Still Playing in the Dirt: Seventy Years of Stalking Tarzan and Mother Nature

By Rose Perlmutter

Rose Perlmutter has spent a lifetime pursuing adventure and peace in the outdoors. In this memoir, she uses her nature lens to examine the stages of that life. Poignant, humorous, and snarky chapters deal with belonging, parenting, Women’s Lib, body image, outdoor snobbery, death, and even sex. As a child, Perlmutter studied outdoor education books and knew what to do in an emergency. If you were bitten by a snake, she was prepared to cut you with a knife and suck out the poison. If you were being stalked by a bad guy, she could teach you to step softly, soundlessly in the forest. Since there was no forest in Yonkers, New York, she taught herself to step softly, soundlessly around the hardened dog turds in front of her apartment house. People who have grown up in an urban apartment house can relate to the American Dream of finally buying their own home in the “country.” Perlmutter defines country as any place where there is some grass, a tree, no garbage room, and no subway. On their suburban deck, as her husband grills steaks, drinks wine, and adds up the money he is saving by not going to a restaurant, Perlmutter remembers the mountain man of her dreams. Ah, mountains! In the mountains of Wyoming, there’s a trail named “Rose’s Trail.” It’s about forty-eight and one half inches wide, and if it hasn’t rained, it’s probably still there. You might want to visit that trail after you read Perlmutter’s book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9780996346719

Book preview

2015

CHAPTER 1

Ants

Here’s a big black one, Roberta said. What should I do?

Careful, I said. Step very lightly. You don’t want to kill him—just injure him. Roberta is really skinny, so it is always her job to supply us with the patients for our animal hospital. No one has ever called Roberta klutzy, and she is very light on her feet. She daintily stepped on our ant.

Let me have a look at him, I said, and I examined our ant closely. This calls for the water drop treatment. Nurse! Please hand me the water.

Roberta handed me the water pistol. OK, just one drop on his antennae should do it, I said. I held the water pistol upside down so that some water could drip on our patient. I was careful not to use a full squirt.

He’s not moving, Doctor, Roberta said.

I filled a bottle cap with water and put Antie in the water.

Come on, Antie, we rooted. Come on! Come on! You can do it!

Unfortunately, Antie died. We carried him on a piece of cardboard to the sidewalk and gently placed him in the dirt in one of the cracks. Then we scratched some more dirt over him.

At his funeral, we each said a few words about Antie.

He really had nice feelers, Roberta said.

I said, He put up a good fight.

I knew I wanted to be a forest ranger, a farmer, or a veterinarian. I liked caring for animals.

About Six Decades Later

In my senior years, I review my childhood nature adventures, and I realize that, as a child, I didn’t understand death.

Now, I wonder, Can a child be a murderer? It would seem to me that a child needs to understand the finality of death in order for a murder to be committed. Maybe I’m making excuses. Serial killers start out with cats and dogs. Some people will argue that an ant is no less. Worrisome? Perhaps. To this day, if a mosquito lands on me I will smack it, and squish it. How do I call myself a nature lover? Will the real nature lover stand up?

For your information, I did not become a vet, a forest ranger, a farmer, or a serial killer.

CHAPTER 2

Worms

My mother says I always start the day clean. I say sometimes you just can’t help getting dirty, especially when you’re handling worms, particularly the wet ones. When you pick up those big, fat, slimy worms, you get that worm juice all over your fingers, and you don’t even realize you’re wiping your hands on your shorts.

You have to do some work to get wet worms. I suggest you wait for a good rain, uncover some wet leaves, or turn over a flat rock. If you’re quick like Roberta and me, you can grab those beautiful purple and brown guys while they’re still piping fresh. Roberta and I hold those juicy worms up and say things like, Boy, if I were a fish, Wormeo, you would be scrumptillyishus!

Wet worms are really a special treat, but at Riverview Gardens Apartments in Yonkers, New York, all we ever find are the dried up worms. Dried up worms are not as messy as wet worms, but when you crave nature and you live in an apartment house, you take what you can get.

That day, for example, the dried out guys were lying all over the cement steps in the front of Riverview Gardens. It must have rained, and those worms must have crawled out of the ground to celebrate. Then the sun came out, and they got caught with their pants down. They didn’t have time to skedaddle home and so—they got cooked. I was on the top of the stairs, counting and collecting them, and I was wondering if they were mothers, fathers, or babies. Some of the dead worms were longer than others.

Why don’t you grow up!

