My private wilderness
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In the unfinished attic of my parents’ house — unfinished because the most important thing after the incendiary bomb had struck 80 years ago, on February 4, 1944, was to put a roof back on — I found boxes with unpacked things,
an old stroller, Mickey Mouse cartoons, illustrated children’s books and magazines from the 1920’s.
One story in those magazines was about the invention of an atomic transporter, and the first successful experiment transporting a daring man — a suicidal man in my opinion now — from one place to another, bit by bit.
Another one that I loved, and read over and over again — even though it was freezing cold where I was sitting — was about an explorer lost in the hot humid jungle who eats an unknown
hallucinogenic fruit, although he should have known know better, and winds up being chased by dinosaurs conjured up by his own mind.
Mercifully, the author lets him survive, presumably because otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to talk to him, and the story would have been lost.
The poor man is found feverish and unconscious by a searching posse, which brings him back to civilization.
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This text is an expansion of an account of an incident in my childhood, which appeared as part of “My Memoirs III” in the journal OFFCOURSE. The photographs are from a walk along Rowe (pronounced “Rau”) Road in Alford, MA.
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