Pleasant Living Magazine

I stayed too late in the woods one evening last winter. I waited too long to turn back from my innocent walk and darkness overtook me. It was so dark that I lost my way on the trail and in my confusion came within an ace of getting lost in a dense laurel thicket a good mile from home.

I didn’t have a flashlight, among all the equipment I carry on my walks, no radio or cell-phone. I had a compass, with a luminous dial, but this wasn’t a situation where generally knowing your direction would do much good. I needed to find and stay on a path that was only a couple of feet wide at best- sometimes no more than a smudge on the ground. Once off that path the dense underbrush would enmesh me and little-by-little tear me to pieces.

My wife knew where I was going, but could only guess where I’d ended up. The woods were so large, there were so many paths and trails. I had a nightmare vision of tracking dogs, the rescue squad, coming through the woods with lights. I would hear about it for the rest of my life.

For our readers who have joined us in recent years-and also for those who have been following PL for the two decades of our life, we’ll be sharing some of the stories that appeared in previous issues of PL. A bit of River Country history for your enjoyment. The following story appeared in Summer 1989.

photo by Ron Ingram

Bill Parks kept a small crab shed on the Rappahannock River in Lancaster County’s Morattico since 1945. Hurricane Hazel took away the first one that stood over the water. A second shed was built in the 1960s, and today, stands on supports facing downriver. In five shallow floats inside, crabs swim, huddle, and bask in an ideal environment for shedding. Parks remembers when softcrabs thrived in grasses around the shore. “Kids waded around in those grasses and picked up softcrabs all the time,” he said. A tall man in a straw hat, Parks smiles ironically from under his brim.

“The crabs aren’t there anymore. No place for them to hide.” He’s hard put to explain exactly why the shore grass has disappeared. “Maybe it’s all the chemicals,” he says.

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