Color It Green

By Jerry Mack Grubbs

From the title of this article you might surmise that I am referring to the color of the lawn, the color of money, or even the color of my old ’65 Volkswagen. Could it be about the lawn that isn’t green enough to suit my wife? Could it be about a friend who didn’t know the definition of what’s enough green when it came to the subject of money? Or maybe it will be about one of my adventures in the green Volkswagen bug that I purchased while I was in college. But today the subject of the color green isn’t about lawns, money or automobiles. It’s about the beauties of nature. If you haven’t taken a drive into the mountains to enjoy the changing of the season as evidenced by the colorful fall leaves you have missed a treat. And for those of you who live in Utah it may already be too late to see the flaming burnt orange colors which are the first to wither and fall to the ground.

I took a journey all along our mountain range this week to enjoy these pleasing-to-the-eye sights. In the past I have shared such experiences with some of you and on occasion I have gone all alone. This fall part of the trip wasn’t alone. My hiking partner was dubious in the beginning. We met at the parking lot where the asphalt narrowed to two lanes. She assumed we would be taking a leisurely ride. “Would you like to take a hike?” I asked. “Sure,” she said, with a little hesitancy in her voice. I pulled my hiking boots from my overnight bag, slipped them on and began to lace them up. “You’re serious aren’t you,” she said. “Yep,” I replied. Looking down and seeing that she was only wearing sandals, I said, “Did you bring hiking boots?” “No but I’ll be just fine,” she replied.

I slid a water bottle into my back pocket and we locked our cars and headed up the trail. Actually there was no trail. We were cutting our way towards a bluff overlooking the valley that we knew would give us a fantastic view of the world below. This wasn’t virgin land we were hiking in or in other words, others had been here before us. Once in a while we would come across a beer can carelessly tossed on the ground. Leaving this land a better place than we found it was one of our goals so I stomped the cans flat and we carried them along with us. We even found a plastic sign advertising a Cadillac dealership. “Do you know how this got here?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “By helium filled balloons,” I said as I pointed out the frayed remains of four balloons tied to blue ribbons and attached to the plastic sign. I wondered if anyone had stumbled onto one of my messages attached to helium balloons and thought of it as just litter. Hopefully the unsuspecting hiker who one day stumbled on my writings would find them more interesting than a sign advertising a Cadillac car.

As we climbed higher and higher the vistas became breathtaking. As I had done many times before I began to appreciate the color green. Can you imagine how tired you would get if all the green trees and grass were suddenly changed to pink or orange or yellow. True, each of these colors can take your breath away but a steady summer diet of them would soon grow tiresome. The contrast between the colors is what makes it such a beautiful sight; green as the base with the rainbow of fall colors sprinkled across the mountainside.

“Did you bring a camera?” she asked. “Yes,” I said, “the camera with the lens called my eye.” My internal camera has stored not only the beauty of nature in the fall but also the people that I have had the pleasure to share these experiences with. Some bends in the winding curves of these narrow two-lane roads that weave up through the high-mountain valleys actually bring back memories of people I have shared these sight-seeing trips with in the past. I even remember some of the conversations we shared as we inhaled the bursting colors of fall on our vision through the front windshield. I suppose that half the pleasure of the journey is the company that we invite along for the ride.

But today we were on foot. The going was steep and deeply forested. I had been here before but she hadn’t. She exhibited an unspoken level of trust in me that wasn’t deserved. Just because I had hiked this mountain before didn’t mean that I was capable of overcoming any obstacle or unforeseen emergency. Suddenly there was a crashing sound in the trees near us. “What was that?” she asked, with a worried voice. “It was an elk or moose but don’t worry, it was moving downhill away from us,” I said. “How do you know it wasn’t a mountain lion?” she asked. “If it was a mountain lion, you would have never heard it,” I replied. Suddenly it was important for her to know if I had my gun with me.

As we hiked we talked of family, friends, and the events that crowd our lives and yet, from time to time the conversation would stop abruptly and our breath would once more be taken away as we examined the results of nature’s paint brush. As we reached the summit, we stood upon what seemed to be the top of the world. As far as we could see in all directions laid the handiwork of something larger than all of us combined. These vistas were here long before the Indians inhabited these lands. The view from this summit was here before early fur trappers, pioneers, and later settlers came to claim the land as their own. Whether privately owned, state controlled or federally claimed, today, this moment in time, this land belonged to us. At least the view that my camera lens absorbed and recorded in my memory would always be mine. Just like the memories of previous trips that rest comfortably tucked away but not hidden too deep. Not too deep because I can roll them out and examine those memories as I would a parchment or scroll and retrace the details of my past.

Heading back down the mountain I felt light on my feet. I had been fed by nature’s honey. Suddenly my hiking partner exclaimed, “The seat of my pants has a tare in it. Did you know that all along?” she asked. “No, I hadn’t noticed,” I said. “I’ve been looking up most of the time.” We laughed, we talked, we shared experiences that we thought one another would enjoy hearing about. But something down deep inside of us brought a calm stillness that can only be explained by someone who had seen what we had seen on top of that summit. I wish you had been there with us so that my memory would have included you. Selfish of me, isn’t it. But I only wanted you to see what I saw, experience what I felt, taste nature’s honey with me. Color it green; color it the rainbow of autumn leaves as they turn as bright as a new blushing bride. Whether it is blue sky, white clouds and green trees or the pinks, yellows and reds of fall, it is all brighter when shared with the ones we love. Isn’t that what love is?