A Field Guide To Wildflowers

By Greg Mertz

part 1: joe montour arrives and settles in a small town in up-state new york. he befriends eddy who generously shares his home and life with him while joe finds his footing in the town of high falls. joe meets jenny and is immediately attracted to her only to find that she is already taken by Stephen, Eddy's best friend and colleague at work. joe discovers that jenny is somehow related to john burroughs the famous 19th century writer and naturalist and on investigating, finds that in many ways john burroughs' life was very much like his own. joe struggles to impress himself and succeeds at capturing the heart of jenny. their love is cracked apart by an historical newspaper article presented by the angry stephen that shows that joe and jenny are actually first cousins. having won at love, stephen further destroys joe's career chances through clever words and self-promotion.

part 2: in a career move and as a way of starting over, joe re-locates to washington, d.c. his quest for self-reliance goes from the physical to the mental. the spririt of john burroughs, who he knew in the context of the hudson highlands and his old life, follows him right into his new life on capitol hill where he has set up residence.

part 3: joe returns to the hudson highlands confident of his physical and mental self-reliance only to be confronted with the falsehood of his failed love with jenny. stephen had perpetrated a lie, discovered in childhood, as a way of retaliating for joe's success with jenny and joe's unconventional approach to career and life. joe confronts stephen, and ends up in prison on more false pretenses. ultimately, joe is faced with developing and understanding emotional and spiritual self-reliance. joe meets john burroughs face-to-face and comes to grips with the power, meaning and short-comings of words in the development of all humans's growth and maturity. in the end, joe gets the girl.

all the biology and fold-lore of the wildflowers is accurate. the life of john burroughs is true with some limited license taken to make his biography fit the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Greg Mertz
• Release date: Feb 12, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466090002

Greg Mertz

Greg Mertz is a biologist who lives in Massachusetts.

Book preview

PART ONE

"You ask me to give some account of my life—how it was with me, and now in my sixty-sixth year I find myself in the mood to do so. You know enough about me to know that it will not be an exciting narrative or of any great historical value. It is mainly the life of a country man and a rather obscure man of letters, lived in eventful times indeed, but largely lived apart from the men and events that have given character to the last three quarters of a century. Like tens of thousands of others, I have been a spectator of, rather than a participator in, the activities—political, commercial, sociological, scientific—of the times in which I have lived. My life, like your own, has been along the by-paths rather than along the great public highways. I have known but few great men and have played no part in any great public events—not even in the Civil War which I lived through and in which my duty plainly called me to take part. I am a man who recoils from noise and strife, even from fair competition, and who likes to see his days linked each to each by some quiet, congenial occupation.’ John Burroughs

CHAPTER 1

Psilophyton

When I awoke I was on my back and both feet stuck up outside my cover. I smiled; they were good looking feet. They had the broad-branch gripping boniness which big birds like buzzards enjoy. The rest of me felt like buzzard as well. I needed my feet, because the last time I tried to fly ended in disaster. The first rush of youth had turned into the first crash of adulthood.

What now? Was I just buzzard? I needed a role model or a ‘how to’ manual to move on from here with my life. I stopped reflecting and decided I had better just get on with it. No one I knew was offering any assistance. I swung my feet out of bed.

I slept nude because I had no belongings, just my shirt, pants, boots, and glasses. I had not taken the time to choose any clothes. No underpants, no t-shirt, no socks, no wallet, no hat, not even a pocketknife. I had left home fast and angry. That was March.

I swung my feet back onto the bed and lay back on my pillow once again reflecting. The blanket found its way over my head. I was at that age in life when I was yet to know whether I was able or unable, lucky or unlucky. I had had just enough roadway to know that there is traffic, but not enough to know which lane I should choose.

I loved where I was-by a millstream in a cobblestone cottage. In my mind, hope jumped on a trampoline with fear. No panic, mind you, just an underlying fear of inadequacy, confounded by a substantial opinion of my own self worth. I rearranged my pillow pants so that my belt buckle didn’t jab me in the eye.

My fears came from believing what others said of me. They were my people and I was after all, the son of Ned Montour. He said I couldn’t stand on my own two feet. The others were, of course, my just divorced ex-wife who called me useless, her imperious mother who had always called me worthless, and a small town of friends and relatives that had condemned our marriage and now me to hell. And on that bus ride on that January morning, I cut the cord.

Untied from my legacy I was a wreck. The world I now lived in did not know me or what I was worth. By night I was a pessimist, by day an optimist. Sometimes the transition was rough. I kicked the cover off, and stood firmly on the floor.

Couldn’t stand on my own two feet? I’ll show them, I thought. I had just gotten a Ph.D. in paleobotany. That’s standing, isn’t it? I just wasn’t standing where they thought I should stand! My calf-high boots were easy to slide into, no socks, no laces, and well worn. Once in motion, I felt better. I needed a path, and the best way to find a path was to start walking. Thank god for buzzard feet.

