Long before you walked down the well trodden path to the open bit of urban landscape, where one could hear first, and shortly thereafter, see the golden meander of Ramble Creek, or at least, this is what we called it in our neighborhood days, the young adventurers could feel the rush of liberation from day to day regulated childhood.
You have known a place like this in your life. An almost sacred wild place, of many acres or less, where the universe expanded all of a sudden, and life became so much more dynamic and full of endless potential. Beyond the typical play of youngsters with time on their hands, these places replaced parental authority with blue sky, engaging vegetation, tall grasses, wild flowers and possibly a rambling creek like the one I got to know in that Burlington neighborhood of the late 1950's, early 60's. Maybe your paradise on earth in childhood involved a lakeside situation, or a pond, or something else that set the heart and soul on great untethered adventures.
I was about five years of age when my mother Merle allowed me to trundle down to the creekside, first in the winter months with a new pair of bob skates, decked out with multiple layers of sweaters, a coat, toque and scarf that was wrapped so many times around my neck, that I could hardly lower my head to look down at what I was skating over. In the spring of my fifth year, I was allowed, with my mates of Harris Crescent, to play down along the usually shallow creek that eventually drained into Lake Ontario. I was not allowed to cross under Lakeshore Road, as we knew it, as the water pooled deeper and the current became a little more precarious should we have fallen into the darker water under the roadway.
For most of my days I have recalled this place of general wonderment from oh so many hours wandering alongs its treed banks, and frequently getting soakers, when making a misstep on one of the slippery flat stones we set out as makeshift bridges from side to side. I can't even estimate how many times, during some period of consternation or unexpected stress, even sitting in the doctor's waiting room, awaiting test results, that I've calmed myself by re-creating the Ramble Creek experience. I can so easily and clearly visualize myself, the voyeur, sitting on a fallen tree along the trickling old watercourse, and watching the most tranquilizing play of sunlight dazzling through the overhead leaf canopy of venerable hardwoods on the hillside, and watching down toward the lake as the scene was enchanted by the strange mists that mysteriously wafted down into the ravine giving such a ghostly aura to an otherwise predicable panorama.
It may have been the gentle tinkling of golden hued creek water over the flat stones and wedged lengths of moss covered boughs damning the flow, or the fact that the birds were so active in that hollow of landscape, that made the setting seem as if a place where fantastic things could happen with no surprises to the watcher-in-the-woods. I can still re-imagine the scent of that woodland place, of so many creekside shrubs and wildflowers, and the water itself that had a strange allure I can't quite explain. But it was the solitude I harken back to most of all, in a half-hidden place on the urban landscape, that fed curiosity with a vigor and intensity, that stuck with me forever after. There was always a haunting musicality to the ravine where Ramble Creek drained down into the broader lake, and the crystal tinkling of the current against the irregular shore, has always been a most desirable recollection, when, for whatever reason, I have been forced to endure the jagged urban sounds of trucks, tractors and jackhammers.
Although I was given liberty early in life, by being allowed to play unescorted in the hollow of Ramble Creek, by trusting parents who often trusted too much and broadly, I was never given much training in the field of imagination-development. My mother was a great believer in letting a "child be a child," in such wide open spaces, but I was never exposed to much in the way of fantasy, as we offered our boys when they were young. I was seldom if ever read story books and never inundated with toys to entice creative play, simply because my parents didn't have money to waste, as it was too important to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. I think this is the simple reason that Merle more or less, used outdoor options to feed my play necessities. It was affordable and very available. On non-school days the door was opened right after breakfast, and I knew that meant I was being set free for a giant play day. I was expected back at lunch and dinner, and I was to never arrive on my mother's doorstep smelling like fish. That would have meant I had been close to the lakeshore, and possibly even beyond the tunnel under the roadway. Merle was had a keen sense of smell and most of the time she was right in her assessment that I had broken the rules. Yet I was seldom ever punished but warned with that severe look that no kid wanted to see from a parent. The belt may have been next but I was pretty successful in avoiding corporal punishment.
Ramble Creek gave me an early opportunity to develop my imagination. I think a lot of modern age kids are denied this critically important starting point, having to grow up sooner they should, missing this delicious aspect of life discovery. In my own way I celebrated so many interactions with perceived ghosts, hobgoblins, trolls, and strangely humanized animals from the abutting forest, that partnered with me on these forays of discovery and unencumbered travel along the watercourse. I celebrated these days of freedom and endless adventure, most of the time with my friends Ray and Holly Green, but often all by myself in the comfort of an electrified imagination, to create the environs I wished to explore on that particular day. Might it be a quest for pirate treasure, or catching up to a local version of Tarzan swinging down on a vine from the tree tops, to scoop me up to the wavering shelter high above the meandering creek.
It was in this hallowed place, for this always questing kid, that I began to commune seriously with what I would later appreciate as paranormal sensitivities, with a tireless devotion to learn more about the strange fictions and curious realities that grow heartily strong, from those situations we often encounter, that engage us in that veil of mystery, where we really don't know if we've seen a ghost or evasive hobgoblin, fairy or leprechaun, but refuse to surrender entirely to the potential, if was just a figment of an over active imagination. It was the place I would come to ponder all the possibilities, and allow the liberation of mind, to set down the fundamentals of what is real and what has been imagined; and whether or not, a footstep into the unexplained is a step too far. I never once felt that way but I have also always been careful when crossing on those wet mossy flat stones than can, if carelessly travelled, cause an unwanted spill into the brine; unsettling the very gentleness of solitude, that feeds the enlightened traveller, to never take for granted; but to also never be so sure as to disallow experience its full measure and capacity. As a writer who has spent a majority of his professional life dealing with non-fiction and historical fact finding, I've had to be careful with this foray into a more fantastic way of looking at those soul liberating scenes and situations of which I am so desirous.
In my next offering in this biography, let me explain this a little further, about how adherence to fiction and childhood role-playing, nearly turned a Ramble Creek adventure into a tragic circumstance. It was one of seven occasions in my life, thus far, where I have had to impose upon my Guardian Angel for an intervention. Seeing as I'm writing this about myself, yes, I did survive a near drowning.
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