Mother Nature's Sons

 My younger brother and I spent summers living in the mountains. We were the embodiment of the country mouse for those three months in the model that distinguishes rodents as either city or country. To be more precise, we were mountain mice, living off the land, without running water or electricity. Though we did not bathe in the stream next to our cabin in the woods, that stream was where the water we hauled inside to warm for our baths came from. And we spent our mornings off in the aforementioned woods gathering sticks and pine cones to be used as kindling for starting the fires in our stove that would warm the water we needed for getting the grime and sap off our hands put there by all that stick and pine cone gathering. 

When we were of an age that using an ax and saw became appropriate, we cut and chopped logs to feed that fire. There were days that were spent almost entirely in the service of gathering and timber only to hack it into stove-size bits that our mother could use to heat and cook. That stove-size distinction is something that lives on in my memory, with the bigger chunks being most useful for heating, while the smaller pieces allowed mom to regulate the temperature as she cooked our meals. And baked us cookies. 

At night, we would read comics by the light of kerosene lamps, and the flashlights we kept in our bunks upstairs. When our eyes grew tired from squinting into that low light, we would turn on our transistor radios and listen to the AM signal coming to us from down in the big city. Radio Mystery Theater. Denver Bears minor league baseball. News. Weather. Static. Or just the steady drone of my father's snoring coming from the bedroom below us. 

We were up with the sun the next day, ready and raring. No shows to watch, no calls to make. We were there for the duration, and we would get the most out of it. Our cabin in the woods. When we weren't scavenging for fuel, we wandered through the trees searching for one to climb, or sticks approximately the shape and size of a sword or machine gun. And if nature called, we were pretty comfortable marking our territory like the big dogs would. 

Which is why, one time only, my younger brother found himself back in the big city, out in our front yard. When that moment came, he felt no stigma in relieving himself next to my mother's rose bushes. I am so very glad that it was not up to me to explain why this was not appropriate. Another five minutes and I just might have followed suit. Because we were country mice, and fiercely proud of it.