Lamenting the Ugly Mood in America is a “Good Walk with My Young Son Ruined,” So I Left…

…America’s current state of political rage behind as we entered North Park Village Nature Center on a just-right, late-fall day—the sun shining brightly, the trees a beautiful leafy tapestry of bright reds, oranges, and yellows, the wind blowing softly.

My eight-year-old son had a rough week, and so had I as I watched the level of discourse in America plummet hundreds of miles past rock-bottom.

“A walk in nature has often served as a reset for me amidst the storms of life,” I told him in the hopes that he might apply this lesson to summer showers, tornadoes, and hurricanes in his own life once I’m gone.

My “Mike Brady from The Brady Bunch meets Henry David Thoreau moment” complete, I jumped off the dad soapbox, and we just walked and talked, and sometimes just paused to enjoy the sounds, colors, and smells of fall, and each other’s company.

Birds were on my son’s mind as we hiked the trails. After viewing a photo of a red-bellied woodpecker in a display near the nature center, he began searching the woods for this pretty bird. We climbed North Park’s big hill and he called out, “there’s a really big one!” I scanned the woods, but didn’t see a red bird. The wicked grin on his face told me that he was referring to the tall man wearing a bright red jacket who was walking through the woods below us.

At the bottom of the hill, a boardwalk winds its way over beautiful wetlands on the southeast side of the nature center. In the summer, the wetlands are filled with frogs, turtles, water beetles, and other creatures. Once, we were surprised to see a deer wending its way through the 10-foot cattails. But not today. The water was still, the frogs were already sleeping in the mud deep beneath the surface, and the formerly green cattails had turned bright yellow. No deer parted the cattails, which waved softly in the breeze.

We walked down the trail toward the pond that connects to the wetlands.

The trees—with their vivid fall colors—created a beautiful reflection on the water.

The sun shone, and it’s rays bounced off the water.

We both took photographs of the pond and fall colors. My son’s careful attention to photo composition and lighting tells me that he might be a professional photographer someday.

And then he was a little boy again—asking to walk in the muddy shallows in his boots and wondering if deer hibernate in the winter.

I treasure my time with my son. Our time together is priceless—and finite. A boy and his father during late fall on the shore of a small pond. A moment savored and then gone like the fall colors and leaves from the trees in a few weeks.

We walked on and the real world came roaring back. We came upon a time immemorial interaction between mother and children. Two kids were fighting over a stick and not heeding their mother’s call to join her. Mom walked up, grabbed the stick and tossed it into the pond. I’d like to tell you that hundreds of migrating mallard ducks alit from the water in a beautiful choreographed symphony of nature—but that would be fake nature news. But crying chaos did ensue. The mom said to her kids, “Yes, crying louder will get that stick back!”

My son and I walked down the trail. We glanced at each other and started laughing. He kept repeating the harried mother’s comment. No judgment from me regarding the mom, the kids, and the stick. As parents, we’ve all been there.

We left the prairie and pond and headed into the woods—an oak savannah filled with beautiful old trees that tower over the forest floor. It felt good to be in the woods with my son, doing nothing but wandering and loving nature. Not in a car, not in a crowd, not on any technology.

We walked the trail, commenting on the stunning fall colors, milkweed pods, and the habits of wildlife.

My son flipped over cut tree stumps to look for bugs.

We reveled in the sunlit-red-glow cast by a beautiful 50-foot oak.

We spotted two deer.

Then two more.

I’m glad my son couldn’t read my mind.

I wanted to warn him of troubling times in America.

That a fierce fight is being waged for its very soul.

I wanted to tell him that the environment and our very health are under attack by short-sighted people who’ve never spent a day of their lives in nature.

That, every day, our world seems to be losing more of the tiny pieces of kindness and tolerance it once had.

I felt the urge to get back on my soapbox, but that’s not what this day was about.

I kicked it aside mentally, and we continued to walk.

We walked deeper into the woods.

We took the path less traveled, and it felt good.

Copyright (text/photos) Andrew Morkes

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Looking for some great nature destinations in Chicagoland? If so, check out my book, Nature in Chicagoland: More Than 120 Fantastic Nature Destinations That You Must Visit. It features amazing destinations in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Click on the title to learn more. The book has 306 pages and 210+ photos and is only $19.99. Nature in Chicagoland received great reviews in the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Daily Southtown, This Week in Birding blog, and Beverly Review.

ABOUT ANDREW MORKES

I have been a writer and editor for more than 30 years. I’m the founder of College & Career Press (2002); the author and publisher of “The Morkes Report: College and Career Planning Trends” blog; and the author and publisher of Hot Health Care Careers: 30 Occupations With Fast Growth and Many New Job Openings; Nontraditional Careers for Women and Men: More Than 30 Great Jobs for Women and Men With Apprenticeships Through PhDs; They Teach That in College!?: A Resource Guide to More Than 100 Interesting College Majors, which was selected as one of the best books of the year by the library journal Voice of Youth Advocates; and other titles. They Teach That in College!? provides more information on environmental- and sustainability-related majors such as Ecotourism, Range Management, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Built Environment, Sustainability Studies, and Sustainable Agriculture/Organic Farming. I served as a member of the parent advisory board at my son’s school for five years.

In addition to these publications, I’ve written more than 70 books about careers for other publishing and media companies including Infobase (such as the venerable Encyclopedia of Careers & Vocational Guidance, the Vault Career Guide to Accounting, and many volumes in the Careers in Focus, Discovering Careers, What Can I Do Now?!, and Career Skills Library series) and Mason Crest (including those in the Careers in the Building Trades and Cool Careers in Science series).

Here’s a list of the environmental-focused titles that I’ve written:

• Nature in Chicagoland: More Than 120 Fantastic Nature Destinations That You Must Visit
• Wind Turbine Technicians (Great Careers Without a Bachelor’s Degree series)
• Environmental Scientists (Cool Careers in Science series)
• Renewable Energy Careers (Cool Careers in Science series)
• Environment (Getting Started series)
• Solar Power Technicians (Careers in Infrastructure series)