Eddy had gone to work already. It was his house, his rent and his food I was enjoying. I trundled to the kitchen, decided on eggs and bacon. And beer. I had met Eddy three months earlier in a local bar, reading a book. Go figure. Girls, booze, guys, and a pool table and Eddy is there reading. About salamanders, no less.

He professed to be a biologist, an active, practicing Taoist, whatever that gets you. And a competitor of games. Enigmatic, funny-guy Eddy.

While the bacon cooked I washed dishes by hand. It was my contribution to living, eating and enjoying under Eddy’s roof for free. A new and beneficial arrangement for me. I was the Johnny-come-lately, self-appointed dinner and party community coordinator for a loose group of ten to fifteen friends who called themselves the Bitter Pond Dinner Gang. They made every evening meal into a party.

It had been running for two years before I joined it as their pro temp headwaiter. Each day I invited the same regular guests, assigned who was bringing corn, who was bringing burgers, who was bringing rolls, and all who came brought libations. It was my job to set the time, and sometimes the place, but last night, as it was most nights, it was at Eddy’s. Then after everyone had left, I cleaned up. It was an interesting concept for the twenty-something singles crowd.

For this service I ate and drank free, mostly on Eddy’s dime.

In this crowd I was known only for my skill as a gadfly. I was not sure what a college education had given me. No one near here, or where I had been, was hiring PhD’s in paleobotany today or any time soon. It made me wonder if I should go back to school again or just become a bum. Both had appeal.

Don’t be too impressed by the PhD. It was more a matter of luck than brainy fortitude. I had found, quite by accident, hiking in the Beartooth Mountains of Wyoming, the first ever fossil to demonstrate a plant with a bifurcating stem. The fuss made over my find extended from the Wyoming foothills to East coast colleges and national museums. It was for all its simplicity one of those dead end proofs of the theory of evolution that only people who took the time and the forced objectivity would appreciate.

I had just kicked it when I saw it lying there just above the snow bank. I knew what it was instantly. I picked it up, lost my footing, dropped the fossil and slid 350’ down a snow bank crashing into the scree just below the snow line. Dazed I climbed back up the slope. I scanned thousands of rocks remembering its shape in my mind’s eye. Exhausted, I found it just where I had dropped it five hours earlier. Everyone wanted it.

I kept it and made it exhibition A in my thesis, then my advisor took it from me and gave it to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History where it resides today in their Evolution of Life Hall.

In my new surroundings, among my new friends, I hid most of who I was. I am sure that the chrome surface of a Ph.D. in paleobotany was one of the reasons I was divorced. My ex-wife said that all I ever talked about was Psilophyton, the theory of branching and archaic botanical evolution. She thought it better if I had become an investment banker, or something, anything that earned money. She was tired of waiting. So here, and now, I just shut up about that Ph.D. Now, to everyone, myself included, I was another wanna-be without a job.

Here I was just north of New York City. It was as far as a one-day thumb ride took me. Something in my distant memory, or something in my genes had headed me in this direction. Buzzard one day, salmon on another. Anyway you looked at it I was a long way from home.

Ned had always said, Learn to stand on your own two feet. I thought I had, but then the legs were kicked right out from under me. I could stay and stand on my own two feet the way he said it should be done; or I could leave and stand on my own two feet the way that I thought it should be done. Either way, he won. Either way, I was in the business of re-inventing my world.

With breakfast under my belt and the dishes cleaned I started again on one more day of trying to figure out my new path in life.

I figured eventually I’d kick up another Psilophyton if I kept on my feet. I didn’t expect to find it in the pages of a book. Today I planned to hike Storm King Mountain, but the warmth of the morning pushed my thumb sideways and I hitchhiked into town to the local library. As far as I knew it had the best air conditioning around.

As on most visits I found my seat near the blower. A girl carrying a box that was entirely too heavy for her was trying to get through the front door, bracing one leg on the jamb, balancing the box on her hip and pushing the door forward with her other leg.

Let me help you with that, I said all smiles.

And she let me. I lifted the box from her arms and carried it to a side table.

Thank you, she said smiling back. It’s really heavy. I think my grandmother called you about these. She’s donating them.

She obviously didn’t spend much time in libraries if she thought I was the librarian. I took that as a hopeful sign. Chemistry. I scoured up a piece of paper and one of those old-fashioned miniature golf pencils. I asked her to write down her name and address, and oh yeah a phone number might be helpful, too.

What are you donating? I asked. I mean my intentions here were all good. I really was trying to help the library, in the absence of any personnel.

Several old books and a bunch of old letters. Kind of personal stuff that Grandma thinks is historically important, she said still all smiles.

