It was late July thirty-one years ago when I wrapped up my first stay on Audubon’s Hog Island in Maine. I’ve told lots of people lots of times ever since that that trip was a life-changer for me.
When I got home, Dayton’s Audubon chapter, who paid for most of my tuition through a scholarship, invited me to do a program for them. After my talk and slideshow and a reading of an Emily Dickinson poem that evening, I was asked to serve on the Dayton Audubon Society board of directors, which I did for twenty+ years. It was the first of a number of volunteer gigs I’ve been involved in since for Audubon.
But the biggest life-changer I can talk about, I’d have to say, is my wedding to Emily Dickinson and Mabel Loomis Todd, those formidable figures of poetry and editing and scandal, and well, Nature -- who are such a part of Hog Island. Before all was said and done three years later, I ended up writing my masters project on the combination of those two significant American women. But that, as they say, is another story.
During that first stay, it was the stuff of Hog Island that really got me going. I like to remember that as a guy from the Midwest who knew little of the ocean, spending two weeks waking up to sunrises on Muscongus bay was something special. Hog Island was the first time I saw four moons at Jupiter, and that wasn’t even through a telescope, but a bird spotting scope. First time, too, for me to see a loon on the water, along with cormorants, eiders, guillemots, osprey, and harbor seals.
I met some good people, too, including my roommate from St. Louis who, according to my journal that summer, was full of an ‘insatiable volume of jokes and words of wisdom.’ And then there was Freda, the retired teacher from Philadelphia who had had a hip replaced, though on the day we both set out independently to walk the trail around the 300+ acre island, I could barely keep her in my sights, even though she hiked with a cane! It was the summer, too, when boatman Joe Johansen stopped the engine out on the bay when our company spotted a minke whale breeching. When Joe called that animal a ‘brother,‘ I was moved to tears. Still am.
But this Hog Island trip is extra special because I get to share the place with grandson Noah, a partner of mine in all kinds of summer adventures so far in his 11 year-old lifetime. Program notes that we’ve gotten by email advise us to bring an old pair of shoes in which we can muck around in tidal flats. I know he’ll like that! Mention was, too, of a bonfire on the shore, island hikes, kid games, and boat trips out into the bay. We’ll also be able to see up-close-and-personal the new clutch of osprey that hatched out on a platform the camp staff erected for just that purpose a few years ago. We’ve been watching these birds via an on-line connection since they broke out of their shells in early spring. It’s like we know ‘em already.
As much as I love Hog Island, though, this trip is really for Noah. I know in my heart what the place has meant to me. One of my goals is to show him what I find special about the place, but more than that, it’s a target of mine to get out of the kid’s way and let him discover the place on his own. I so much want to be his shadow, watching his eyes and body language as he responds to this wilderness island which is home to so many things that will all be firsts for him.
As grandparents, Cindy Lou and I have made it our goal over the last decade to expose grandkids to cool stuff that could spark a lifetime interest in any number of things. We’ve watched baseball at the old Yankee Stadium, visited historic aircraft lots of times at the National Museum for the United States Air Force, gotten the oldest grandkid to Washington DC for a couple of museum days, took another to Cincinnati for a weekend of aquarium and zoo exploration, and, of course, spent lots of time watching birds right here at home.
And now being able to get Noah on Hog Island, that place that captured my own heart three decades ago, is really a dream about to come true. I’ll do my zen best to just be present for the week and watch Noah’s immersion into a Natural world that should be full of beautiful surprises. As far as this grandpa can figure, it doesn’t get much better than that.
Today’s Elder Idea: Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.
Rachel Carson
images: Hog Island’s Long Cove and recent screenshot of the new osprey.
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