When August Lasted Forever

by Donna Poole

It was time! Mary and I left early in the morning. We wore our sweaters, because even though it was August it was cool in the foothills of the Adirondacks Mountains. We shoved our lunches into brown paper bags, even though we knew we would eat lots of the treasure we were hunting and sure to find. We set off with our buckets, the kind of energy only nine-and ten-year old’s can claim, and lots of enthusiasm.

We had no set hiking route; we didn’t know exactly where we were going, even though this wasn’t our first time climbing the foothills to look for wild blackberries. We just walked down the road until we found a field not fenced off with barbed wire or a hot wire—the worst—cut through and started the steep climb. Our younger sister, Ginny, remembers going with us once. I imagine it was a strenuous hike for her little, short legs!

It didn’t take long for us to find our first row of luscious wild blackberries growing in a tangle with cat claw thorns impossible to avoid. Blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, and almonds all belong to the rose family, but we didn’t know that then, and wouldn’t have cared if we did. We only cared about stuffing our mouths, filling our pails, finding adventure, and finally heading home for our reward, Mom’s best in the world blackberry pie.  

Once we stumbled on a long-forsaken boy scout camp with its old, crumbling buildings. My imagination told me a story of a deranged killer who’d found the camp at night and now the bodies of little cub scouts and their scout master were skeletons buried beneath my feet. I made up some excuse why we shouldn’t stay there long.

Mary tried to teach me the art of walking silently through the woods like a native American, one foot exactly ahead of the other, making no sound. She was much better at it than I. Every time I snapped a twig, she looked back reproachfully at me with her dark eyes until we both laughed and gave up.

As the day warmed, we took off our sweaters and tied them around our waists. We rolled them and used them as pillows for naps after a picnic lunch.

We saved our lunch bags; woe to the child who returned from an adventure or a day of school without a lunch bag. I remember detesting the old, wrinkled bag at lunch time in the school cafeteria. It was sad enough not to have money to buy lunch, but couldn’t we at least throw out the lunch bag each day the way the other kids who brought their lunches did? Apparently, their moms weren’t in the running for the title of Most Frugal Mom USA. But then, their moms probably couldn’t make the best blackberry pie in the USA either!

After lunch we either continued exploring or picked more berries. I remember reaching into one bush to get a berry bigger than my thumb when several snakes slid over my right arm, dropped to the ground, and slithered away. It happened so fast there wasn’t even time to scream.

“Did you see that? I almost got bit by three, or six, or maybe even nine rattlesnakes!”

Mary shook her head. “I didn’t see any snakes. And I’m sure they were just garter snakes.”

Though rattlers do live in the foothills of the Adirondacks, I later learned that it’s very common for garter snakes to lurk in the berry bushes. Mice love berries; snakes love mice; you finish the equation. But in my mind back then, I was a hero, almost as brave as Nancy Drew who stood up to criminals. I stayed right where I was and kept picking berries. No two dozen rattle snakes were going to scare me away from getting blackberry pie!

As you might guess, my story of the dangerous encounter grew with the telling. I was quite disappointed when my parents, instead of admiring my sheer courage of braving rattlesnakes, agreed with Mary that the snakes had been harmless garter snakes, waiting to eat mice, with no interest in eating a sweaty fifth grade girl.

It seemed to Mary and me those carefree days of August adventure would last always. Forever we would be sisters, climbing the hills, stuffing our mouths with the sweetness of wild blackberries, sharing laughter and the scratches from thorns, and going home to parents, siblings, and the world’s best blackberry pie.