Mar 12, 2019 3 min read

I was standing in Sunday School class, trying to find a way to explain the book of Leviticus to the students, when something outside caught my eye. A long grapevine was moving across the yard in the wind. It was still suspended from a tree, but the bottom was loose and was roiling and flapping around.

I momentarily forgot where I was, as I was sent backward nearly 35 years to another part of the state and another part of my mind.

I was maybe 7 years old and was on vacation with my family and my friend’s family. We were spending a week in their cabin near Tionesta, in the Allegheny National Forest. There was a river a stone’s throw from the back door, and we spent hours in its water. There was one area in the river where we could body surf in what we considered “rapids.”

One of the best parts was swinging on grapevines. The grapevines up there were as big around as a fire hose. One of our dads would cut a vine loose at the bottom for us to swing on, and we would spend hours taking turns, seeing who could go highest, or how many times we could go without putting our feet down.

Things were simpler up there, folks. No cellphones – no landlines up there, either. No running water but nobody cared, and no connection to school, jobs, or the responsibilities of home. When you were there, you were there.

I remembered all of that while I was looking out the window of my church, watching that vine swing carelessly through the grass at the woods’ edge. I debated for one, brief moment about going out and giving it a whirl, but then another memory returned.

It was a different summer, but the same place. We were in the woods again, trying to find a good vine. As usual when a vine was cut, one of our dads would hang from the vine to see if it would bear their weight. If it could bear his, it could bear ours. This particular year, it was my dad who hung from it. Then he bounced up and down, testing that it was well wrapped in the arbor above. Finally, he took it for a short swing. All good.

Feeling as spunky that day as I did on Sunday, he walked backward up the hill and then took off running down the path they had marked for us. As he lifted his feet off the ground, a noise could be heard in the tree above him (which was the sound of the canopy releasing the vine), and the grapevine fell from the sky like ribbon.

So did my dad. He went half-skiing, half-sledding down the hill, but without proper equipment. His body skidded through the dirt, finally coming to a stop in front of a large tree. We all stood there, mouths agape, until he groaned and stood up.

“That one’s no good,” he quipped, brushing himself off and climbing back up the hill in search of a different vine.

The reverie ended abruptly when I remembered how painful it looked to fall, and how little grace I can sometimes show when embarrassed. I left the vine to its whipping and went back to my teaching. It was nice to remember such a happy time, and I was content to simply remember.