It's November 15, 2026. I'm wearing a light shirt and shorts and I'm looking out a window at palm trees. It has been nearly 15 years that we've lived in New Zealand and have enjoyed a Southern Hemisphere summer in place of the Northern Michigan winter that we were used to enjoy, back in the day.
But, down deep, my 'little grey cells' are still hardwired to believe that November means snow on the ground. It's also white-tail deer hunting season of course, and in past years I've published stories on this day related to that joyous fact. This year, to celebrate the opening day, I decided to give you another story. I wrote this in 2010 and published it back in 2015, but I'll bet the few of you who might have read it then have forgotten it.
I hope you make it to the end.
Trail-making 101
Good morning,
ladies and gentlemen. My name is
Professor D.J. Tralmacher and I’d like to welcome you to this new semester at
T.T.U.
This class is Trail-making 101, a class which will acquaint you with the history of trails, the makers of trails, types of trails, uses of trails, tales of trails, and innumerable other useful bits of information that you would find helpful, should you ever find yourself bereft of a trail and want to correct that oversight. Furthermore, a person with a complete understanding of trails also develops the skills needed to avoid leaving a trail, when the situation warrants.
Speaking of warrants, let me first ensure that you all really want to be here. In past years there have been a few students who registered for this class by accident, intending to sign up for Bail-making 101, a very different sort of class entirely. Bail-making 101 is taught in the back room of the campus security building by retired Judge Hardas Nales.
I am told that some of the students that took the bail-making class last semester and failed it, admitted later, that had they taken my trail-making class instead, they might have avoided a lot of unpleasantness with the authorities. These students had apparently left a very readable trail of empty beer cans, pools of vomit, and even one very sleepy young lady, through several suburban blocks just off campus. They were finally pinched by those authorities, just as their party really got going.
Nevertheless, if any of you want to leave and amend your schedules to show the bail-making class, please do so now.
Come to think of it, given the degree of partying engaged in by the average student at this university, it might be wise to consider at least auditing the bail-making class. There is no charge for an audit of a class. Now personally, I believe that the knowledge you will possess upon the successful completion of this class will minimize your chances of needing the bail-making class, but well, you just never know.
And now to the subject at hand.
Those of you who have GPS devices, range finders, any sort of automotive map systems, or have digital mapping or geo-tagging capabilities on your laptops, smart phones, pods and pads or whatever other electronic gadget you carry around and feel smug about, can forget about using them in my class. In this class, we deal with good old-fashioned trails that you make by putting one foot in front of the other, over and over and over. Or one that you find and adapt, which has been made by some sort of critter, as it goes about its business of putting one foot in front of the others, over and, so on.
The textbooks for this class are as follows:
Getting from Here to There…by D.J. Tralmacher,
I Did It My Way…by D.J. Tralmacher,
Hey, Where Does
This Go? ...by D.J. Tralmacher, and its sequel,
Didn’t We Pass This Tree Two Hours Ago? …by D. J. Tralmacher.
These works are of course available from the campus bookstore. They are paperbacks, an important consideration if you want to carry and use them for reference on the trail.
You environmentalists will be glad to know too, that all the paper in my books is made from soybeans. Not only is it fully biodegradable, it is actually edible. The ink is edible as well, having been derived from a vegetable called the marrow. If you ever find yourself in a really tight spot on the trail someday, remember, all my books; totally edible.
In fact, 25 pages of any of my books, boiled in 2 cups of water for 5 minutes, produces a nutritious, albeit bland porridge containing 180 calories. A pinch of salt is optional. You vegans may want to avoid consuming the binding area of the book since the glue, while also perfectly edible, does come from animal sources. Myself, I think the binding adds a pleasant beefy aroma to the meal.
In this first session, I want to acquaint you with my own history and my experience on a trail that would shape my life. I will also give you invaluable tips on how you too can profit from a good trail.
My very first trail was one that lead from my house on Eddy Street in Wakefield to the 1st National Bank, approximately 2 blocks away along Hancock Street or about 4 blocks away, if I took my ‘trail’.
The 2-block version was the one my father had walked with me a number of times and had given me permission to now travel on my own, after I demonstrated my ability to look both ways at the cross walks and to get the very heavy bank door open by myself.
The 4-block version I developed on my own, shortly after I began making the 2-block trip. I didn’t think it was necessary to share with my parents that I knew a better way to the bank.
