Published: July 10, 2008 11:56 pm            

Imagine that!

Mockingbirds magically turn into parrots of the Amazon. Squirrels easily become Africa’s tree- dwelling chimpanzees. Rabbits are the elusive Bengal tigers of south Asia. Poplar trees are now Alaska’s grizzly bears. The imaginations of a young, outdoor oriented boy can be wildly comprehensive; utterly devoid of boundaries.

It is a magical time when the uniquely human predisposition for imagination is discovered early in life and integrated into the daydreams of pre-teen boys. I am sure that parallels in exercising imaginations occur in girls of similar age, but because I have learned not to guess the workings of the female mind, even when there is no other route to understanding, and because I have no experience in this regard, I cannot discuss that subject here.

It could be said that growing boys enter the age of imagination and exist in this condition much of their waking lives for several years, perhaps around the first years of school to, say, the last years before the teens.



My escape



Being the oldest of three brothers, I was the obvious choice to help my father rebuild the very old house we lived in. So when he was not working out of town and when he was home on weekends, I was tearing down something, like walls, brick pillars or floors, or helping install something, like a driveway or wall paper or windows. But, being drawn to the outdoors, when Dad was away I took to the nearby woods that had a creek and a big ravine and mysteries to be solved.

Safaris in the movies provided plenty of fodder for my imagination. I made an elephant rifle from a piece of water pipe and a 2 X 4. It fired ball or roller bearings powered by large firecrackers. Surrogate tigers (rabbits), were as difficult to slip up on as the real killer beasts in India. So mostly I shot pine leopards, cottonwood elands and oak hippos.

I slept in the big forest (the one acre near the creek) most nights rather than in my bed at home, just up the hill. A surplus pup tent was not unlike the canvas wall tents used by hunters on safari in the movies. My camp was always in the great ravine so that any beast intent on eating me would have to approach from above where I could see it if I had a light which most often I did not. My rifle lay by my side, its firecracker fuse protruding from the breech and a penny box of matches close at hand.

Before turning in to sleep from an exhausting day of hunting, I would listen for a while to the grumbling roars of distant lions and the chatter of hyenas and other nocturnal critters. This was the time for an after-dinner smoke like the safari heroes on screen enjoyed. I suffered through the ritual with rolled rabbit tobacco, an unpleasant but necessary requirement for ending a day on the plains.



Continue the habit



Imaginations get worked overtime in the years of our youth. I often wonder why we don’t work them a lot more in our adult years. Reading a good work of fiction lets us linger there in the imagined world for a time. And even non-fiction inspires spiritual trips to distant places where paradise often resides. And we are usually better for such journeys.

I submit that imaginings rich with virtue surely must contribute to lower blood pressure, fewer doctor visits, reduced family fighting and likely an increased birth rate. Thomas Edison must have seen the image of a light bulb in his mind before he invented one. Bill Gates could not have changed the world of information and communication without a fertile imagination. Satellites and space ships began as mental images.

So here is to more use of our imaginations. I am tempted to imagine that I am rich enough to sail off to any fishing and hunting destination I feel drawn to. But I think for the time being I’ll start off just imagining myself as tall and thin and with plenty of dark hair. It is so hard to look the part stalking through the forests and the tall yellow grass of Africa with my bald head, short legs and a waistline that measures a full 12 inches more than my pants legs.

        

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