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The Last Huckleberry
Phil Corless, Coeur d’Alene, ID
From Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission. By Hogan Hilling and Al Watts.
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It is the quintessential late-summer activity in Idaho, like eating corn dogs at the State Fair in Iowa or playing beach volleyball in California. My family looks forward to the warm months of July and August when we can venture into the mountains in search of the elusive huckleberry, a deliciously purple distant cousin of the blueberry. They only grow in the wild, under specific conditions, and in unique places, usually high in elevation.
Ten years ago we were lucky enough to find a good spot five miles along a dirt and gravel Forest Service road where the huckleberry bushes were plentiful, and the trails into the woods seemed manageable. For the next few years, we stuck to that spot. My kids grew familiar with it, being able to spot the subtle space in the trees where we could grab a branch and pull ourselves up the slope to find a rough trail that meandered further up and in. The best berries were always toward the top of the ridge, away from the road, where it felt remote, and chances always seemed good that we might stumble upon a bear gorging itself on the precious fruit.
It was four years into our annual pilgrimage to the mountains when we had a scare that haunts me to this day. I can still summon a slight shiver in my spine by merely recollecting the horrible day when my happy young children bounded out of sight through the evergreens and vanished without a trace.
We were two hours into picking, some of the berries going into containers, a whole lot more going into our mouths. Our fingers, faces, and clothes were stained with huckleberry juice, a badge of honor and delight we hated to wash away. The kids were growing tired in the heat of the afternoon, and I realized we had all just about had our fill.
It was quiet and peaceful in those woods. A slight breeze would rustle the leaves and pine needles for just a moment before switching off and letting the absence of sound return. There was no cell phone service up there, which added to the tranquility.
My son, aged 10, had been devoting himself to one particular bush ten feet from where I plucked my own when he turned and said, “I’m done.” That was his way, not to drag something out beyond its welcome. My seven-year-old daughter heard this through the trees, where she stuck close to her mother and announced that she was done too.
Thinking we would be back in another few days, my wife and I did not hesitate to agree we had plenty of huckleberries, both in our gallon milk jugs and in our stomachs. We gathered our belongings, making our way along the slope toward the trail that would lead back down to the road.
Picking huckleberries, however, is like eating potato chips. That “last one” isn’t always so. As we made our way down the trail, our eyes were now keenly attuned to spotting berries on bushes that had appeared to be picked over when we first arrived. Walking down, we would stop and exclaim, “Oh, there’s some big ones!” or “Just a few more!”
The kids were growing restless, so my son, being the responsible big brother he was, asked if he and his sister could just keep going. It was only about 150 feet to the van, and they could unload their berries into the cooler all by themselves.
I could glimpse a section of the road through the trees. I knew it was close. I knew there were no bears. I knew there were no people. I threw my son the keys and told him, “We will be right behind.”
My wife and I continued to pick. We were greedy for those juicy purple morsels that are so good in pancakes, pies, and ice cream topping. Five minutes later, we realized we needed to return to the van and our hot and bored kids. We started down the trail. It would be two minutes before we emerged through the trees.
That is when I heard the car. A moving car. Crunching along on the dirt and gravel, approaching slowly, then moving away. I thought nothing of it until my wife, just ahead of me, burst onto the road and immediately called back, “They’re not here.”
I followed, quickly scanned the van to see if the kids were inside. They weren’t. Then I looked up and down the road to see if they were chasing a snake or chipmunk. No sign of them.
Fear hit me like a bullet to the chest, knocking the breath from my lungs so that I had to think to breathe. My mind went into overdrive. Where could they be?!
The car!
Had the car come along as my kids fumbled with the keys to open the back door?
Had the car slowed just enough to scoop them up and steal them away?
My mind raced wildly, goaded on by a recent kidnapping in our area of a young brother and sister.
I ran, toward what, I do not remember. I screamed their names down the road in both directions. I shouted their names up the mountainside and down into the valley. My wife was in a panic. Trying to catch my breath, I realized I had to go after them.
