Awareness

This is a highly predictable story: uncomplicated and unconvoluted, not shrewd, smart, clever, or tricky. Some stories are like that.

Ellie Long had experienced nightmares ever since Chicago offered her the position of City Park Ranger.

"CityRanger?" asked Manny, roommate of the Master's Degree candidate in Conservation. "Isn't that a contradiction of terms?"

"Not really. There's a lot more to Chicago than skyscrapers, cement, and traffic. While it's not Michigan, itison a Great Lake."

"You're head's not on straight," responded Manny half-jokingly. "If it's not Michigan, then it's simply notMichigan. Once you screw your head back on you'll see that a Conservation Major can't entertain for one second the notion of going toanycity, especiallyout of state."

"I must admit," answered Ellie, "in one sense everything you say is not only right, it's the only right. But there's always a flip-side. Chicago has many parks, the people are probably hungry to connect with Nature even if I'd be doing it mostly through pictures and stuffed animals. And, come to think of it, maybe the city needs me more than forested, water-filled, beautiful Michigan; Chicagoisa desert."

"Well, I think you're crazy. No wonder you have nightmares."

Ellie was the only one who didn't associate the nightmares with the job offer; the terror overshadowed her normally clear mind. Her anxiety pushed out even the memory of the pungent smell of Balm O'Gilead or the enticingly musky odor of a beaver swamp. To Ms Long, Chicago had become the home of the Cubs, White Sox, Bulls. Something made her unable to relate her torment to the city.

Ellie had been under a lot of pressure finishing her Master's. More than once she wished she were back in Alpena, the North, watching the Seagulls and Terns dart into the water after careless fish, amidst the Pine, Spruce, and Balsam trees, on the sand, in the wind.Why is life so difficult? Why aredecisionsso complicated? She wanted it to be easy like Nature.

Every night the nightmares. In one horrendous variation she was

dominated by heat, then dryness, then an endless, cement desert. She was like a cartoon character crawling on, eyes burning, too dry to sweat, the pavement a furnace-heated treadmill. A vulture pecked at her. She saw abandoned, bleached-white bones and then a monstrous figure with flashing, red-yellow arms chasing her from her blue house where green, comforting arms stretched to save her. She woke in a spasm.

"I'm telling you, Ellie," said Manny, "it doesn't take a shrink or even a Psychology Major to see what that's all about. It's Chicago pushing you away, while the green is Michigan pulling you here. Simple. I tell you, roomie, if you don't turn that job down and get your Michigan feet on the ground, you're going to go bananas.You were meant to live in this beautiful state forever."

But Ellie was a humanitarian at heart. She felt she should do good, and to her than meant helping the less blessed to come to terms with Nature whatever their environment. She sat in the University of Michigan Library and let her mind wander to the names she loved: Chippewa, Mackinack, Hiawatha, Ontonagon, Cheboygan, Oscoda, Otsego, Missaukee, Osceola, Neewago, Tuscola, Huron, Shiawasee -- what beautiful sounds, those Indian names! Even the cities elicited bliss in the student: Dowagiac, Kalamazoo, Owosso, Saginaw. She realized how catchy the names were. She was about to indulge in lakes and rivers when the sound from the old bell tower brought her back.

Ellie arrived at her appointment at Placement a few minutes late. The Director reprimanded the job seeker.

"One of the worst things a prospective employee can do is be late, Ms Long. This is especially true for Chicago-bound applicants. You see, quick -- or at least prompt -- decisions impress them, because they thrive on speed. Actually, whether it's a Ranger in the Windy City or at the Huron National Forest, you would be wise to decide pronto. So, now that you're finally here, what's your decision?"

Ellie took a deep breath to slow the interview down. "I appreciate the need for punctuality," she responded, "and usually am on time. But do you really expect me to make a snap decision when it could effect the rest of my life?"

The Director stated simply, "The El leaves whether one is on it or not."

