When I was a boy, my dad took me on hikes through the woods. He’d point out snakes, frogs, toads and other life forms that were fascinating to a five year-old boy in 1958. We would walk in the woods near Westbury, NY where I was born. He would tell me stories of when he was a boy living in Queens, NY and how he and his friends would go out hunting for snakes and try to catch frogs, rabbits or find turtles.

It was a great way for a father and son to bond as all I could do was be in a state of wonder as he would explain the mysteries surrounding us in the forest as we would navigate the streams and footpaths (we didn’t call them trails back then because they were mostly unpaved).

But most of all he loved to tell me about his boyhood days of fishing in the Great South Bay. He and his friends would take the Long Island Railroad from Jamaica train station to Merrick in Nassau County and walk down to the water with their fishing poles and tackle boxes to catch flounder, fluke and whatever else they could catch in 1930s America.

I still remember him talking about his friends – Jimmy S. and the others – and it was a glimpse – the only glimpse – into his childhood. It sounded idyllic. Since I was only five, I only had a few local kids to play with but no way were a bunch of five year-olds going off hiking and fishing. Of course, my dad was off on his great adventures at a much older age, probably eight or nine to his early teens. But as a five year-old, I wasn’t that enlightened yet. It just sounded astounding to me that my dad was once a boy doing these kind of things.

They are sweet memories but at some point the hikes ended. We moved when I was seven and my dad soon upped my game. Now we were only a car ride away from Merrick and my dad started taking me with him as we would revisit his youth and his old fishing spots and the two of us would rent a small boat from Nick’s Marina and sail off into the Great South Bay to fish for the mysteries of the deep (or so it seemed to my big eyes).

We always came home with flounder or fluke for dinner as my mom and dad would scale, debone and clean whatever fish we caught, cut off the fins, head and tail and my mom would fry or bake the freshest fish you could get and my dad would be back in Heaven. I was enjoying the feast pretty well too, as I had caught some of the bounty myself.

My greatest memory of my “fishing days” was one outing to Merrick and the fish weren’t hitting as much as usual (as if you can say a flounder “hits”). No, this wasn’t catching marlin or swordfish in the Gulf of Mexico. Still. Suddenly, my rod bent. I mean, really bent. My dad looked down into the salt water and surmised that I had snagged my line on the bottom of the bay, probably a rock or “an old tire,” as he suggested with disgust. I pulled and pulled but I was having no success. Then, my dad saw it – “Oh my God, it’s a doormat!” he shouted in excitement. So, I’m a seven year-old kid and I don’t know that a doormat means a large fluke. Guess he was using his 1930s vernacular from Queens, but I’m still pulling and tugging while my dad reaches down to try to help me get the prize fish into our tiny rowboat when abruptly, the line snaps – and I can still see the expression on my dad’s face – the open mouth, his eyes wide – and then he goes from shock to remorse to laughter all in one second – and he is pumped! He was so excited! We came that close to landing Moby Dick but alas, he got away. It’s all good, a Top 10 memory during my growing-up years.

I never again came close to landing the Big One although we did catch dinner here and there. I was in a new neighborhood and I found myself learning the depths of friendships among the many kids. Ringolevio, tag and war games (we were all into Combat!, a TV show from 1962 to 1967 about a WWII platoon trying to win the war) and sports: Little League baseball, football, basketball were now taking up my time and energy.

So, my dad and I were close when I was five but as I got older and we moved, suddenly there were more choices than just a hike in the woods or another fishing trip to Merrick. I’m sure my dad recognized it as me just growing up and developing friendships, just as he had done in his exploits with Jimmy S and the boys from Queens. As I drifted away, he drifted too, toward the Atlantic Ocean and away from the little skiffs that we would rent for a morning and afternoon under the sun. He became more interested in surf fishing and he would go off by himself into the crashing waves of Jones Beach to occasionally bring home a striped bass or a bluefish.

