In this post, former Summit County resident Mark Lauffer reflects on the Fall Hiking Spree and how much it meant to his family, even years later.
(photo by volunteer Joe Prekop)
“I closed my eyes, and, again, in my mind, like some kind of time machine, I was deep in the forest of my youth — kicking through the leaves again.”
One of the things we did as a family living in Northampton that brought us great joy, and fostered a love of both nature and where we lived, was participating in the Akron Metropolitan Parks (now Summit Metro Parks) Fall Hiking Spree. Everyone got a hiking staff on which we tacked a new shield after completing all the hikes each year. After 52 years, the spree is still going on today.
My dad didn’t participate, but my mom, grandma (who lived with us all my life until she died in the late ‘70s) and we three kids did it for years. It was good for us — exercise, fresh air, educational — and despite all of that, my sister, brother and I loved it! Never once did a single one of us complain that — “Aw, Mom!” — we had to go on a hike. When it was time to go, we were like dogs rushing to the car to go for a ride.
That was in the late 1960s and 1970. There were no video games or social media to occupy children’s time back then. Television? In my house, my dad called TV the “idiot box,” and if he caught us watching the RCA black-and-white on a nice day, it would infuriate him.
“Get outside and do something, or I’ll give you something to do!” he would yell.
So we grew up outside — summer, fall, winter and spring — on our two acres at the corner of Theiss and Akron-Peninsula roads in Northampton Township, outside of Akron, Ohio.
Mom and grandma would pack a picnic lunch. We would put on our sweaters, pull on our boots, grab our hiking staffs and drive off to that day’s Metro Park, some of which were right down the road from us: Sand Run, Furnace Run, Hampton Hills, Deep Lock Quarry, Gorge (we always called it THE Gorge for some reason), to name a few. After each hike, we would hunt down a ranger to sign our hiking forms. The ranger would smile with approval, ask us how we enjoyed our hike (“We saw a woodpecker and a cardinal!”) and urge us to come back soon. I loved the rangers in their uniforms and “Smokey Bear” hats. Back then, I started thinking I might like to be park ranger someday. After saying goodbye to the ranger, we would go back to the car, grab our lunch and something to drink, and find a place for our picnic.
I can’t tell you how much I learned on those fall hikes! I learned about history, about canal locks, where people first settled, and how man and nature interacted.
I learned that the five of us could stop and be totally silent to listen to the quiet around us — only to learn that it wasn’t quiet at all! A symphony played around us, if only we stopped to hear it. Birds of all kinds sang, called mates and pecked on bark; breezes nudged leaves that still hung on for that last bit of life before falling and joining to make that wonderful sound when hiking boots scooted through them.
I also learned that Grandma, in her 70s at that time, could climb an ascending trail with the best of us, despite her “arthur-itis.”
And, finally, I learned things that I didn’t know I had learned until I was older, looking back on it. All that hiking with Mom, Grandma, Lynn and Kurt, combined with hundreds of outdoor activities I enjoyed made me fall in love with the outdoors, and, especially, with that magical place where I grew up — in the Cuyahoga Valley and in the nearby parks. Don’t get me wrong: Where I live now in Phoenix, Arizona, there are plenty of ways to experience the outdoors, in the desert and up in the high country. But nothing — nothing — will ever come close to the feelings I had back then, and cherish today; things a young child feels when first discovering the wonders of nature.
Moreover, to get to experience much of it with my family, laughing a little, teasing some, and learning a lot, with a chip-chop-ham sandwich reward waiting in the car, well, so much the better. And on top of all that, a shiny new shield for my staff!
Fast-forward, many years later, to August, 2014: I returned to Ohio for my Woodridge Class of 1974 reunion. While visiting with my mom and my brother in Stow, I mentioned to them that I drove around the Valley like I always do when I come home.
I told Mom and Kurt how all of that made me think of those hikes we went on some 45 years ago.
“I wish I still had my staff,” I said.
My brother left the room and returned with his old hiking staff, emblazoned with shields, and I almost cried. I closed my eyes, and, again, in my mind, like some kind of time machine, I was deep in the forest of my youth — kicking through the leaves again.
