An early memory, he recalls following,

after school, a friend from fourth grade

 

in a direction away from home – an ad-

venture around a small park with a canon

 

in the center. He remembers jumping up

on the base and patting the cold steel be-

 

fore jumping back down in the cool, aut-

umn air thinking he better head home. His

 

heart beat fast away from the safe, known

way home – the first thrill of adventure.

 

He recalls in seventh grade crossing Halsted

Street and heading to the creek and wanting

 

to be an Indian rather than a cowboy be-

cause he loved the stories and pictures of

 

Indians in birch bark canoes he read about

in books in his grandmother’s parlor while

 

the family sat around the kitchen table drink-

ing coffee. Decades upon decades and advent-

 

ures upon adventures later, he loves to jog

and hike along the trail, the winding path

 

through the forest, along the desert, by the

inland sea, across the sand dune, up the

 

mountain, back and back and back to his

roots, their roots, the roots.