And None the Wiser
DonDiego Rains
As I’m hiking up the trail, I find myself thinking about my old friends, imagining ourselves explorers as we hiked this same route. Ben was calling himself the leader, telling me and Alberto to follow him. He carried a long pine stick, that now would seem like nothing more than wood to be broken into kindling, calling it his staff as he smacked it against trees and rocks. I keep walking, following the path just as he walked it, cutting into trees with his pocket-knife to mark a path if we got lost. I was only nine at the time, and Alberto was the youngest, so because Ben was two years older, so we both let him be in charge, walking the way and talking about his dad’s experience as an outdoorsman, and how we should listen to him if we got lost, or what to do if we saw a bear, trying to justify his authority.
I look left and see a series of rock ledges leading down to a small pool in the creek below. I don’t even need to walk down to know that there are still frogs in it, remembering the other two sitting on the creek bank while I tried to catch tadpoles. Ben’s liked telling stories of rattlesnakes hiding in the rocks to scare me. I chuckle a little bit. Ben was so adventurous back then. Now he just gets drunk behind his mom’s back and smokes behind his high school.
As I continue up the trail, I find the rotting remains of a tree spanning a depression in the earth, and I find myself wondering what happened to Alberto. He was the youngest of the three of us, but when the tree had only recently fallen and was still strong enough to hold us, he was the first one brave enough to try walking over the tree. It would’ve been far, far easier to simply walk down into to divot and back up the other side, but to three young boys, the fallen tree was an adventure, a challenge. I went after Alberto, shoving my way through branches and almost falling off the side to emerge victorious by the torn stump. I look at the rotted piece of wood, hardly able to tell it was once the base of a great tree.
Walking a little farther, I find myself looking down the loose mountainside, and I remember how my bad idea turned into all of us boys hiking up the mountain over and over from our camp to play. I look over the side, and I know exactly what to do. And I step off onto the steep, loose slope.
The dirt slides away underfoot, causing the top layer of dirt to roll down the mountain like a mini-avalanche, with me standing atop and sliding. I begin to run horizontally across the mountain, still sliding down but keeping my balance, and I can almost see Ben and Jacob on either side of me, cheering as they stood like skateboarders on the loose shale and dirt. Alberto is behind me, sliding on his butt with no idea his pants have torn and are filling with dirt. They cheer, we all cheer, and as I let out an excited yip, I’m reminded by the echo as I land on the dirt road that I am alone, 6 years older, but as I look up the mountain, the loose shale and dirt still in place on either side of the path I just left down, I think to myself, “and none the wiser.”
I look left and see a series of rock ledges leading down to a small pool in the creek below. I don’t even need to walk down to know that there are still frogs in it, remembering the other two sitting on the creek bank while I tried to catch tadpoles. Ben’s liked telling stories of rattlesnakes hiding in the rocks to scare me. I chuckle a little bit. Ben was so adventurous back then. Now he just gets drunk behind his mom’s back and smokes behind his high school.
As I continue up the trail, I find the rotting remains of a tree spanning a depression in the earth, and I find myself wondering what happened to Alberto. He was the youngest of the three of us, but when the tree had only recently fallen and was still strong enough to hold us, he was the first one brave enough to try walking over the tree. It would’ve been far, far easier to simply walk down into to divot and back up the other side, but to three young boys, the fallen tree was an adventure, a challenge. I went after Alberto, shoving my way through branches and almost falling off the side to emerge victorious by the torn stump. I look at the rotted piece of wood, hardly able to tell it was once the base of a great tree.
Walking a little farther, I find myself looking down the loose mountainside, and I remember how my bad idea turned into all of us boys hiking up the mountain over and over from our camp to play. I look over the side, and I know exactly what to do. And I step off onto the steep, loose slope.
The dirt slides away underfoot, causing the top layer of dirt to roll down the mountain like a mini-avalanche, with me standing atop and sliding. I begin to run horizontally across the mountain, still sliding down but keeping my balance, and I can almost see Ben and Jacob on either side of me, cheering as they stood like skateboarders on the loose shale and dirt. Alberto is behind me, sliding on his butt with no idea his pants have torn and are filling with dirt. They cheer, we all cheer, and as I let out an excited yip, I’m reminded by the echo as I land on the dirt road that I am alone, 6 years older, but as I look up the mountain, the loose shale and dirt still in place on either side of the path I just left down, I think to myself, “and none the wiser.”
DonDiego Rains is a four-year cadet at the Institute. He stands to graduate with both his high school diploma and his Associate’s in Arts, at which point he will go on to study forestry. Outside of that, he is an avid mountain biker and outdoorsman.