Is it a Montana thing? A ripped out page from the book called midlife crisis or just a complete fascination with bugs? Set me free in a kayak barely beyond sunrise and all things created by man and his wandering imagination no longer matter. Box turtles carelessly positioned on tree stumps poking up a weathered branch to grab a gulp of how life used to be sit staring at the poet whose only ambition is to say nothing.
I asked an unfair question while daily writing this new day, “What is the written piece someone will one day discover many white lines and curves down this long drawn out highway?”
Maybe I should explain this origin of such selfishness…
A postcard written to my Grandfather Kanute Bakken dated 1960 brought on this vision to speak through my fingers. John, the current owner of my families homestead decided to break free from a past we can’t change and pull from the walls many unwritten about years of childhood giggles, snickers and chocolate flavored prints smudged into the surface because someone knew of the golden rule of feeding the little ones tons of sugar before giving them back.
How many times have you believed the space or tiny crack where a wall and cabinet meet serve as a great saving place to forever display birthday cards, business information, phone numbers from friends written on napkins, pictures of aunts and uncles or an old fashioned post card with weird statements that made you laugh on the opposite side of where the writer poured out their soul?
This card got away from Grandpa Bakken; it slid between the wall and cabinet into a time capsule that wouldn’t be opened for fifty one years.
In an age of Face Book Friends and never ending Tweets from Twitter; the destination of many thoughts, beliefs and interests never make it past impression.
In 1994 while stealing my stepdaughter Jenny from her tightly knit world of Rock n Roll connections with realities much larger than what most dream of one day achieving; it felt completely natural to share with her the tiny places that truly helped shape the reasons why the clouds in my world are forever pink, purple, bright blue and constantly filled with music. I had to show her the Bakken home front.
Vividly I remember driving up to the house with nerves larger than the Rockies we just crossed. John opened the door; heard my reasons for wanting to visit and invited us to step through to a past they said you could never reenter.
To this day I believe houses shrink under a blistering hot summer sky. I remembered the staircase being much wider, my door leading into my upstairs bedroom not being something that made me lean to miss and the kitchen where Grandma made me chicken gizzards and pasta was supposed to stretch across three county lines.
I kept waiting for Paul Harvey to read his news headlines at twelve noon before racing out to the unforgettable garden scented with flowers, apples, raspberry bushes and carrots mumbling something about one day popping their heads up to expose their bright orange beauty.
Then I saw the tree; not just any tree. Kanute wanted to show his grandkids the importance of accepting all living things around us and how each of us should always remember to accept everyone including our enemies.
“I want you to watch this metal plate,” he told our attentive eyes, “A tree doesn’t have time to make friends with something made of metal but today they are going to be married forever.”
And you think I’m weird?
The attachment of that metal plate to a living tree became my childhood fascination; every Christmas, summer vacation and any day my Grandmother would let me stop in to visit…damn if my eyes weren’t fixed to how that tree grew around the metal plate like loving a fuzzy Teddy Bear.
Even while watching Grandma's moon flowers blossom under a star filled sky, I could see that metal plate smiling back at me.
Although the tree has reached its highest peak in the chapters we keep and all we hold are memories; the edge of what makes each of us real isn’t a computer program or smart phone but rather the desire to take what we’ve experienced and teach it.
I swear Grandpa Bakken was in my Kayak yesterday morning while on the lake with itty bitty Carlos and be here before you know it grown woman Mia; a grasshopper had crashed into the surface of the water fighting hard to make its way back to a place of safety. Carlos kept shouting, “No I don’t like bugs! Push us away from here!”
I finally had to say, “A tree doesn’t have time to make friends with something not made of bark and invisible rings...but today this grasshopper is going to marry that tree forever.”
Right over his head that thought flew! Holy cow I thought it hit an airplane.
Grandpa Bakken passed away extremely early; a heart attack while doing something he truly loved; constructing paths that would inspire other peoples lives. He helped master the plans and purpose of what became the infamous Bozeman Tunnel later helping to layout the grounds that grew into the campus of Montana State University.
John’s decision to send a post card to someone he had met for less than a sliver of a second has always been the energy behind my reasons to save living things including grasshoppers on the Carolina lakes…while Carlos sat in fear I calmly explained, “Do you remember when I had my heart attack two years ago? Three people were in the room that night that made a choice to either save me or let me die. We are here today because they made a choice. My choice right now is to save this grasshopper. What if we decide to let him drown is it fair to his family knowing that we could’ve saved something you fear?”
Taking the paddle of the kayak and gently picking the grasshopper up…the tree became the place where the he dried off its wings while Carlos took on a different outlook toward all living things.
What would’ve happened if John hadn’t sent that card?
I asked an unfair question while daily writing this new day, “What is the written piece someone will one day discover many white lines and curves down this long drawn out highway?”
It won’t be my daily writing because once written it’s always available to read; discovery is an OMG moment.
My luck it’ll be an email sent from my deepest passion to continue building paths toward unforgettable radio. All things connected are meant to inspire someone to be an inch better than good and because such coaching is no longer used in a modern world of expectation, their ego quickly calls me a fricken jerk and to keep proof of it, its shoved onto a memory stick until someone we’ll never meet happens to find a strange funny object hidden in a place only time could forever keep.
I will always believe in you first…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
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