By Pat Cashman

When he was about eleven years old, my brother Dan walked in the door one day wearing a new ball cap. “Where’d you get that?” I asked him, dripping with envy.
“I found it in the woods,” he said, dripping with pride.
“I should have known,” I replied, dripping with sarcasm.
“Would you two please go outside?” said our mom. “You’re dripping all over the place.”
She was also not buying Dan’s story about where he’d found the hat. After all, ‘the woods’ were where kids like us said we ‘found’ everything.

‘The woods’ were not far from the house in the small town we all grew up in. My siblings and I would shortcut through that sizeable patch of forest anytime we wanted to walk to town, to school or to just meet up with friends.

The woods were a great place to hang out. They seemed to be teeming with imaginary bad guys, mad men and monsters---especially at night. The surroundings actually harbored only a few timid chipmunks, rabbits, birds, and insects---including so-called potato bugs.

A neighbor kid got the idea that potato bugs were so-called because they must taste like potatoes. Turns out they taste like bugs. He ate three before he wised up. Luckily he never made the same assumption about butterflies, fruit flies or mealworms.

But most of all, the woods were a treasure trove of…well…stuff. It was mostly stuff that other kids had discarded, lost, stolen, hidden, or forgotten---so whenever my brothers or I would stumble upon something, we claimed it.

“Look at this Snickers I found in the woods,” the youngest brother once said triumphantly. “And there’s still half of it left!” He proceeded to devour the rest of the candy bar---wisely brushing off the potato bugs.
Among the other booty found in the woods:
Shoes. There was usually just one, but we always had hopes that a matching one would show up---or cooler yet, one with a foot still in it.

Pocketknives. My brothers seemed to find lots of them, but I was never so lucky. I did once find some toenail clippers---not as cool as a full-fledged knife perhaps, but a better weapon than fingernail clippers.
Magazines and books. Most often, there were only a few surviving pages, but my friend Steve once found, intact, what he called a “nudie” magazine. It turned out to be a National Geographic featuring an Amazonian tribe. Not Playboy, but not bad.

We’d also find the occasional pack of smokes. We’d discard the cigarette part, but keep the filters as earplugs.
One time, we found a magnifying glass. We figured it belonged to a young botanist examining forest shrubbery for a science project. Close. It turned out to be a kid into burning ants.
On another occasion, the next-door kid came running up with a piece of cloth he’d found behind a bush. It was an old diaper---an old used diaper---used in the worst of ways a diaper can be used. From then on, we gave that bush a wide berth.

Eventually, saying “I found it in the woods” became our family code for every new unexplained acquisition. Once, my dad drove home in a brand new station wagon---and before my mom could say a word---he told her with a wink, “I found it in the woods.” If true, it was a better part of the woods than I’d ever been.
The woods were also a haven for kids’ forts, hideouts and imaginary cities. We had pretend stores, gas stations---even a city dump. It was actually a transfer station. My bedroom was the actual dump.
And whenever we’d find a dead bird, rabbit or chipmunk, we’d take the deceased to our special animal cemetery---with little headstones and crosses fashioned out of Popsicle sticks and rocks.
We thought about making a section just for insects, but who had that kind of time?

This past summer while visiting my hometown, I took a stroll nearby our old neighborhood woods. In less than an hour, I found a golf club (a wood in the woods)---along with a Frisbee, two plastic army men and a very old Converse basketball shoe. Just one, of course.

But this time, I left all that stuff right where it lay. After all, material things come and go, but it’s memories that you keep.

And I found the best of them long ago---in the woods.

pat@patcashman.com
Pat can be seen on a brand new sketch show “Up Late NW” airing Saturdays and Sundays on KING 5 and throughout Washington and Oregon. He also co-hosts a weekly on-line talk show: www.Peculiarpodcast.com