I would start out, dutifully walking up Hancock for the benefit of parental eyes that, even at that early age, I realized would probably be following my progress, at least at first. By the time I came to the first cross street however, I knew that Mom’s eyes were no doubt now engaged in watching over my little sister and brother and that I now had a free reign. I would take a left on Aschermann Street and dash away, understanding that if I was to take my new trail, accomplish my task at the bank, and return in a reasonable time, I would have to cover some ground. About half a block down Aschermann, and it was a long block, there was a set of concrete steps that led up, over and down a rock-outcropping that the city had decided not to remove when it put in the sidewalk there. It was exciting to look over the edge of the concrete barrier that ran along the top and see the cars passing along the street below me. To see the tops of cars at my age was fascinating, I suppose because I normally never saw the tops of anything from my then youthful vantage point. After a few minutes of observing, I would then retrace my steps back to Hancock, cross both Aschermann and Hancock on the diagonal and approach the area where my trail entered its second region of rock outcroppings. From the point just across from the Post Office to the end of the block where there was a bar, the bus station and Auggie Tiberi’s supermarket, I would walk along the base of a high rock wall, pockmarked with all sorts of moss-covered depressions and ledges. This was the best part of my trail to the bank. It was shady and cool there on the hottest days and I felt that it was my secret place.
The reason for my trip to the bank was to instill good saving habits in me. I had a kid’s savings account there and every week during summer vacation, was sent off to deposit my allowance. The goal of my savings, I was told, was the purchase of my first $25 government savings bond, which actually cost only $18.75. That I would ever amass that unimaginably huge amount of money was frankly, well, unimaginable to me, and I therefore preferred to deposit some of my money in my own sort of bank.
The mossy alcoves in the cliff side fascinated me. I imagined that the thick layer of moss that covered them was a forest on a mountain side and that I was flying past it. As I soared by, I would slip nickels under the moss. From my perspective, this was a far better place to store my money than the bank. Just consider, I could get it any time I wanted it, I didn’t have to remember my ‘bank book’, and best of all, I didn’t have to answer that dumb question the bank clerks would usually ask me as I came up to the teller’s window and strained to see over the top of it. “Whose little boy are you?”, really annoyed me. I didn’t like having to shout out my parents' names in the quiet solemnity of the bank. I knew that my name was on my bank book that I had just given the teller. Had I then been familiar with the word 'moot', I would have certainly agreed that it described that question.
For some time, my savings under the moss grew. I would stop by each week, inspect my stash, and add another nickel or two. Then one day, when I got there, my world fell apart. My cliff side forests were gone, stripped off the moist rocks that had sheltered my wealth. Up until that point, I had never realized that I was visible from the street while tucking my money into the moss. That some other, bigger kid, probably one with a bike I thought, had watched me and then cleared me out crushed me. My secret trail that day was lost to me, forever. In the years since, I have lost much greater amounts than the $.50 or $.60 that made up my hidden fortune then, but I have never suffered any loss as acutely as I did my first financial calamity.
I learned two lessons that day. One, trails that run along sidewalks, are not good trails for doing anything that you don’t want the world to watch you doing, and two, keep your eyes open when you are hiking (or riding your bike) along a trail because you never know when you might find something really good.
I put the 2nd lesson to use many years later when I was a student at this very university. One early spring day, I was hiking along a snowmobile trail just outside of town. My first find was a long handled flat screwdriver. I used that screwdriver for years to open the rusted-out lock on the trunk of my ’69 Ford Custom. A few hundred yards further along was a socket wrench, with a 7/8’s socket still attached. I realized that I was on to something here. I hiked a lot farther that day than I intended to, yielding to the possibility that there might be yet another treasure just around the next bend in the trail. I did come home with such an assortment of stuff that I made a mental note to carry a backpack along with me next time I hiked a trail, so I wouldn’t appear to be trying to carry the contents of a full toolbox in my pockets.
During subsequent hikes, I discovered that timing was important. The first hike in the spring, after the snow melted off any given trail, was the money run, so to speak. I also discovered that there were others out there who also found good pickings along the trails.
I once arrived at a trailhead south of town that was new to me, while there were still patches of snow here and there. I was expecting to have a profitable stroll. Just as I rounded the first corner on my way out, I met a geeky young guy coming back from the trail, with his pockets crammed and a long, 4 D-cell flashlight in his hands that he was happily clicking off and on. And it worked! “Boy”, he said as he went by me, “You wouldn’t believe what I found along this trail. I’m bringin' a sack or somethin’ next time I come though.”
Okay, I see by the clock on the wall that our time is nearly up.
For tomorrow, read the first two chapters of, Getting from Here to There, and be ready to share with the rest of the class, your personal level of familiarity with trails, however you define them.
And remember, there are some people who go through life thinking they are special, simply because they “take the road less traveled by”. Well, nuts to them. We are the really special ones. We make our own trails.
See you tomorrow.
For your information:
The T.T.U. refers to my mythical Tula Technological University. Tula was a tiny town in Michigan's Upper Peninsula built around a lumber mill in the late 1800's The post office and then the town itself closed down around 1916. -djf