I picked up my head and looked down the fifteen front steps to the sidewalk. I was sure the three girls standing there never collected worms. If they collected anything, it was probably skulls. I knew the leader. Her name was Josephine, and she looked like a rhinoceros. We were all in the same school, but they were in the fourth grade, and I was in the second.

Why don’t you shut up! I said. I was on the top step and they were down there on the sidewalk in front of my building. Where was Roberta when I needed her?

Come down here and say that.

Fifteen steps. All I could think about were my thumbs and St. Joseph’s Hospital. My father told me that if I ever had to hit someone, when I made my fist I should keep my thumb inside of it. Otherwise your thumb’s going to get broken, he said. I tucked in my thumbs and looked down at the three Grayson Avenue girls waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Maybe I needed to worry about more than my thumbs.

I walked down the first set of five steps and came to the first landing.

These girls did not read nature books about collecting butterflies, identifying trees, and walking silently in the forest. I, on the other hand, had read many nature books, and I knew about predators and prey and wilderness survival. When I ate my breakfast in the morning, I pushed my spoon around my bowl and decided which Cheerios I was going to devour and which Cheerios I was going to save.

I walked down the next five steps.

I don’t think the three girls waiting at the bottom of the steps ever played games with their Cheerios in their lives. Why would they bother with cereal when they could attack real live prey, like me?

I walked down the last five steps to the sidewalk. No matter what, I was not going to tell my parents, and I was not going to cry. I looked up into Josephine’s ugly face and said, Why don’t you shut up.

She hit me in the mouth. I think the other rhinos laughed. I wiped the blood from my lip with the back of my hand, and I felt tougher, not exactly like Prince Rowie, but close enough. I looked the three rhinos in their beady eyes, and then I turned and walked back up the stairs slowly, very slowly. I did not cry until I got into the lobby of my building. My mother was in the kitchen of our apartment when I came in, and she did not see me. I went right to the bathroom, washed my face, rinsed out my bloody polo shirt, shoved it in a towel, and threw it in the back of my closet.

That night, when I went to bed, I put on My Play. I was Prince Rowie, and I rescued a princess from a horde of charging, snorting rhinos. I swooped down from a tree on my vine and scooped up the princess. Then, with her in my arms, we flew from tree to tree, over the quicksand until we landed near her castle. After I dueled with a giant tarantula, and scared him away, I handed over the princess to her parents, the king and queen. Then I rode away on my horse, Trigger, who, when I whistled, met me in the forest.

About Six Decades Later

My imaginary friends have always been there for me. Now, instead of Prince Rowie and the rest of the gang, I have some new friends like Grim Streaker and Overthinker. Grim tells me, Write the damn book, already, Rosie. Time’s a wasting. Grim’s cute. He’s naked, but he wears socks with his hiking sandals, just like I do. Grim loves nature, just like I do. I made him naked because my mother taught me to do that with stuff that scares me.

Grim’s enemy is Overthinker. I don’t know if O.T. ever set foot outside in nature. He’s been planning to do it all of his life, but just hasn’t found the perfect moment to start.

Oh, and about the worms, I still love them. And, speaking of conflict, if I met Josephine today, I’d still punch her in the mouth, with my thumbs inside my fists.

CHAPTER 3

Riverview Gardens

I was not only a worm expert, but as you know, I was also very knowledgeable about ants. It’s actually much easier to find ants than worms at Riverview Gardens Apartments because, unlike worms, ants really love concrete and Riverview is filled with concrete. The only place we had real honest to goodness dirt was around the oak tree in the courtyard and in Mystery City.

At Riverview, we had three kinds of ants: red ants, big black ants, and little black ants. Often when we played jacks on the front steps, I worried about getting stung by the red ants, especially when we were wearing shorts. I probably worried more than the other girls because they really knew how to concentrate on the jacks instead of the ants. Once they got that little red ball in their hands, there was no stopping those girls. They went from onesies to twosies and so forth up to tensies, and then they went backwards. I was bored a lot with jacks. That’s why I spent the time following the ants on the concrete. Ants are really interesting to watch, especially if someone spits out a hard candy. Mostly, the little black ants are the candy eaters, not the big black ones.

Sometimes while I was waiting for my turn in jacks, I would look at all of our thighs. If we had one of those contests like they have in magazines where they ask you to find the picture that’s different, and the pictures were all thighs, the ones that would be different would be mine. Most kids have tan, skinny thighs, but, if you dumped out containers of lox, cream cheese, cottage cheese, pot cheese and mixed in some vomit, and then you slathered that stuff all over a large pot roast, then you would be describing my thighs.

