When my family was much smaller and younger, we lived in a small Pacific Northwest logging community called Quilcene. Now, one might read and so pronounce that name in a plain straightforward fashion like “kwil – seen.” However, like almost all dialects of the English-speakers language, there are hidden sounds only the locals know about. This is a sure fire way to identify outsiders (i.e. “people from not around here”).
Small Blue Boat Reflection
The local populace pronounces it “kwila-seen.” It is the shibboleth (or is that sibboleth?) of the local dialect. Fortunately, no one is killed over such a goof. I believe the sound is correct and reflects the American Indian languages of the area (e.g. the Quilayutes). It, after all, also being the name of the local tribe that used to inhabit the area. (The Quil-a-cenes were later absorbed into surrounding tribes, most notably to the south on the Hood Canal in the Skokomish tribe.) Unfortunately, some early English speaker’s attempt to Anglicize the word missed the short “a” and so we are stuck with Quilcene, which is much better than what the original American-European settlers of the area wanted to call it: South Burlap.
Into this small community, my family settled. My oldest son, Gareth, was a new-born. A couple of years later, Cara, our oldest daughter was born at home. Four years after, our youngest daughter, Julian, was born at home there too. The locals quickly educated us on the correct pronunciation of the word. This, along with learning that everybody was related to everybody else, was one of the most important lessons to learn in this small community.
Almost everyone in this community earned their living from the logging industry. Those that didn’t were employed in some seafood related industry. Oyster farms still do a thriving business there to this day. Logging, however, will probably never be what it once was 25 and more years ago. Our neighbor Bob was one of those hard-working loggers.
Bob was known for delivering firewood for many years around the Quilcene, Brinnon, Dabob areas. He made a living doing the hard work of pulling out old trees, cutting them, splitting the cuts, and delivering it. Most people relied upon wood heat to get through the cold, damp winters of Washington State. “Bob the Woodman” was their main source for good dry wood. Success at that allowed him to branch out into selective logging and clearing lots for people building homes along the curves of the Quilcene and Dabob bays.
Bob was a good neighbor. Our properties joined one another on seven acres of wooded property. Red Cedars and Douglas Fir inhabited most of the property. This made a perfect play ground for my oldest two kids. Of course, as conscientious parents, we were always careful to keep our eyes upon our kids. Our oldest son had a habit of running off and disappearing from our presence. This made us a little more paranoid than normal parents, if there are such things.
Seagull Reflection
Despite our best vigilance, however, our son had a habit of wandering off. This led to his getting into all sorts of mischief even before the age of five. There was the time he showed up two blocks away across Highway 101 in his diaper standing in front of the local gas station. There were the two separate occasions he discovered bald-faced hornets nests. On the first occasion, he poked it with a stick. He and his sister got stung. On the second occasion, having learned from the first one not to poke it with sticks, he threw rocks at the nest. He and his sister got stung.
As you can imagine, his penchant for exploration and getting himself into trouble only expanded as he grew older. This explains his mother’s premature grey, his fathers premature baldness, and the slight twitch in the corner of both our right eyes. Nature or nurture, whatever the cause, gets started awful early. Too early in my book. I think kids should be born educated and ready for the work force. It would eliminate a lot of social problems. Alas, but I’m not the Creator. Good thing too, probably. Giving birth to college kids would be incredibly painful for mothers. And, how would you explain nursing? “Come here, sweetheart! It’s time for your lunch.” “Aw, mom! You’re embarrassing me.”
One of the advantages of raising your kids in a rural setting is that they learn so much by just being outdoors. It truly is an amazing experience and opportunity. I feel sorry for kids who grow up in the city and don’t know their way around a good wooded patch of ground. My kids spent countless hours examining nature. They learned a lot.
One time, my wife caught our oldest son, at about three years of age, exploring the biosphere of the upper canopy of the trees about 30 feet off the ground in his rubber boots. He learned that, if he didn’t break his neck carefully descending the tree, his mother would kill him. Another time, I taught my son about heat transference through convection with a steel burn barrel by telling him, “Don’t touch the barrel, it’s really hot”. Then, he immediately tested my hypothesis by touching the barrel and getting a nasty blister on his hand. Then, there was the time I took him to explore the mud flats of Quilcene Bay at low tide. We were having the time of our lives seeing all kinds of tidal land creatures: hermit crabs, worms, clams, snails, and plant life. About two-hundred yards from shore I suddenly realized he was barefoot.
“What happened to your boots?” I demanded to know.
“There way back there,” he pointed.
“Where?”
“Back there,” he kept pointing.
“How did they come off?”
“The mud took them off.”
I picked him up. He still had his socks on but now they were as black as the mud of the bay and hung thick and wet about a foot down from his feet. I held him out away from me as his socks swayed in the wind.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go get your boots. I think we’re done for the day.”
I reached down and pulled off his socks and then tucked him under my arm, carrying him like a sack of potatoes. The extra weight made the mud pull on my boots too. This was as much a father’s education as a son’s.
I looked down at him. He was watching the ground pass underneath us. “Did you have fun?” I queried.
“Yes,” he replied. “I like the worms the best.” He turned his head toward me and smiled.
“Of course,” I said and smiled back.
We found his boots stuck in stride just as he had left them. The thought to stop and retrieve them or to put them back on again never seemed to occur to him. I suppose he was too fascinated with the bugs and creatures and keeping up with his dad.
The problem with growing up in a rural setting is that property boundaries can sometimes be fuzzy. Locals know one another and cross each others property almost at will. Those really familiar with each other don’t even bother knocking on one another’s door. They just let themselves in and yell, “Hello!?” That’s country living for you.
This was difficult for my kids to learn also. Our neighbor Bob had all kinds of fun equipment for a young boy to play on. Gareth particularly liked the heavy equipment that would appear from time to time on Bob’s property. He was always amazed at their size and imagined in his little mind what they could do. One of his favorite pieces of Bob’s equipment was a skidder. This is used by loggers to move logs around. However, it doesn’t move anything when it’s batteries are dead because a 4 or 5 year-old boy was playing on it and pushing buttons. It takes a long time to charge a skidder’s batteries back up. Plus, it is not something Bob appreciated discovering when heading for the woods at 4 or 5 in the morning.
Broken Sand Dollar
Bob had incredible patience with our son. I only heard him yell across our properties a few times, “Gareth!!” By then, Gareth was almost always already home after we discovered that he had wandered off yet once again. This let us know that our son had probably gotten into something.
As a logger, Bob had access to small seedling trees that were used to replant clear-cut areas. Bob had a stretch of property on the opposite away from us that he decided to replant. Good naturedly, Bob invited Gareth along to show him how trees were planted. If they are not planted properly, they will die and the tree and one’s labor will be lost. One must have a proper depth to the hole to make sure and get the full root system in the ground. You don’t want any exposed root area. Then, one covers up the roots. However, the tap root needs to be as straight as possible, so a short, small tug is given on the tree when it is buried to help ensure this.
When investing in the life of the child, I believe it is important to give them, as much as is reasonable possible, exposure to many different things. Who knows what will “take” in their little hearts and minds that causes them to decide to become a mechanic, doctor, nurse, plumber, lawyer, carpenter, or even forester. Who knows the potential within the heart and mind of a child?
At the same time, who truly knows what is going on in those spaces? When Bob returned from the woods the next day, he discovered that my son had pulled out all 100+ trees that he had planted with him. Did they need to be recounted? Did they need an “extra pull” to make sure they were straight? Did they simply need to be removed because their place only appeared to be temporary? We will never know, I suppose. That’s a lesson we’ll never learn.
©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (October, 2011)
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