Inside were wood and glass counters containing various sorts of small merchandise from that early 20^th century era. The walls were adorned with lady’s calico dresses, men’s work overalls, boots, hats and other assorted necessities used by the blue-blooded working class of America. And, of course, there was the floor…the wooden floor which more than likely generated the same creaks and moans from foot steps that faded toward the back of the long rectangular structure.

Just down from “The Dixie Store” maybe a couple hundred yards stood the old mercantile store my Aunt Mae and her husband ran. Look closely at the photo on the right. In the distance you'll see a building partially hidden by another brick building. It has an overhang and a white front.

Mae was my grandfather’s sister, and she and her husband ran the quintessential grocery and general merchandise kind of store. I remember well as a young lad running up and down the front isle. The sound of the old wooden floor creaking and rumbling underfoot. I can even remember how certain boards would bend and give when weight was applied and of course, the aroma and ancient feel of the place. That old mercantile building had a look and feel all its own where old timers sat on the front porch in a set of rocking chairs wasting the day away.

“Slow down there boy…” they would say with half a laugh as I ran up the wooden steps to the heavy wood and glass front door. My grandmother would follow behind and they would nod their approval, “Morning Miss Ophie…”  “Morning Jack,” she would reply. Then with a brassy clunk as she pressed down on the door handle, we would go in. The door always seemed to stick and required a small jerk to pull it loose, then in a wide swing outward the old hinges would creak in protest as the door opened. On the day Kris and I visited, I reached for that same door handle. When I heard the brassy clunk and felt the door stick and wobble as I pulled it open, I felt like that 5 year old boy again taken back in time.

The world changed inside that old building. Outside in the summer drifted a torched, red-hot, dusty day with the cicadas screaming in the background. Inside it always felt cooler with the out of balanced overhead fans spinning from the high ceiling, creaking with each wobble. At least they stirred up the air and it felt cooler. It always seemed busy when we went inside. My first appointed mission was always to check behind the front counter where Aunt Mae always kept a small box of candy and bubble gum. I’d help myself at my grandmother’s chagrin. (When Kris and I stepped inside, those same old wobbly fans still stirred the air. My eye instantly drifted toward the counter on the right. I'd swear it was the same one from all those years before and I was tempted to take a peak just inside the back corner to see if there was any candy or bubble gum.)

“You ask before you take something now…” my grandmother would remind me as I opened the bubble gum I had extracted, then I’d pout and Aunt Mae would smile say it was okay…and off I’d go as happy as a three or four-year old boy ought to be. 

Those days were certainly simpler times having been tempered by more difficult days just a few years before. They were still connected by what many might consider outdated today…good manners, politeness, generosity, church on Sunday, a slowness of pace, a connection to family, a purpose in life other than just for self. Life certainly was slower, then, with far fewer distractions and a great deal more self-reliance. Sometimes I feel like the world has forgotten how to be like that. Well, as far as that goes, I suppose, so have I. All it takes is something as mundane as a creaking, worn out old door to shake me out of today’s hectic pace of life.

The Dixie store was long ago torn down, but it still stood when I was a young boy. All that is left now is just a concrete slab, and that may not still be there. The mercantile store Aunt Mae ran as far as I know, the building is still standing, it's been a few years since our return visit. Around 1950 or so, before I was born, my grandparents opened their own dry goods store on the other side of the tracks and did quite well until around 1967 or so. 

The new Dry Goods store - circa 1950

 During the 1960's there were two devastating floods   that all but destroyed the old nature of the town.   After the second one, my grandparents gave it up   and retired. 

 Whenever I enter an old building today and feel the   wooden floor, and breath in its ancient aroma, my   heart is instantly transport back to 1955 where the,   even then, old buildings simply by being there   created a wonderful Americana memory. Come to   think of it, 1955 felt more like 1905 in many ways. I   love old stores and I feel more like my old self after   having visited one.