First Part - Then and Why
There is a place, it is as real as your nose.
Nowadays they talk about it still - and call it a bad name.
The Great Black Swamp
The Indians (Native People) who lived there till the great change called it O-Hia-Oa Mea-A-Moyi (Great River Mother) but the children's stories then and now call it but one thing... the Happy Hunting ground.
Where girls and boys blossom like strong firm young trees and bear fruit that is sweet, brave and good to share and eat. The trees there are alive you see - and even my lawn I'm never sure (as I live here along the river... sometimes seems like it isn't even grass at all! More like great old Oak Trees with tops of fine short hair cut close and strong.
I know this - if you love this land it loves you back - and it will protect you.
The flowers here (as they do everywhere) have things to teach us, and the trees too... but ours are rooted deeper, and mutter with history and truth. 10,000 years the Doctor from the College said when he saw my white arrowhead - that's a lot of summers.
Ah this Maumee River, winding still through the swamp long drained (but still muddy black wet dirt that smells of secrets and real stone arrowheads as numerous as the walking sticks - you find them, if you just look closely enough).
So many lives, so many children, so many brave young men and handsome strong women... later laid to rest by their own babies in this sacred ground, or offered to the wind (many people have lived here, and many truths spoken. Each tribe, each people, each family has their own song of life and customs sacred and good).
The ground can't speak, but it just... helps. When you stand still on a dark night with a bright moon shining on you like it should leave you burned with a blue sunburn, your toes tingle and feel like grabbing a pencil. That's how many stories are in this very curious place.
Did I say curious? Not as in "Why, that was odd, quite a curiosity..." Oh no... not that kind of curious.
More like; "I remember it like yesterday... I was 11 years old. When I walked from my tent to the river that warm spring night I could tell. The ground - seemed happy, and glad for my feet, and wanted to meet me! It was curious, and touched me with gentle scents and breezes that didn't move the hair on my sister's head. How I know that I don't know, but I swear, it is true."
(my Great Uncle told me that, when he was 97 years old)
**********************
Second Part - Right Now
**********************
So it is now, now. 2009 - not so many magic nights with lights and TV and traffic everywhere.
But not in the Great Black Swamp.
Scariest place on earth, I think - if you let it. Oh yes, will scare the hair off a dog. Seen it happen.
Still though - scary yes, but it is a children's place (doesn't that seem odd?). A Children's place, wet and smelly,not of balloons and toys, but of stories and wild animals and the sounds that squishes between your toes as you follow a wet dog chasing a frog... and of ghost stories, told by real ghosts.
Many places are very bright here - but there are oh so many places of shadow...dark spooky woods, odd small graveyards or just... hollow spots in the wet earth.
Lots of unmarked graves. You see, when new people came they didn't yet know the swamp - and if it was the wrong season or perhaps the swamp was in a mood, it could kill, quicksand and endless tangled trails, bears and big black cats and the flies and mosquitoes so thick a horse would lay down and die if not covered on a warm windless night.
The ground so soft they had to build a long bridge - mile after mile of "trellis road", in the middle, a town of safety - but not everyone made it.
There was a big orphanage. That's near where I sit - but it's just a slab of concrete now, the building burned a long time ago. Everyone says they see ghosts. I don't, but I like folks - so I might not have noticed if I did.
You see, these old stories would be easy to forget - if they weren't true.
I can show you, I'll walk you down the old road to a children's cemetery with so many names on the final lonely marker... next to the woods just above where that brown lazy river crawls.
That's a nice spot. When you visit you can walk right down to a nice place and stand there looking at that water, an ancient river with water walking stately and slow like it is church past your shoes.
And I'll lend you my fishing box, and then, if you want, (JUST like your great-great-great-great grandmother probably did, (if you are from 1000 miles of here)
You, yes you... can dig a few worms with the old fork in the box, and spend a sunny morning listening to nothing , with a string and a hook. Silence here seems right loud from time to time, but for your ears it's nice and quiet.
I know a woman who when she did that when she was a girl, she almost got pulled in! I'm marrying her in September - and you ought to come to that.
You might think she's a liar - because she was little then, and she caught a catfish big as your arm - and her Mom took him home and ate him.
Yep - good place to be a kid. Not necessary to be young, either. Just... be a kid.
It can't be tamed or fenced, nor really owned never has been made into something that is fenced and covered with rules -
It is too sacred for that you see.
And you'll know, because if you just sit on the still-warm grass that is yours to enjoy here, you might like it, and the joyful innocence of that moment gives you a moment's pause - you might thank your luck, your faith and your family, that life brought you here.
Comments
508 days ago
a small family project in Paulding County Ohio.
We have a blog if you want to see related pictures, just type this
address blackswampcenter(dot)ning(dot)com - and we aren't looking for
donations, we're just an older man and older woman (both 49) who want
to share with young people a magic place.
You know, when your parents were good gardeners, you think about the
sprouts a lot. It gives us something to do in my late-middle years.
John Redbear Hubertz and Judy A. Jones
Fort Wayne, Indiana and Cecil, Ohio
PS: You're invited to our wedding. Details on our site - A bit of
a festival, we hope.