My name is Joe I said, still smiling. I extended my hand.

I am Jenny. She smiled and firmly shook my hand. I loved the feel of her fingers. They were long, thin, soft and strong. Piano-players. They matched the eyes of her personality. I may have held on just a little too long.

You know, I said, I don’t really work here, I just saw that you needed a hand and came to your aid. In courtship I was always just a little over honest. It had worked before.

I know, said Jenny. I realized that when you said your name. I was supposed to meet a Robert. She continued to smile, either from the sheer amusement of my goofiness, or perhaps she was extremely polite.

I didn’t do anything wrong, did I? I asked.

No, nothing wrong on my account. Jenny said. And she cocked her head back to see up into my face, which pushed her upper torso out and towards me just a little. Everything in my being noticed that move.

What are you bringing us? I asked, poking a finger into the top box. Ah, by us I mean the library, you know, us citizens of Highland Falls.

This stuff is all about a guy named John Burroughs. He was a nature writer in the 1800’s, she answered pleasantly.

Oh yeah? I’m into nature, I said.

We are related somehow, she shrugged and smiled.

Oh? You and this guy Burroughs are related. Whew! I thought you meant you and I were related. And that just wouldn’t do. She knew exactly what I meant.

Well, it was nice meeting you, I need to run along. Someone’s waiting for me in the car. She started for the door, paused, turned, and gave one last millisecond smile. It was a flicker that for me would last a lifetime.

And with that the most beautiful girl I had ever met turned and exited the front door of the library. That ‘someone in the car’ gave me pause. Her smile gave me an agenda.

I found a carrel, back in the corner, out of sight of the front desk, and sat down. I reflected and then retrieved the box. The librarian was still nowhere in sight. An older, sneakered, sun-hatted lady was clearing out, carrying what must have been the library’s complete collection on ornamental gardening.

Good riddance, I thought. Ornamental gardening and its prissy rule ridden attempts at improving on nature didn’t need the library’s advocacy. Gardening for vegetables is about survival. Gardening for flowers is an insult to God.

I watched the door bang her in the butt as she left, and turned my attention to the contents of the box. I felt a little uneasy poking through other people’s stuff. I rationalized that this was now the property of the public library and open for anyone to see. What I really wanted was to learn a little more about the beautiful Jenny.

The books attracted me first. MY BOYHOOD BY JOHN BURROUGHS, and two volumes of OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS by Clara Barrus. I leafed through all three volumes. OUR FRIEND was signed in the front by Clara Barrus. Pretty lofty stuff, but not my bag. I read briefly in MY BOYHOOD.

"Did you row in the races? What race are you preparing for now? It is bad business. The doctors tell me that those athletic and racing men nearly all have enlargement of the heart and die young. When they stop it, as they do after their college days, they have fatty degeneration. In anything we force nature at our peril."

Huh? What a crack up those olden time guys are.

I picked up Volume I of OUR FRIEND JOHN BURROUGHS and opened it randomly and read When I was about ten or twelve, a spell was put upon me by a red fox in a similar way. The baying of a hound upon the mountain had drawn me there, armed with the same old musket. It was a chilly day in early December. I took my stand in the woods near what I thought might be the runway, and waited. After a while I stood the butt of my gun on the ground, and held the barrel with my hand. Presently I heard a rustle in the leaves, and there came a superb fox loping along past me, not fifty feet away. He was evidently not aware of my presence, and, as for me, I was aware of his presence alone.

This guy Burroughs did not get his shot off because he was so excited by what he saw. He used the excuse that he had his mittens on. From what I read his family, from then on, teased him of having his mittens on whenever he muffed something up.

I reflected on a day when I was twelve sitting in a small clearing in the woods. My musket was a 12 gage Remington shot gun with a gold trigger. I had earned the right to buy this gun with my own money by getting an A in deportment in sixth grade. Unlike Burroughs I sat down right in the middle of the game trail. I had the gun on my lap when a beautiful red fox came right up the trail towards me. He stopped, stared, and cast his spell right over me. It took decades before I knew for sure what that spell was. I sat there as excited as Burroughs beholding this other being, both alive and spiritual. I remember fumbling with my gun, but it was more because it was in the way not because I would use it. Like Burroughs my family snorted in disgust when I told them my story. Air out of twin balloons.

Here were two volumes about this dude Burroughs, a biography of his life. I’d never heard of him before. It certainly gave me no clues about Jenny.

"I sometimes think I will not make the kind of husband that will always suit you." I read in another place. Wasn’t that just like my marriage, well, my ex-marriage, too.

I returned to the box, and pulled out a handful of letters tied together with twine. These must be old to use string and not a rubber band. My interest piqued. The letters were written in long hand and hard to read. My dearest Clara one started, I just read an essay by Howell about the literary critic. I think he has it all wrong. You would find it interesting. It reminds me of your insight into … and that was as far as I got before ennui took over. I looked to see who had signed it. Yours with deep affection John.

