Fragments From Floyd

The year was 1976. The place: somewhere between Shining Rock Wilderness and the Toe River in North Carolina. I backpacked alone, one day and one night in both of these places on my way home from the hike with Steve back in Alabama. I'm afraid some of the details have left me now. Some I remember because of the snake.

In Shining Rock, far back in, at the top of a long, steep grade in that boreal landscape, I remember two silhouettes appeared against the fog near the crest. They were leaving the rugged, remote mountain much later in the afternoon than I'd have thought wise. Must be strong hikers, I thought as I approached near enough to call out a hello.

Both men were in their early sixties. Robust. Tan. And very good friends. We exchanged some trail small talk and they moved on, racing the dark to cover four miles back to their car. Both men were carrying hiking sticks--ornately carved by their hands, regularly used, burnished with a patina of sweat, the soot of a hundred campfires, and traces of trails across the Blue Ridge. I wondered: will I, will Steve and I, still be enjoying the heft and rhythm of our packs, the pleasant pain of up and down, of hard ground at night when we are their age?

My Buck Folding Hunter is not a delicate instrument. But it was all I had for the task. (I still have it, matter of fact.) The next morning after breakfast of instant oatmeal and a heaping handful of nearby blueberries, I found a fallen Rhododendron that contained my hiking stick. Rather than looking for the straightest length I could find, I intended to make a cane--something with a crook for a handle, a cane I could keep with me when I was young that would remind me of the youth I saw in those two hikers, who were at that time, unimaginably old. I finished the cane that day before I left for home.

I've never used the cane whose carved handle you see here crawling out of the cedar by our front porch. I've held it often, tested its strength, and followed the lines of the snake with my fingers until the bright wood has darkened with time. In every house we've lived in, there has been a special place in an odd corner for the watching eyes of this totem. He is very patient, knowing his day approaches. Some day, and not so very far off as it once was, I will need his push and balance to reach the top of our ridge.

My snake cane was carved by a younger man, cut to length for a taller one. I may need to make some adjustments when the time comes.