Of the countless photos I have taken, this is one of my favorites. I always think I should do something with it. I guess periodically looking at it is something. I don’t know lawn tractor guy. It was just a scene I encountered when we were there hiking.
The main attraction at Chimney Bluffs are the bluffs. Every year they’re different as they erode. The grassy turf at at the top of the bluff curls off over the edge creating a “where the sidewalk ends” style, edge of the earth feeling.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F2fdbf74c-03e6-4166-9c8a-ef208aa94068_1600x1200.jpeg)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F67ba272a-3fca-4d24-9c54-06e464cfdd0f_1600x1200.jpeg)
I’ve been visiting this place since I was a kid. I’ve watched it shift and change over more than four decades but I couldn’t tell you how it was different or what changed just like watching a cloud evolve. When was it a dragon? When did it become a hot dog? It doesn’t matter at all. It was a dragon. It was a hot dog.
It’s the place where one of my earliest memories of unbelonging occured. Maybe my first realization that people might decide not to like you, not because of you were but who they thought you might be. I feel for my poor parents, having to try to explain to little me that the parents of the kid I was playing with didn’t want us to play together anymore because we were drinking our water out of wine bottles. A container is a container in a practical sense. But seeing a 5 year old drinking out of a wine bottle would be alarming. A symbol holds a lot more water than a container.
I don’t think their parents and my parents actually talked. I think the other parents suddenly “realized” they were set up on the beach next to the Manson family and then maybe started yelling at their kid not to go near baby Manson. And then my confused parents figured out what was going on and did their best to explain misunderstandings and social mores to me.
Maybe I could have taken this information and figured out that sometimes life is easier if you don your disguise and learn to blend in. I’m not sure I ever legitimately tried that approach. I have tried to try. And tried to try some more. But since I feel more awkward when I’m pretending not to be awkward, I’ve let my poorly constructed disguises grow dusty.
We did switch to using plastic maple syrup bottles to our water bottles sometime after this. They had the handy pop top so you could drink out of them without unscrewing them AND the little handle you could tie onto a backpack. When you’re drinking from a syrup bottle people just think you’re poor (or ingenius, or a supertrooper) not that you’re a Manson.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa11adee6-1a02-4b71-871e-bde478c44ecc_558x560.png)
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_720,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F63235c3c-ef45-4e81-bf3d-39a9f61f5f8d_270x260.png)
The Lake. It is big.
But Lawn Tractor Guy isn’t looking at the bluffs. He’s staring out across the lake. Having grown up here, I often take the lake for granted. Not everyone has easy access to a body of water they can’t see across to help them ponder the infinite and gain perspective on their relavance in the universe as a whole. It’s not the only gateway for that. We can all stare into the night sky and extrapolate, if we choose to. But the lake. It is big.
A container is a container. And it’s a symbol. And it’s a dragon. And it’s a hot dog.
I actually came here to share some cool bug photos but things went in a different diretion. Maybe tomorrow.
Meanwhile, enjoy some syrup.
Also that whole story is just how I remember it. Layered with the times I reremembered and reinterpreted it. I can’t know what really happened.
This, as usual, is great. And hilarious.
My mom doesn't remember any of this. Maybe it didn't happen.