The ordeal over, Ellie sat on the grass and watched the ducks paddle the Huron River. She had taken her tuna fish sandwich and canteen of Ovaltine to Ann Arbor's Geddess Park. She thought it wonderful that

such a lovely spot was within walking distance from campus.

Later, in her dorm, Mannie, her boyfriend George, and two other couples sprawled about the coed room. Ellie sat absently as the party animals chuckled.

"All you think about is the Wolverine State," complained George. "I mean, I'm from Traverse City, lived there all my life, and I know it's beautiful. But come on, there's life elsewhere, too."

"When Ellie looked up, George tested her. "Bet you can't name fifty lakes in the state other than the five biggies."

Ellie immediately took up the challenge. "Manistique, Indian, Carp, Paradise, Burt, Mullet, Black, Grand, Long, Beaver, Hubbard ..."

"You got her going, George, now she'll never stop."

"...Torch, Higgins, Houghton, St. Helen... oh, I forgot Otsego, one of my all-time favorites. If I can include rivers, there's our local Huron, the Two-Hearted, Escanaba, Thunder Bay, Au Sable, Pigeon, Pine..."

"Okay, already," conceded George. "So you know your lakes and rivers. Bet I can beat you in stocks and bonds."

"Oh, please don't start listing them, George. I want the day to remain pleasant."

Ellie threw her suitcase in the back of her Ford Ranger and sped up Highway 75 taking the turnoff onto 23. It was just past Bay City that she first smelled the sweet fern. She was home. She reached Alpena by supper.

"You've always been the restless one," said Mr. Long after eating, which consisted of ruffed grouse with mashed potatoes whose gravy was dotted by sponge mushrooms he'd picked earlier. "Maybe Chicago is the place for you. You're high strung enough to blend in."

Ellie was surprised. A Michigan boy through and through, barely leaving Alpena except when he sailed on Lake Huron in his youth, the very one who'd encouraged her to go into Natural Resources so she could stay in the state, she thought he would have promoted the National Forest position. It was her mom who backed that.

"It's a natural, El. And only a few miles south of here. Why, you could come home for every holiday."

Saturday Ellie took her twelve-foot duck boat propelled by her Mercury 3.9 outboard and putted up the Thunder Bay River. How she loved to watch the thick weeds wave like stewed rhubarb! She observed a Northern Pike laying wait for an unsuspecting minnow to clamp in its

shark-like teeth. In the distance she heard the melodious wail of a loon.

"How beautiful," thought Ellie.

The coed looked high in a Poplar Tree. A porcupine quietly chewed on the tender, greenish bark.

Frogs er-rupped from a backwater where the current curled like the grain of a twisted Beech tree blown hard by the prevailing Westerly. She pulled up to a dead stump and fastened the bow line. She munched her tuna fish sandwich as a Red-Winged Blackbird balanced on a cattail and chirped his familiar call.

"And hello to you," Ellie said aloud. "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

The purpose of Ellie's trip was not to clear her head in order to make a decision about Chicago: she'd made that long ago: before going to college, before she'd heard the words conservation or natural resources. She was part of the unique habitat of the North ever since she could crawl. Junipers were her brothers, ferns her sisters, Birch, uncles, Hemlocks, aunts. Her real parents were the wind and water, while she was the endless sand beaches. Now Chicago disappeared, the river dominated, The beautiful Thunder Bay reminding her who she was.

"Why, I'll be doo-wah-diddlied," chirped Manny when Ellie returned to Ann Arbor and announced her decision. "That's great. Now I can use my hiking boots when I visit instead of high heels."

After graduation, Ellie Long returned permanently to her roots. To the North where she came from, to the place she belonged.

A muskrat swam through the water with fresh, green grass dangling from his mouth, the wind rustled the needles of the White Pine, the Chickadee sang her song, the waves splashed, the clouds billowed, ducks dove while gulls and terns darted, Chipmunks and Red Squirrels chatted their endless debate. For Ellie Long this was the Great Reality. Not a dream, and never a nightmare.

This is the true, uncomplicated, unconvoluted, and very predictable story of Ellie Long.