The next was more direct and quite a lot shorter. My dearest Clara, when will you next visit? I anxiously await your arrival. Please let me know by the next post. Affectionately, John.

This man is in love I thought. This must be love letters to his wife. I rifled through several more letters, and then another pamphlet entitled A Memorial Service to Mr. John Burroughs. 1922. This man’s life, then, seemed a lot like my life, now. Here was a man who had lived his life from beginning to end. There was something sad about that, but wholesome too. It left a question mark for my own life, when I got to that stage, what would someone, if anyone, write then?

I headed outside, the library door hitting me on the butt, and into a blast of heat and humidity. I walked back to Eddy’s house, not catching a ride any where along the three miles of roadway.

Back at Eddy’s I sat on the hood of my broken down Chevy Corvair. Another Dinner Gang friend had given it to me free of charge if I just got it out of her mother’s yard. Now if only I could fix it. First things first. I pulled out the note with Jenny’s name and number on it. Should I call her? Could I call her? She had smiled at me the whole time. Was she already taken by that ‘someone in the car’? I shoved the note into my pocket.

I made a peanut butter sandwich and ate it. Three more times I did this. Fending off the coming famine, at my friend’s expense. People who own refrigerators rarely notice when the peanut butter is low.

By now I had opened and pocketed Jenny’s note three times. I needed traction.

Chapter 2

Burdock and Sassafras

Not long after, Eddy came home from work. So what’s the plan tonight? Eddy asked. The Bitter Pond Dinner Gang had escaped me.

You know, I didn’t even think of dinner plans today. I just hung around the library and walked home. And I met the most beautiful girl in the whole world.

Yeah, right, Eddy retorted. Clearly, Eddy didn’t know a beautiful girl if he fell over one. I’d seen his girl friends, prim, overly quaffed, and made up. You know, fake. Jenny was natural, athletic, smart, and eager.

Well, I have, I answered.

Don’t get all moony. You wouldn’t know a good looking girl if you fell over one. Eddy said. We’re going to Matty’s.

It’s where I’d met Eddy on my first day in town. They loved Eddy there, because he wasn’t a drunk but a regular. He had the aura of a regular guy with the added mystery of knowing science. Everyone at Matty’s respected me because of my association with Eddy. We’d worn a rut in the road going there. It was the river road down off the Hudson Highlands trapped by a cliff behind, and a two-lane road, a railroad and the Hudson out front.

Beer was cheap, there was a pool table and I liked how Matty would pull his rifle from behind the bar and aim it at people that were obnoxious. Matty had a good sense as to who was obnoxious. Even the night he aimed it at me I couldn’t disagree with his judgment.

So here Eddy and I sat at the bar with today’s field guide and some specimens of wildflowers that Eddy had picked earlier in the day in front of us. Matty, Esther, Neil, Bobby and Kurt, had all gotten use to our books and foliage. In fact, there was some general interest in our nature excursions and our friendly arguments.

Esther, expressing her authority over her domain, made a general rule that we couldn’t bring in anything that in her eyes was gross. Matty enforced it. Grossness qualified as fishing waders with mud and seaweed still attached. Frogs and salamanders and their slimy spawn had to be in watertight containers. Clods of dirt, roots, and burrs all had to be carefully wrapped and unwrapped. Whole plants were always an interest to Neil, Bobby and Kurt. They wanted to know their local plants, mostly by exclusion. They wanted to know what was pot and what was not. And if it wasn’t pot, could you smoke it and still get high?

I could tantalize them with some information. Like the root of common burdock was a good aphrodisiac, sassafras root could make you high, hot and crazed.

We talked, quizzed and tested the boys on burdock and sassafras, over and over. Botany was not their subject. It seemed they were more skilled with their rolling fingers and their smiles.

Tonight there was something in the air. Eddy was in good spirits and he was carrying A Field Guide to Northeastern Wildflowers by Roger Tory Peterson and Margaret McKenny. I could tell he was hatching something. He wanted music. That was the other thing at Matty’s, you still got 3 plays for a quarter. I pulled a quarter out, slipped it into the coin drop, and drop it did, right to the change slot. I pulled it out, rubbed it, and slid it in again. Same story.

Matty, the juke box is stuck again.

Mumbling, Matty took the quarter, popped it into his mouth, sucked on it a few slobbers and handed it back to me-spit and all. I wondered how long it took for him to figure that out.

I dropped it in the slot. Killer on the Road came on.

So Joe, leafing casually through Peterson’s, I’ll bet you can’t identify any more than ten plants in this book.

Eddy, as I’ve already said, was more outwardly competitive than me. He