December 1, 2014

Tracks Lead to Discovery

It snowed last week in the north country and the landscape was covered with an expanse of white carpet where once was frozen ground littered with random dried leaves.

As I made my way out the door and down the driveway to check the mailbox, I came across the usual array of various tracks on the pristine walkway:  mouse, rabbit, cat, dog, deer, cougar - all recognizable and familiar to me.  

The willy-nilly scratches in the snow led me to believe that there is a good deal of activity that goes on when we think the world has gone to sleep at dark-fall.

Then my eyes lit on a set of tracks that at once startled and baffled my senses.  At least a foot and half in length, the tracks were a sight to behold.  Could it, I wondered, be the famed Yeti of legend, or perhaps the Abominable Snowman, or yet even Sasquatch in these northern climes?  In our neighborhood??  Just the mere notion gave me goose bumps.

The tracks jutted out in a full ninety degree angle and the stride was mammoth in size.  Whoever, WHAT-ever made these tracks, I supposed, was a force to be reckoned.  

I followed the tracks, like any wise, curiosity seeker would do, along the path to the street and to the mailbox.  Where they abruptly ended.  And then they circled around and retreated homeward toward the house.  

It was then that I came to realize that the owner of these foot prints had walked right up the driveway and into the garage, further into the back door of the house (I deduced this by the puddling paths of debris that were left by the gigantic pedactic paddles on the garage floor.

Should I have been alarmed?  I was at first, until I realized that the foot prints had been made by none other than my own dad on his early morning trek to the mail box.  Dad's gait is recognizable for its jutting, somewhat birdlike manner. (Albeit a gigantic, possibly emu-like creature).   It is one that I, upon being likened to at times, have striven rigidly to avoid.  

Quickly I dashed back to the driveway to examine my own foot prints to the mailbox that morning.  Have I?  Did I?  Do I walk just like my father?  With relief I noticed that, near the birdlike indentations in the snow, was a set of completely parallel prints next to them.  Mine.

I have inherited many traits from my father, but apparently the bird walk is not one of them.  Okay, that's a relief, I must admit. 

And I am happy to report than Sasquatch is not in the neighborhood.