When coming up to visit us for Thanksgiving, my dad had only one request (and no, it wasn’t “Thanksgiving dinner”) — “Find somewhere we can go on a hike.”
Today, after much anticipation, Papa, Miles, and I went on our nature walk at Latta Plantation Nature Preserve. All my dad really wants in life is someone to be able to share his love of nature with, and Miles current love of absorbing information makes him a perfect target demographic.
Even with all the potential for learning about the wilderness, Miles’s mind remained one-track — he wanted a walking stick “like Papa,” and by God, he was going to find one.
Get Miles around sticks, and he’ll inevitably want to pick hundreds of them up. You know what else is inevitable? If Miles refuses to go to the bathroom when he has a chance, he will let you know the moment it becomes impossible to find a restroom that he has to go. I explained that there were no bathrooms out there and he would need to pee in the bushes. Miles wasn’t having it. Okay, I thought, he’ll either hold it or he’ll finally crack and agree to go out in the woods.
Well, he finally relented and decided he couldn’t wait anymore, and so we took our first swing at peeing in the woods. And, as first attempts go, it was…well, a disaster. Suffice to say, Miles was unable to hold it and we both ended up substantially messier than we had been minutes earlier.
“Well,” my dad observed, “he’s a pisser!”
Even though we had to end our excursion a little early, it was a good chance for three generations of Martins to get outdoors for a bit.
The Perils (& Pride) of Paternity 