“Every mile I make is a memory…”—from the song Ridin’ on the Cotton Belt by Johnny Cash
“Look at that old photograph. Is it really you?”—from the song This Old Road by Kris Kristofferson
“It’s okay, it’s alright, I’m alive, and it’s good to be”—from the song Good To Be by Edward David Anderson
The Illinois River was at its yearly low level of late summer and early fall. So upper Quiver Lake, with a direct connection to the river, was reduced to a mosaic of mud flats and shallow water. I sat in the shade with my binoculars and spotting scope, hoping for broad-winged hawks, osprey, or a large group of migrating shorebirds. But in lieu of those species, I had good numbers of great egrets, American white pelicans, ring-billed gulls, swallows, and a few Caspian terns and bald eagles. Quite a few birds to keep my attention, plus the occasional migrating monarch.
I took in the scene as one might watch a wildlife documentary, waiting for a story to unfold, ready for drama to emerge from behind every shadow. The bottomland forest beyond the lake remnants taunted me by its inaccessibility, as getting there would involve crossing water too shallow for a canoe and with mud too thick and deep to slog through; all I could do was observe from a distance. And as I did that I tried to etch the scene into my long-term memory, to be recalled on demand when I am not where I wish to be (waiting rooms, the dentist’s chair, heavy traffic, anywhere it’s crowded, the checkout line behind someone buying lottery tickets using winning tickets to buy more tickets).
Quiver Lake, Mason County, Illinois, a late summer scene.
As I strained to fix every color, sound, odor, and feel of the wind into memory, my thoughts drifted, as they often do, to a vivid recollection of my father’s last days in his hospice bed at home. Did he have special scenes that he could return to at will, up until his final moments? Was he lost in his own world of thoughts, young again, riding his bicycle from Buffalo, New York, to Niagara Falls? Did he hear our conversations around him? He was a quiet, humble man, not prone to deliver monologues of his past triumphs, adventures, or struggles; he passed on few of his favorite memories, and I regret not asking more questions when the opportunities were there for the taking. I know my time will also come, many years away I can only hope, and I know what I’ll be thinking about: my wife and our life together; all our trips to places like Lake Itasca, the U.P., Isle Royale, Door County, Charleston, Savannah, Chincoteague Refuge, Lookout Mountain, Taum Sauk Mountain, Niagara Falls, and so many more; and our times at the cabin.
Other memories, usually lying dormant, are randomly triggered by proximity to place. For nearly thirty years residing in Mason County, I traveled the back roads many times over, for work and pleasure. Now, a year and a half after moving fifty miles to the west, with my day-to-day concerns centered around adjusting to new surroundings and the future, I find myself in Mason County mainly when heading to our Quiver Lake cabin, and then only along the river. But on this most recent cabin visit, I came in from the opposite direction, and traveled over the old familiar countryside again. With little effort, words and images came flooding back with surprising clarity at nearly every crossroad, creek crossing, road marker, hill, and collapsing barn: long lost conversations, buried thoughts, and faces frozen in time. It’s all there, a large portion of my life. Young again! If only that were so; the mirror forces the truth, reflecting an aging face that sometimes seems hard to recognize as the same person I’m used to seeing in old photographs.
Fixating on the wildland dramas of the Illinois River valley is preferable to acknowledging the aging process, which every damn one of us must give in to sooner or later. Neither can I permanently ignore the outside world, as I need it and all of its resources to live, to afford the luxury of watching birds uninterrupted by responsibilities.
My time at the cabin is definitely an escape, and in many ways can seem like a kind of throwback or an anchor to a better time: the pre-pandemic world— before Covid became an actual word; when potholes were repaired, hotel staff were pleasant and unmasked, and only the occasional restaurant worker was inexperienced or incompetent; and when no one ever thought of a store running out of toilet paper. Or at least that is what my memory tells me.
Quiver Lake, an early fall afternoon.