| Earthseer Danielle Marie
Ch. I What follows is a
narrative of
Nico’s early years. Throughout Nico has added his comments or
corrections in
quotes. Nico did not take to
school right
away. During the first year as soon as class started he would get up
and leave
and walk back home. When he realized he had to stay there in the
classroom, he only
liked the time outside for recess and lunch. At times he would go over
the fence
and explore the forest next to the school. “It was not a forest, Just a
few
trees and clumps of bushes. It was quiet. I watched what the ants were
doing.” A
teacher would have to come find Nico and soon they had someone guarding
the
fence at recess time. “Especially after I brought that snake back to
class. It
was a harmless snake.” When the new
terms start teachers
would look at the student list and hope Nico was not included. The
usual term
the teachers used was that Nico ‘did not apply himself.’ “To what? For
a long
time I did not understand what was going on in those classrooms. Then
one day I
realized. There is nothing going on there!” He ‘disrupts the classes,’
they
added. How did he do this? He would look
at the textbooks and other books and read them instead of listening to
the
teachers. “I learned to read right away and knew what the teachers was
explaining already so I would look at other books. I liked to study
maps. I looked
at every book in the school that had maps before I left there.” Once, “was it only
once?” Nico
bailed out of a swing when he was in the early grades. He liked to
swing up
until the swing was even with the bar and look over. The bar is the
structure
on top that the swings are connected to. When he could see over the top
he
would bale out when the swing got up to the other side. That caused
Nico trips
to the Principal’s office. Another time there was that Football Game in
5th
Grade. Nico tackled the player on the other side who was carrying the
ball. Principal, in the interview after,
explained to
Nico that the game they play here is Touch Football! “I was doing what
I saw on
TV.” Nico had thick blond
hair. He
did not like haircuts. Baths and washing his hair is all he agreed to
tolerate.
Clean clothes OK. “Why should I cut my hair short just because the
other boys
do?” A 6th Grade Teacher thought that odd and sent him to
see the
School Psychologist. She explained to Nico that all the other boys have
short
hair. And that in a few years he would be interested in girls, and that
girls
will not like a boy if they think something is wrong with him. Nico
looked at
the teacher in amazement. “What do you
mean ‘in a few years?’” So Nico went to see the School Psychologist.
“It is more
accurate to say, ‘the Shrink saw Nico.’ I didn’t go there to evaluate
him.” “There were a bunch
of tests I
had to take. After the tests the Shrink just looked at me and said
nothing.”
After evaluating the tests the school administrators suggested to his
parents
that Nico should take mathematics classes but otherwise follow a course
of
directed reading and he could go to High School in a couple of years.
He would
continue to be part of school sports and social activities. “At first
some of
the kids thought I was weird, but after a while they go used to me.”
Nico was
most interested in exploring the surrounding hills and open spaces. “Explore? Yes,
but I also found
that I could take scrape metal I found to a
salvage yard and sell it. That way I learned
about a lot of different metals. I would take the pieces I could carry
home and
my Dad would haul in in his truck to the
salvage yard, He would also help me by going out in the truck and
loading the
pieces I found that were too heavy to carry home.” Nico built a small
business
salvaging metal. He and his Dad hired day laborers at times to load the
metal.
That business lasted a few years until there was little scrap metal to
be found
left in their area of the city. “We didn’t steal any
metal either.
Some people stole lamp posts and manhole covers, but we didn’t.” Nico’s
family
had some property out of town in the hills. Their great Grandparents
were
miners and had bought the property to do surface mining for
semi-precious
stones and multicolored rocks that could be polished up for jewelry.
And maybe possible
precious metals. As Nico got a little
older he
finished all the formal education he could get in elementary school and
Junior
High. He wanted to wait a few years for High School so he would be
about the
same age as the other High School kids. “Wait? I didn’t want to go at
all but I
think I want to go to College to learn more so no choice.” Nico started
studying books about minerals and mining so his parents let him spend
some days
at the mining property. He would pack a lunch and bicycle to the
property. That
did not leave him much time there. There was an old junk pickup left at
the
property. He got the truck to run so he could drive out there and back.
“It wasn’t junk. I
did a lot of
work on it. I took it all apart and fixed or replaced all moving parts.