Do you want to hear my thigh talk? I asked the girls. I put my glasses on my thigh, jiggled my knee up and down and said things like, Hiya, hiya, just like that scary frog on my favorite show, Andy’s Gang. I was hilarious.

I told the other girls about piranhas too because I was very knowledgeable about wildlife. In the summer, we also had lightning bugs. I always looked for a praying mantis, but I never found one. I guess that’s a good thing because I would have been arrested and sent to jail. I must confess, however, that it might be worth the bread and water. I really do love nature.

Nature was hard to find at Riverview Gardens Apartments where my cousin, Roberta, and I lived. There were no gardens, and you could only view the river if you were up on the roof. My mother went up on the roof to hang clothes. Sometimes I helped her, handing her the clothespins. I think my father went up to the roof to look at my friend Linda’s mother, Celeste, who would be lying out in her black bikini. My father said he was going up to fix the television antenna, and my Uncle Sam and my Uncle Abe were always up there on the roof helping him fix the television antenna. All of the mothers used to talk about Celeste. The kids talked about her too, and I felt it must have been awfully hard for Linda to know that everyone in Riverview Gardens was talking about her mother.

Most of the nature at Riverview Gardens was the do-not-touch kind. Do not play on the grass around the oak tree in the courtyard. Do not climb the oak tree. Do not pick the green leaves of that plant behind the iron fence in the front of the house. Do not use a rock to scratch a hop scotch game in the alleyway because that is where the old people sit. The super, Mr. Meissner, and the lady who lived in the little witch house, Mrs. Harrison, were always yelling at us to get out of the courtyard. Every month, my parents knock on the door of Mrs. Harrison’s house in the middle of the courtyard, and give her the rent check. All of us kids think she’s a witch. She’s nice to us when we are with our parents, but she yells at us the rest of the time.

At bedtime at Riverview, when the Farleys in the C Building right next door to us weren’t throwing things against their walls and yelling, I put on My Play. I used to leave Riverview Gardens Apartments and head out for the Badlands, often by horse. On those nights I was Rowie, the Cowboy. I wore rough buckskin and a bandana, and I carried saddlebags packed with a lasso, a knife, pins and strings for fishing, a bow and arrow, some beef jerky, and occasionally, a guitar. I’d squint into the sunset and survey the mountain tops for ambushes. I don’t remember a thing about herding cattle, but I really did rescue lots of frontier ladies.

When I was Rowie the Prince, I switched the buckskin shirt and pants for a shiny silk shirt with full sleeves and tight wrists, a shiny belt, and tights. On those excursions through the countryside, I carried a sword. I needed it to rescue damsels from evil witches. I was very, very handsome.

When I was Rowie, the Frontiersman, the best part of leaving home was the nighttime. There was always a camp fire for warmth, some roasted potatoes, some stars, some whiskey, some tobacco, and some dried duff to sleep on. I would sleep soundly until morning when my mother called me to get ready for school.

About Six Decades Later

I remember those bedtime plays. I was always the star and I was always a brave male. I was Hiawatha, Prince Charming, Daniel Boone, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, even Theodore Roosevelt leading the Rough Riders. Always a prince, never a princess, I rode hard and accomplished my missions. Sometimes, when the odds and numbers were stacked against me, I won my battles with sheer cleverness and application of the wilderness survival techniques I had learned in my Golden Books.

I wonder if other girls having plays with imaginary friends at the foot of their beds were playing the role of Becky Thatcher, while I was pretending to be Tom Sawyer or Huck Finn? Were other girls the damsels and the princesses while I was playing the role of prince? I’ll probably keep wondering about this until the day I die.

CHAPTER 4

My Sidekick

Every adventurer needs a sidekick, and when we weren’t fighting, my cousin, Roberta, was mine. Sometimes, when our mothers took us to Alexander’s to buy clothes, Roberta and I pulled each other’s hair when we were in the back seat of the car. I don’t know why we fought, but Roberta’s hair was frizzy when I pulled, and sometimes she reminded me of the Bride of Frankenstein.

When we were not pulling each other’s hair, Roberta and I were best friends.

If ever Roberta needed to be rescued, I was ready. I studied the tree in the Riverview courtyard, looking for the best branch in case Roberta fell from the tree, broke her arm, and needed a splint. I knew about sucking out poisonous snake bites, making a tourniquet, and finding caves to protect us during a storm. In my camp site in my living room, under the sheet covering the bridge table, I read Little Golden Books about trees, birds, stars, animals, and of course, camping. I read about proper foot hygiene while hiking, how to use a bandana twenty different ways, how to fish with a pin and a string, and how to make a campfire in both the teepee and crisscross pattern.

