“If you aint getting lost at least once a week, you aint going nowhere”

 

“Try your best” was one of those commandments that ol’ Huck Finn had a spotty track record with. To the judge or auntie or his paw or the town in general, he wasn’t trying to any good purposes, or applying himself to being a productive citizen. He wasn’t trying none too hard at the other precepts or commandments or norms. He was a shirker, and he was shiftless.

But I’ll give him his due. You could be darn sure that every night on the ol’ Miss, out on the sand island or along the muddy channels, every one of them pennyworth trotlines he laid out overnight for catfish he tried and succeeded in laying out to perfection.

And – not too sad to say – he applied himself fully when he laid and executed the bloody plan to escape his pa. And unlike anyone else in town, you darn well know he tried his very best to understand Jim.

Heck, Huck Finn even tried his best (which weren’t too good) to understand Shakespeare. Even for no darn good reason. I have dwelt in that cave.

I have the benefit of being on the outside– an observer – looking back on the Adventures. That’s the benefit in judging over any doggedness in Huck Finn. I do not, though, have that benefit when looking at my own resolve. But I almost want to argue that “Try your best” is as meaningless as “Don’t lie” or “Thou shalt not kill.” Overpowered by caveats and contingencies. Imperatives too simple for the human experience; too complex to be comprehended in one lifetime.

I have a half dozen tamaracks that I’d gotten from the Soil and Water Conservation District a couple years ago, and which I started in sunk pots in my nursery, and they’ve thrived. They’re four to five feet tall now. And becoming rootbound. I have to get them transplanted this season in my chosen spots down in the creek bottoms. And if I ever do get them transplanted, I’ve got to cage them against the deer. I don’t know that I’ll get it all done before the permanent freeze. I’m writing now and can’t bother with it. Writing about Huck Finn, who is one of my favorite subjects. I don’t know if I’m trying my best concerning my tamaracks. You get the idea.

One motto of ol’ Huck’s that I believe in is “If ’n you ain’t getting lost once a week, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.” Actually, that’s mine; I just attribute it to Huck. It sounds like him, don’t it? Think of it as the opposite of plagiarism. I’ve borrowed it to him, as we say along the Mississippi.

Go out of a mid- to late October morning up over the hill somewhere off the Trail, and get into the woods on a deer trail, or some 40 or so acres you think you know. It works best on cloudy days; in the sugarbush; in a rolling landscape. Pick out in your mind the spot you think you’ll end up – where you want to end. Start humping without a compass or the sun to guide you and let the dog’s range. If you come out where you wanted, good job. You’re a woodsperson. You seem to know this little corner of your world. If you don’t, then hopefully you’re lost, and you’ll be a better woodsperson for it.

The other one that I attribute to Huck Finn is “If ’n you ain’t gettin’ into trouble, yer doing somethin’ wrong.” Unfortunately, I got a spotty track record with this one. I’m usually doing something wrong. Either getting into trouble for the wrong things, or not getting into trouble at all. I’m confused. Like trying to read Shakespeare. It certainly is a problem. Probably, as always, I’m not trying hard enough. Maybe I ain’t as lost as I think I am. And that is always as it is in the woods, too.