Looking back over the past decades of my life, let’s see there have been 8 of those now and change; I am amazed at how much knowledge I possessed about my environment at the age of 9. No one sat me down and gave me lectures to build my store of information; I just picked it up in bits and pieces from people, other children and from observing. Oh, I was lectured to alright but those were about my behavior or my need of a bath or religion, nothing important that I could really use. At the age of 9 I knew the names of, and could identify every type the tree that grew in the area. I knew you could eat tea berries but not polk berries. We called polk berries, ink berries. I knew you could eat May apples and that the root of Queen Ann’s Lace, even though it smelled like carrots, was a deadly poison. I could tell if a wild brier was going to produce blackberries or raspberries. I knew where wild strawberries grew in abundance. I knew where the best fishing holes in Sandy Creek were. I knew Horse Chestnuts were not good to eat but looked real pretty if you polished them with the oil on the side of your nose. I knew that gathering pig hickory nuts was a waist of time because they were bitter. I could tell the difference between a black walnut and a butter nut tree by the bark or by leaves. I could lead you to an area where huckleberries grew in profusion. I knew where to find “Lady Slippers” in the pine woods. I knew the names of most of the plants that grew in the area. Milkweed, Skunk cabbage, Boneset, Violet, Touch Me Not, Daisies, Black Eyed Susan. I knew chewing the string petals of a thistle flower would turn you’re spittle brown and people would think you were chewing tobacco. That was very important information to have at the age of 9. If I was sent to get sassafras root for tea, I knew exactly where to go and which plant to dig up.
All the small farms in the area had surnames, even though the original surnamed family may not have occupied the place since the last century. I knew all the names in my immediate vicinity and this was vital because if you ask directions you were told, “You go down this road to the Benson Place and turn left - - “. I was not unique in my knowledge, every 9 year old of either genders knew all these things.
I knew that a woman had bought the old Adams Place. General knowledge said she was a famous writer who lived in New York City and only stayed at the Adams Place in summer. The Adams Place was really isolated in a desolate area on a dirt road but I passed it many times on my way to Sandy Creek to fish or swim. Occasionally I would see a light in the window in the Adams house at dusk, but never saw the Lady. She did not associate with the locals at all, and you may not believe this, she did not even attend church. She was an Outlander and suspicious.
The summer before my eighth birthday, the lady died and her body was not discovered till several weeks after her death. This was big news and passed like wildfire through the local community. It was considered a tragedy. Not the lady’s death, no one cared about that, but the fact no one knew she had died.
My cousin Bill and I were on our way to Sandy Creek to fish when we met the man who had inherited the Adams Place. He was planting an elderberry bush in a hole near the roadside. Bill and I were both barefoot and he asked us about our shoes. He seemed surprised we were barefoot. I owned a pair of shoes that my grandfather had bought me for my birthday but those were for school. Bill had no shoes and his prospects of getting any were slim.
I ask the man what he was doing. I had never seen anyone transplant an elderberry bush before. He said, “Some day this will be a great tree and provided shade and a place where birds can nest.” We walked on down the hill.
I said to Bill, who was a year my senior, “That must be some new kind of elderberry to grow up into a great tree and give shade.”
“No it’s not!” Bill said, “He’s from the city and just don’t know any better.” I had some trouble with this because the man was, after all, an adult, but Bill had a lot more experience than me so I believed he was probably right. The Adams Place was sold to the State of Pennsylvania a couple of weeks later, to be used for game lands and the man returned to New York, or at least that’s what people said. The transplanted elderberry bush died.
It was several years later I came to the realization that my store of knowledge would be completely useless to a person living in New York City.