Oh, hello.
The boy asked me to tell y’all about the time God himself reached down and gave me a tap on the shoulder, and I suppose it isn’t too much trouble to oblige.
I happen to be a lover of all things related to nature. The forest is a magical, mystical place full of quiet wonder and beauty, and I just love to take a peaceful walk through its splendor whenever I’m able. Just me, my dog, and my rifle, hunting along through the old trails the trees have lined up for us.
(ed note: Father was an avid hunter and would go out into the woods to hunt several times a week. He could also sleep through just about anything, and did just that on a regular basis. He once fell asleep behind the wheel of a VW Bus, drove it into a ditch, flipped and rolled it twice and came to a stop upside down, facing in the opposite direction of his original travel, still belted into his seat. He didn’t wake up until someone knocked on the window to ask if he was okay. It’s not like he was knocked out cold or anything - he was just napping.)
So y’all will naturally understand why, as a younger man, I was happy to take a job as a fire watcher in a nature preserve in Oregon. The thought of being all by my lonesome up in a high tower in the beautiful woods with nothing to do but meditate on their majesty sent shivers right up my old bones.
I got out to Oregon that summer and was introduced to my post, where I found it was everything I had hoped for and more. My watch tower was as unassuming as it gets: tall and stately above the trees, but with only a small platform at the top. There was just enough room for my chair, my radio and I to experience all nature had to offer. It was one of the old wooden towers, maybe thirty or forty feet high, with a metal roof to shield me from the sun and elements.
My job was climb up that tower each and every day and look out over the trees, searching for any sign of smoke or flame. If I was to see such a thing, I was to radio it in and let the firefighters take over from there. It was a comfortable chair, though, in a quiet forest, and more often than not I found myself meditating in quiet repose on the scenery before me.
(ed. note: “Meditating” was what Father called it when he fell asleep looking at a rock or a tree or whatever. There was no deep spiritual reflection on the nature of the universe happening here; he’d kick back and in thirty seconds he’d start snoring loudly enough to scare off any wildlife in a mile radius. This is why, despite the fact that he went three or four times a week, he was an awful hunter - he’d immediately fall asleep every time he got into his tree stand. By the time he woke up, any nearby animals were terrified of what must surely be a poorly tuned chainsaw operating in his vicinity - in reality, his godawful snoring - and had run for the hills.)
On one warm summer afternoon I found myself yet again in my tower, all of God’s creation spread out beneath me. There was a light rain falling, playing a lullaby on the tin roof of my station, and before you know it I had slipped off to dream about the serenity of the whole situation.
I calculate it must have been hours later by the time I woke up, and I was just about as confused as I’ve ever been.
First off, I was no longer in my tower. In point of fact, there was no tower from what I could tell. The ground around me was blackened in spots and there were bits of treated wood littered about, but not nearly enough to reconstruct what had once been my post.
I was still in my chair, but instead of being thirty feet high and looking out over the treetops, I was on the ground. Twenty feet or so away there was a black little lump; upon closer inspection, I deduced I was looking at what had once been my radio.
I didn’t have the faintest idea how the heck I had gotten to where I was, or who had done what to my tower, but I figured I wasn’t doing anybody any good sitting there like a toad on a log so I set to walking.
The ranger station was only a mile or so away from where my tower used to be, so I hiked through the light rain to see if anyone there could shed some light on what was going on. I was a bit stiff in the joints, I reckoned from whatever travel I had taken from up high to back down to the ground, so the walk took a bit of effort. Eventually, I made it to the station.
When I opened the door, I was right shocked at the scene presented to me. A ranger and two other watchers, all good friends of mine, were seated around a desk crying like their horse had just lost the Derby. In the middle of their sad little circle was a bottle of whiskey and a few shot glasses. There wasn’t a whole lot of whiskey left, which was a shame because I was right soaked through and could have used the warmth.
I also saw, in the mirror over the unlit fireplace, my own reflection. As if I wasn’t confused enough already, the man staring back at me wasn’t anyone I could recognize. I was sure I’d had eyebrows, a beard and a full head of hair when I came in to watch the forest that day. Now I was lacking in all three departments and, frankly, I was wearing a face that’d make a freight train turn right around and take a dirt road.
When my buddies saw that I had walked in, they all turned whiter than a Klansman’s best sheet. None of them said anything, just stared at me with their mouths flapping like hungry guppies.
“Oh, hello. Where’d my tower go?” I asked.
After a few more moments of silence, it was finally explained to me that they were all sitting around drunk and crying because they thought I was dead. Turns out my tower had met with a bolt of lightning and came out on the losing end. Blew the whole thing to Kingdom Come, believe it or not. I don’t rightly know how I managed to stay in my chair the whole way back down to God’s green earth, but that sure did go a long way towards explaining why I was so durn sore in my joints and rear.
After that, I was relieved of my duty as a fire watcher. Wasn’t my wish, no sir - I loved that job and I’d be happy to be doing it to this day. But, it was a small preserve and as there would be a tower for me to sit in for another few weeks, there just wasn’t much point in me staying. So, with a heavy heart, I packed up my bags and bid farewell to my forest friends. I reckon that’ll wrap it up.
(ed. note: I did not believe this story when it was told to me, but it was eventually corroborated by one of the rangers in the aforementioned drinking circle. I have no earthly idea how he survived any aspect of that - I imagine if it’d been one of the newer steel watch towers he’d have bought the farm right then and there. He really could sleep through anything.)