Fast forward. In 1994, my wife and two children moved to a six acre paradise near Lancaster, PA. Back then, Sidney and I would take our kids Kate and Alex on hikes through our own woods and seek out whatever we could find. Up on the ridge above our house was an old railroad line that hadn’t been used in years. We found many artifacts including old rusted railroad spikes along with the glass insulators on old railroad poles – these were treasures. Further up the trail we would see snakes, lots of them and these weren’t just garter snakes like my dad and I had watched slither away years earlier. We’d see black snakes, corn snakes sunning themselves on boulders and as a cautious, young dad myself, I would always keep my eyes open for rattlesnakes (thankfully, we never had an encounter). We’d see the occasional rabbit hopping away from us and of course lots of squirrels, chipmunks and other animals of the forest. We also imagined the ghosts of our railroad – who rode these rails and what were their destinations?

Other times, Kate and Alex would play in the stream that intersected our property, dividing it between the huge meadow on one side and the woods and railroad on the other. In that stream, the kids would discover crayfish and fossils and snakes. They would reach in to the clay banks and be filled with wonder just as I had been 40 years earlier as a young boy.

A few years later, my dad and mom took care of their grandkids when Sidney and I went away for a weekend. My dad had bought the kids their own fishing poles and my parents took our kids on their first fishing trip to a local lake. I still have the picture, framed, of Kate and Alex smiling and proudly holding their first fish.

As they got older, we took many hikes but now there were hiking trails everywhere. We were no longer blazing new trails but following everyone else pushing strollers or having bicyclists and joggers pass us by. And that meant not as much wildlife to see. Yes, we would seek out the occasional deer and be awestruck by a herd of eight or ten but the trails now were marked and oh so convenient. And I guess, less interesting. Gone was the adventure – now it was more about the workout, the exercise and less about the experience.

But it made our kids appreciate the environment and Kate became even more passionate regarding wildlife. One day she would grow up to be a Senior Environmental Scientist. Alex developed a healthy respect for animals and the environment too.

And of course the hikes would lessen soon enough as our kids found their footing among their growing web of friends. Due to my job change, we relocated from our six acre wonderland in Lancaster to our current suburban home in the Lehigh Valley in PA. Surrounded by kids, our kids quickly ventured off in different directions just as I had done at their age.

Things change, things remain the same. I look back and my dad (and my mom) gave me great, strong values and wide interests. My wife and I did the same for our kids. I know what success is, it isn’t just measured by career or wealth or position. It is also measured by experience, balance, perspective and mostly – what you do with all that, combined with whatever formal education you have had.

Although my kids are 30 and 28 now, I consider them both successful. Sure they have a long way to go. But I can see the trail ahead for them, how they will move forward, navigate, seeking out truth and finding love and happiness. They are building success, not seeking it.

My wife and I, we’ve achieved it although we are still focused on building it even though we are now both fully retired.

My mom is 94 now and lives happily in Sarasota, FL. It was her dream after her father and step-mother moved there in the 1960s and she began visiting them. She tells me every phone conversation how she made the right decision to move to Sarasota and how “this was the right move for me.”

My dad? The young boy who grew to hike the woods and streams of Long Island catching garter snakes with his friends and fishing in the waters of the bay and later the Atlantic surf? He became quite a success too. He rose through the executive ranks to become Director of Internal Auditing for Sperry Rand Corp. in NYC. And in his quieter moments, when he needed to escape from the office, he would follow his heart to the surf and try to catch a few more striped bass. He didn’t always come home with any catch. But he always came home with a sunburn and felt a bit lighter. I know when he passed two years ago he had had a great life. He hadn’t been on a hike or a fishing boat in years. But he had been a grandfather and a father and a husband and a Navy signalman out in the Pacific during World War II…and a whole lot more.

Now when I hit the trails, I’m either on my bike or walking with my wife to get a two or three mile walk in for exercise. There’s rarely the same wildlife only because the trails are now so crowded. But we still become enchanted by a field of deer. We walk briskly since we want to be healthy as we age, soon into our 70s. That means we are not stopping as much, not searching for frogs or snakes or whatever. It’s okay, the animals have mostly fled us for safer environs, away from all the foot and bike traffic.

Instead our eyes drift upward as we watch the sun and the clouds and we try to appreciate everything around us. We walk on knowing that our kids are good, our parents are either surviving well or had a good life. We need and want to continue exploring too. My dad opened up the world for me with all those hikes and fishing trips and other memories such as museums, vacations and daytrips. It made me curious and I’ve never looked back. It’s easy making fun of men being dads but, with all our flaws…it’s great being a dad.

Chris Ebel
5/12/2022

Picture credit: @greyman