OutTakes
by Edd Merritt

“Keep your snoopy eyes on the road ahead . . .”

When I started this column several years ago, I didn’t devote an iota of thought to a title. “OutTake” just jumped from my computer – no questions about what should be, no evaluation of what people might think it meant, no sensible assessment. It just was.
Looking back after the initial piece, I decided that it could be interpreted one of two ways: 1) it would be thrown in the garbage by any self-respecting editor as useless (I, by the way, happened to be the newspaper’s editor at the time, so I had nobody to blame but myself if it wasn’t ditched.) or 2) it was simply what traveled from head to fingers instantaneously, an “out take” from my brain (Some would refer to the process in more derogatory, gaseous terms). I figured at least it was safer than my son’s mother-in-law who admits that what goes through her mind immediately comes out her mouth without an ounce of judgment. My thoughts at least remained inside the skull until they hit the written page. I think my wife’s reserved manner may have contributed to this. She’s very conscious of not offending if she can help it, sometimes, I assert, to a fault. But, then, to her I’m this obnoxious blatherer who is going to fall victim to a societally placed incendiary device.
Well, I’ve been tossing about ideas for this week’s column and have been running on empty. They’ve been sitting behind my eyelids unfulfilled, half meaningful at best. So, I chose scenario number two today. It being a beautiful spring day in Charlotte, I decided to take my annual pilgrimage to the Demeter property, hike the trail and see whether fresh air could bring rationality to what hung disconnected between my ears.
Well, it worked swimmingly. But not in the way I had planned.
Actually, the whole thing started this morning with a call from my colleague in crime at the paper, Elizabeth Bassett. With a tinge of anxiety she asked me whether it was her turn for a column. I could have rid myself of my own anxiety right then and there, lied, and replied, “Why, of course, Elizabeth, didn’t you realize that?”
But, no, I copped the truth and said she could head west unperturbed by pangs of conscience. With a voice devoid of its former slight tremble, she thanked me and packed for Oregon.
Well, Elizabeth, as most of you know from her columns, is a hiker, so subconsciously, I think she spurred me into my walk around our town’s “Park and Wildlife Refuge.”
As I have said before in this space, these hikes for me are always enjoyable and healthful. For a trail I’ve trudged numerous times -- and that you don’t have to travel hours to find – Demeter always displays new things or, perhaps, old things given a new shine. It winds through lush woods and open fields before crossing a beautiful ridgeline and back down into the woods again.
Today a work crew of Dan and Jenny Cole, Sue Smith and Berta Geller arrived back at the parking area fresh from spreading wood chips and cutting brush. Their exhilaration was infectious. And, except for the fact that I should have been there earlier to help them, I began my walk with a bounce to the step and an eye to the ground for fresh flora and fauna.
They had hung markers on hackberry, live oak and dogwood that they wanted to keep while they chopped out the invasive species around them. The yellow-blossomed trout lilies, their green leaves speckled with maroon dots, were popping up alongside the trail. Blossoms had formed on some apple trees below the ridge, and the vistas up and down the lake with billowing cloud formations overhead were spectacular. Deer tracks and even a couple of garter snakes had found the trail passable. Where there was not a blanket of fresh chips, the path was green from a new growth of grass.
Once underway, the only people I saw on this lovely Sunday afternoon were a family of three who stopped to tie shoes and a jogger who passed me on the ridge before shifting gears to gun it down the west side. I have, at last, inherited my mother’s desires – walk, don’t run; otherwise you’ll miss too much of what’s around you.
“Oh, geeze mom, can’t you keep up with the horses?”
So, rather than try to put my unbaked thoughts into words, I decided to emphasize the visual in this OutTake. I’ll save thoughts about how I solved my original quandary once I’ve done it. It’s too nice a day to crimp the mind with a final exam question. I’ll just keep eyes and ears open and enjoy the scenes of the season and the music of nature. Sounds from the acoustic planet, eh, Bela Fleck?