When I was in second grade one of my father’s lumberjacks spent a week at our house taking a vacation from the woods. EJ didn’t have enough money to take a real vacation, but he wanted to rest, read and play the piano. We had plenty of books, an extra bed and my mom had a piano, so EJ was right at home.
EJ Croft was born to play the piano. He could play with a blanket over the keys, and he could play while wearing choppers. HIs fingers flew across the keyboard, and he was terrific to listen to.
But EJ had other gifts as well. One night at supper he asked my brother Don and me if we liked school. We both nodded yes.
“Do you listen to your teachers?” he asked.
“Yes,” we nodded.
“I hope so. Your teachers are powerful smart, and they’re trying to teach you things that are important. Do you agree?”
I looked at Don, and he looked at me, and we looked at EJ, and we both nodded, yes, we agreed.
“But,” and he paused, then slowly, ever so slowly, he lowered his voice, “As much as they know, they don’t quite know everything.” And he let those words sink in.
And the words sunk in like heavy stones in deep thick mud.
“What do you mean?” I asked him. I was pretty sure my second-grade teacher Mrs. Johnson knew everything. Mrs. Jackson, my first-grade teacher, between her and my mom, they absolutely knew everything. What was EJ trying to tell us?
“Well,” said EJ. “Have you heard of dinosaurs?”
“Sure,” I said, looking at Don to see what he would say.
Don was just a little squirt in kindergarten, while I was a sophisticated second-grader, so I wasn’t sure if he had heard about dinosaurs. But he nodded yes.
“And,” said EJ slowly drawing a breath, “I suppose you know dinosaurs are extinct, right?”
“Yes sir,” I replied, turning to Don to explain that extinct means dead.
“And, your teachers have told you the dinosaurs are all gone, right?” he asked as he turned to look us square in the eye. “But I’m here to tell you your teachers don’t know everything. I’m here to tell you that some dinosaurs still exist. And they are here in Cook County,” he whispered.
Spellbound, Don and I couldn’t even nod our heads in agreement.
“Have you ever heard of saber-tooth tigers?” EJ looked at me sternly when he asked that, and I nodded yes.
“Scientists and the like say they are gone, but they’re not all gone. Have you ever brook trout fished in Devil’s Track River, in the canyons?”
“Yes, once with my father,” I answered. Don was too small to go on that excursion, but I knew how wild the canyons were. I stepped into a deep hole, and my baseball cap floated down the river. My dad reached down below the water to pull me up, gasping and coughing.
“Back in those canyons there live some saber-tooth tigers,” EJ said, now pointing his index finger at us. “And when you’re fishing there—especially when kids are fishing there—you have to be on the lookout, one eye on your bobber and one eye looking out for those big hungry cats. And, if you’re fishing and you’re looking, and you start to feel a heavy breathing on the nape of your neck, and hear a snarl (and he was talking very loudly now) in your ear, well, that’s the last thing you’re ever likely to hear.”
Supper was over. My heart was pounding out of my chest. Don and I had early bedtimes, and it was time for us to head off to our room. Meanwhile, EJ played some soft music on the piano. Sleep came slowly as we tried to digest living in a county with saber-tooth tigers who liked to feast on children.
Years later as I would fish in the caramel-colored waters running through the Devil Track River canyons, I would always think of saber-tooth tigers. Although I never saw one, when the river was low, as the water gurgled and slipped around the bends, water pushing and clinking small red slate rocks, sometimes it sounded like EJ playing a soft song on the piano, and I knew he wasn’t far away.
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