On Top
On the road…again!!!
Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams
Chronicles of a Footloose Forester
By Dick Pellek
On Top
Ideas for inclusion in the seminal Chronicles of a Footloose Forester come about only infrequently. In his past as an active and ambitious seeker of challenges, the stories and adventures kept abuilding, one episode at a time. But as physical prowess and inclinations drifted away with age and mental arthritis, the chronicles now tend to be based on labored essays or an occasional vivid dream. This chronicle is based on a kernel of inspiration remembered from a dream.
Mrs. Slack was the third-grade lay teacher at St. Michael’s School in Netcong, New Jersey when the Footloose Forester first learned about The Parts of Speech that constitute the English language. Mrs. Slack was very good and very patient in teaching us how to diagram a sentence and how various parts of speech fit into cogent sentences. Some parts of speech were more intriguing than others, and more demanding of justification in choosing which ones to employ in making a point. The prepositions are the case in point, now as then. Many if not most of them are short words but play an outsized role in developing meaning to written or spoken passages. “To the point” starts with the preposition “To” …and plays the role of pointing to something that follows. The preposition “to” can lead to a finite place, an object, an abstraction, a predicate (action word), or perhaps even to infinity. “On” is another preposition that possesses such wide variability in language construction and use.
“On top” was the initiator cue of a recent topical dream that envisioned, first; being on top of St. Peter's Basilia in Rome, then climbing the worn stone steps of the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, then going up the elevator to have lunch atop the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The dreams of the Footloose Forester sometimes revisit past adventures in that manner, thus the dream continued to seek out other places and circumstances about being “on top.”
Mt. Whitney, California
High Point in the Kittatinny Range of New Jersey emerged in the dream. It was the highest elevation to be found in New Jersey and although it was a very modest elevation in relation to other places around the United States and around the globe, it stimulated a young adventurer to seek out other high places and hopefully to get to the top. The quest was more than symbolic, it was germane within the DNA of the Footloose Forester. And the impetus was not a fluke; the successes included Mt. Davis in Pennsylvania, Clingman’s Dome in Tennessee, Mt. Whitmore in California, the Zugspitze in Germany, and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Many others were only aspirational. But he did want to be “on top” as metaphor for a personal success that required a sustained and individual effort. Life is like that. The roads may already be laid out, the directional signs may already be in place, and the potential goals may already be understood… but it takes a plan and a commitment.