The keys. My son had the keys to our van. Reading my mind, my wife yelled, “My keys are in my purse. Inside!”
Without even hesitating, I picked up a rock the size of my fist and launched it at the driver’s side window. It bounced back, narrowly missing me. I spun around and searched for another, bigger rock, spotting one the size of a small dog. Hefting it off the ground with both arms, I pushed it into that window with all my might. The safety glass shattered into a million pieces all over the inside of the van. We would find those jagged bits and pieces in every nook and cranny for years to come.
I reached for the inside lock and pulled it up. Immediately, the alarm shrieked and blared at an ear-piercing volume. Grabbing the other set of keys from my wife’s purse, I brushed the glass from the seat and jumped in, revving the engine and kicking up dust as I made my way back down the mountain. My wife stayed behind, in shock but needing to stay in that spot, just in case the kids showed up.
Five miles down the fire road, there was a road crew working on railings. As I drove, I continually dialed 911, but service was unavailable. Finally, I roared up to the flagger at the side of the road and babbled incoherently to her about a car with kids in it and did she see it and how far ahead are they?
I slowed down and repeated myself. She understood. No, there had been no car before mine. She asked, “Have you called the sheriff?”
“No phone service!” I cried.
“I have service on mine,” she replied.
She held out her phone, and I furiously called 911. The operator listened intently to my story of my kidnapped children and immediately dispatched a car. “It will be about ten minutes,” she told me. “You wait for the deputy there. While you’re waiting, tell me what your kids were wearing.”
Just then, inexplicably, my phone rang. It was my wife, back up on the mountain. Either I was dreaming, or the phone coverage goes in and out with the breeze. Whichever the case, I held my phone up to my other ear, and heard the glorious words, “I found them.”
Everything after that is a blur of tears and hugs and regrets.
It turns out that my son and daughter had followed a narrow deer path that branched off from the main, paralleling the road and then sloping upward to the top of the ridge. And over. Looking back at it, my son said, “I thought something seemed wrong, but I figured a path leads somewhere.”
However, my panicked efforts to save them from an imaginary foe were not in vain. As my son and daughter crested the ridge, hand in hand, heading deeper into the thick forest and further from the road, they stopped abruptly because I picked up a boulder, heaved it through the van window, shattering the glass into oblivion, and set off the car alarm.
The deafening shriek of the alarm signaled to them that they were walking the wrong direction. It caused them to turn around and follow the sound. They were mere minutes from descending into a densely forested valley, where there was no road or line of sight or any way to stop themselves from becoming lost and afraid.
I saved a piece of the window I broke. It is in a small plastic container that sits on a shelf above my office desk. I wanted to remind myself of the positive outcome of that day. And to never forget what might have been.
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Phil Corless is a stay-at-home homeschooling dad to two amazing teens. He’s been writing about fatherhood, family, and life in the not-so-wilds of North Idaho since 2004 at his Idaho Dad blog at www.pkmeco.com/familyblog/. Seventeen years after leaving the corporate world, he now relishes his many jobs as teacher, cook, butler, housekeeper, chauffeur, and jester, as well as being involved with his son’s Boy Scout troop as an Assistant Scoutmaster.
Hogan Hilling is a nationally recognized and OPRAH approved author of 12 published books. Hilling has appeared on Oprah. He is the creator of the DADLY book series and the “#WeLoveDads” and “#WeLoveMoms” Campaigns, which he will launch in early 2018. He is also the owner of Dad Marketing, a first of its kind consultation firm on how to market to dads. He is also the founder of United We Parent. Hilling is also the author of the DADLY book series and first of its kind books. The first book is about marketing to dads “DADLY Dollar$” and two coffee table books that feature dads and moms. “DADLY Dads: Parents of the 21st Century” and “Amazing Moms: Parents of the 21st Century.” Hilling is the father of three children and lives in southern California.
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Originally published in Dads Behaving DADLY 2: 72 More Truths, Tears, and Triumphs of Modern Fatherhood Copyright © 2015 Motivational Press. Reprinted with permission.
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