We played in Mystery City in the back of the B Building. I named it Mystery City one day when Roberta lost her ring there, and we couldn’t find it. Mystery City had big rocks which were great as thrones when we played prince and princess, and those same rocks were also great to hide behind when we played cowboys and Indians. People walked their dogs in Mystery City because it was the only place in all of Riverview that had real honest to goodness grass and dirt. When Roberta and I played there, we never knew which of the very small rocks were real rocks, or which ones were really hardened doggy-doo.

I taught Roberta how to step lightly, like Hiawatha, without snapping branches, because Mrs. Dalzell, my third grade teacher, had our class read The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When we read about Hiawatha, I felt I wanted to be just like him.

Do not step on any saplings, I whispered. We must be ever silent, listening to the sounds of the forest around us. Sniffing the air, scanning the horizon, and stepping softly, like two Indian braves wearing deer-hide moccasins, Roberta and I walked our sinewy bodies around the doggie-doo in Mystery City.

Of course I called her Kemosabe and we knew that if one of us was stuck on a precipice or abandoned on an ice flow, the other would lash those branches and saplings together to make a sling, or a raft to save the day.

When we played in the laundry rooms and cellars of Riverview, I taught Roberta how to track and sniff the air for signs of danger. Like Hiawatha, who could slip through the forest unnoticed, we could glide, unseen, through the cellars and garbage rooms under the A, B, and C buildings. We could sneak up on Andy, the creepy guy who took care of the garbage rooms, and we could spy on him.

In all of our Promotion Day pictures, Roberta and I are standing on those front steps of Riverview Gardens holding our diplomas from elementary school. I don’t know why she wore those purple anklets with her Mary-Janes. They made her look so poor. I wore white anklets in all of the pictures. I didn’t look like a poor kid. I was not plump, but I was plumped out, nicely plumped out, robust looking. My Aunt Sally said that Roberta looked like a plucked chicken. Plucked chickens don’t wear purple ankle socks, but I knew what Aunt Sally meant.

My Aunt Sally called me Crisco which means fat in the can and sometimes she called me Thunder Thighs. I guess she missed the slender, sinewy side of me.

The good thing was my family didn’t live with my Aunt Sally anymore. When I was born during the War, my mother and I lived with Aunt Sally and her daughter June, because my father was in the army and my Uncle George was in the navy. When the boys came home after the War, they brought army and navy blankets. My father also brought a picture of an ocean with a beach and mountains. He told my mother that he got it from some poor man in Paris. Anyway, my parents moved to their own apartment at Riverview Gardens after Aunt Sally yelled at my father for bringing mud in on the rug.

About Six Decades Later

One of my favorite paintings is Kindred Spirits by Asher Brown Durand, a member of the Hudson River School of painters. In the painting, two friends stand on a high mountain ledge, over a waterfall. One man on the ledge is the painter, Thomas Cole, and the other man is the poet, William Cullen Bryant. When I researched the painting’s history, I learned that if you look close at the painting, you can see Cole and Bryant’s initials are carved in the tree. My eyesight is not so good, so I will just have to trust Wikipedia on that one.

Roberta and I still are kindred spirits.

CHAPTER 5

Walking to Siberia

When I was in second grade, my father went to school to see my teacher, Miss Johnson. Usually my mother was the one who went to the school to see me perform and do my work because she was a housewife. My father was always working, and he couldn’t take the time off, except for this one time. I was afraid he might say, "You’re velcome, or uhpuls," for apples when he went to see Miss. Johnson because he was still a bit of a greenhorn since he was born in Poland. We all laughed when he once asked somebody where across the street is, and he went to the other side of the street and asked somebody over there where across the street is.

On this day when he went to my school, he didn’t even wear a suit. He wore his regular white shirt, blue work pants, and his heavy, brown work shoes. When he was finished with his meeting he was going to leave and go straight to his grocery store in Mount Vernon. He and my Uncle George bought the store after the War because George was a butcher and my father was good at math. Uncle George was married to my Aunt Sally.

The thing I remember most about the War was when it was over, I went to Canada with my mother and my father’s sister, Sonia. We went to help my father’s other sister, Esther, her husband, and their two children in their new apartment. The best part of that time was when we saved the parsley from a restaurant and fed it to some goldfish in a pool outside the restaurant.