I
polished up the old paint so it looked almost new. It had an fading
sign
painted on the side of the two side doors Outer City Minerals. I polished it up so it came out OK.” When High School
started Nico
still spent time at the mining property and took a lot of rocks back
home. He
made a good enterprise out of it selling minerals and the few
semi-precious
stone he found to local jewelers and ‘rock hound’ hobbyists, folks who
polished
up colorful rocks. Some were able to establish a store based on the
stones Nico
brought them “I used the
truck to drive to
High School also. The girls there liked it. I took a load of them home
every
afternoon. I can graduate high school early but will stay because you
can play
football and really tackle the guys from the other high schools. I
liked that
and some of the science classes are good. In high school it became the
fashion
for the boys to wear their hair long, so I got mine cut short, but not
too
short.” So by the time Nico was in his second year of high school he
was well
thought of by teachers and the community. “Why? I was the same.” So
Nico’s
academic accomplishment, sports participation, and entrepreneurial
enterprise would
earn him the awards he would need to go to college. *** I’ll be telling you
my story
from now on out. So all was going as
usual until that one day. My grandparents’ property was pretty well
mined and
picked over for valuable stones by the time I started there. I did OK
so now
there were even fewer. There were other long abandoned claims in that
area that
had even less. I bought an old second-hand metal detector and started
looking
around on the areas next to ours. Soon the metal detector showed to be
useless
because all I could find was junk metal, sections of rusted out pans,
corrugated
metal siding, parts of old cars, and the like. There were some mine
shafts,
small so anyone who would venture in would have to bend over. I will
not go in
any of those. You don’t know if the roofs will cave in or you will fall
into a
large hole and not be able to get out. That has happened. So I started
exploring the hills just for the fun of it. I found that there were
canyons and old dry river beds that only had water in heavy rains. There was one
box
canyon where water over time had cut a pathway through high rocks that
waved
back and forth and looked just wide enough for me to walk through,
which I did
not try the first time I found it, One day as I
was walking back
to my truck I saw the ‘skeletal’ remains of an even older truck than
mine, These
are not unusual in this area. There was the frame, some body sections,
no
engine, a little of the drive train, and odds and ends lying nearby. As
I was
walking away I saw A corner of a, what? It did not look like rusted
metal but
was close to the same color. I pushed on it a little with my foot and
it bent a
little and came up out of the dirt. I bent over and pulled it the rest
of it
all the way out. It appeared to be a
leather
pouch, one to be carried or attached to the saddle on houseback. It was
about a
size for personal papers or a notebook. It was dry and cracked, and
falling
apart way beyond any possibility of restoration, which was my first
thought. When
I tried to open the top flap it broke off. Any papers that had been
inside had
long deteriorated. I wondered about coins. No such luck. But down at
the bottom
in a corner was the edge of something metal. I pulled it loose and
wiped off
the dirt with my thumbs. It was rectangular and appeared to be a belt
buckle,
similar to the ones given as prizes in Rodeos. It had the
usual attachment on
the back for a belt and the hook for the belt holes. There was a design
I think
on the front. It was not anything like the designs on belts you get for
winning
at the Rodeo. It was a panorama of hills in relief, I think much like
the hills
where I was standing. I wanted to be careful with it so I would not try
to
clean it up myself. When I got back to town I took it by the rock hound
store
and they were able to clean it up and polish it with their rock
polishing
machines. It is a metal much the color of silver but not silver. No one
I
showed it to could identify the metal. It had no craftsman’s’ markings
on it
anywhere. I was quite
happy with the way
it came out, though the scene seem a little different than when
I first looked
at it. I proudly took it over to the shopping mall where there is a
belt maker.
I soon had a nice natural colored leather belt with no tooling. It fit
perfectly and after I fastened my new buckle on I felt quite optimistic
and
energetic, which I always feel but now a little more. I wore it
everywhere and
on that day I went back to the hills to explore that box canyon that
had the
pathway through the rocks the sometimes river carved. It was a good clear
day. I climbed
the hills and found the box canyon again. It had the river bed coming
on one
end and down at the other end to the pathway it carved. You have seen
pictures
of these I’m sure. The walls are straight up and the path meanders like
a
river. I thought it must go all the way through and come out near where
I have
been exploring. So I took a deep breath and went in ready to turn
around if it
narrowed. The pathway did not narrow and there was plenty of light
coming down from
the top. After several turns I came to a place where I could see light
up in
front of me. I stepped through. What I see before me is a long green valley. There are farmlands and small villages. I turn around and see the same behind me, the other side of the valley. The opening to the box canyon is gone!
End of Chapter. I Full
story on Amazon,
paperback or e-book.
|
Continues Fireseer Earthseer
concludes the Series. On Amazon, paperback or e-book. |
