The picnic table had vanished. For the past five years I've marked my daily walk along the Lake Bonneville trail by that table. Rounding the hillside from the north or walking across the meadow from the south it was always there. Then a few weeks ago it was gone.

For a few days I expected it to return. Maybe someone had taken it for repair. It is well worn with one set of legs broken away from the top. Yeah, I hoped that an enterprising person had just decided it needed to be fixed and that on-site repairs couldn't be done. After more than a week I gave up. The table remained absent.

Then I extended my walk up the path a few hundred yards and found the table. It had been carried a good distance and thrown to the side of the path a few feet downhill. BOYS! That was my first thought. Of course some boys did this. Could you imagine girls carrying this heavy object nearly a quarter of a mile and then tossing it? No. Girls would have repaired it. Perhaps added decorative wood, stained and refinished it. This could only have been boys.

I made my way over some sage brush and checked it out. No new damage. But the table was too heavy for me to remove it from the bushes embrace. I determined to come back with help.

Today, this morning, I had the opportunity to retrieve the table. The Marine-married-to-my-daughter, Matt, was in town. He was willing to hike and help. It took some muscle from both of us to get the table back to the trail. Attempting to carry the table back was awkward. The top was detached from the legs and a few boards were loose. And, despite its age, the table was heavy.

I stopped to think. Matt tilted the table on end, squatted, reached back and grabbed both sides of the table. Then he stood up and began to walk. He yelled back and asked me to steady the table. So I held on and tried to keep the weighed leaning to the uphill side. Matt made it about 3/4ths of the way back before stopping. We rested for a few minutes and talked. Matt commented that it's times like this that it's good to have a Marine handy. Something about how the army spends a lot of time thinking about how to get things done. Marines just muscle-up and do things.

At this point the table was laying on its top and the trail had spread out into a meadow. We both grabbed an end and finished walking the table back to its usual spot. The dogs and I now have our resting spot back. I sat on the bench. The boys jumped up on the table and hung a head over each of my shoulders. I reached back and scratched their ears. The world seemed right again. I appreciated my son-in-law Matt, the Marine.........
11:10:01 PM    comment []