Camaraderie

                                                    Chapter  Nineteen

                                   CAMARADERIE   

 

A favorite memory of boyhood, of my Dad and two Uncles, at a cabin in the woods of Kinniconick and the discovery of camaraderie.

It was early in the spring or late in the fall of forty or forty-one.

We loaded our gear in Dad’s Chevrolet and headed east,

hugging the northern shore of the great river in Ohio,

then crossed the bridge at Aberdeen as the sun set in the west. 

Perhaps the moon was full that Friday night, I don’t recall,

but the Kentucky mountains surrounding us were black as pitch,

and the rocky road to the cabin was rough as a cob.

We reached the cabin and listened to familiar sounds

of the creek and of an owl and the calls of whippoorwills.

My heart fills with the memory of being one of them back then,

just a kid with his dad and two favorite uncles, all long gone,

and the old cabin along Pine Branch near a riffle on Kinniconick,

with two whole days ahead of us, the roaring fire at night,

the good food and grown-up talk, the precious time on the water.

There were chores for us to do, the gathering of wood,

the kerosene lamps that needed to be filled, and good old Uncle Bill,

a consummate soul, scalded the cottage pots and pans and dishes.

Soon there was a bed of embers in the wood burning stove

and the fireplace was ablaze, and we ate a late, light dinner.

At crack of dawn the cabin was lamp-lit, warm and aromatic,

with the sweet and rustic aroma of beechwood and bacon.

At this very moment I can hear the unforgettable laugh

of Uncle Dup, a gentle giant, hovering near the kitchen stove

and making all of us happy to be alive and in that moment.

Imagine the kind of camaraderie that filled the old cabin

and followed us to the creek, and glorified a day of fishing.  

Imagine an impressionable young boy with men he loved

and how those impressions have lasted for a life time.

Weekend trips to Bathiany’s cabin with Dad, Uncle Bill and Uncle Dup became annual events until I enrolled in college.  Later, when my own cabin was built, Uncle Bill used his skills and helped with finishing projects, and Uncle Dup and his wife, Helen, spent many happy days with my parents after all had retired.