Parker Potter is a former archaeologist and historian, and a retired lawyer. He’s at present a semi-professional canine walker who lives and works in Contoocook.
The primary time I wrote a publish on Fb about one among my morning walks round Contoocook was the day I constructed a small cairn on a mailbox publish. Rocks have at all times been an essential a part of my walks.
The rocks for my mailbox cairn got here from the newly constructed gravel parking zone close to the highschool softball fields. It is filled with clean little stones, greater than I wanted for my mailbox venture, so I began placing some apart in case one other venture got here to thoughts. One did.
Subsequent to the driveway resulting in the highschool, the town put in a low fence with flat-topped wood posts. At some point I began adorning the fence posts with clean stones from the parking zone. Quickly each fence publish had a cornerstone. Typically one was lacking, and when that occurred, I changed it. Then one thing great occurred.
As I approached the primary fence publish one morning, I noticed a flash of unknown colour. As I approached, I found that somebody had changed a couple of of my cornerstones with stones that they had painted. Some had vacation themes. Some had inspirational messages. Some simply had fairly footage. Finally, a couple of dozen painted stones had been put in on my fence posts, together with a tiny duplicate of the monument that marks the southernmost level of the USA, within the Florida Keys. Somebody as soon as arrange a rock with the phrase “Why?” written on. The following day I left one on the identical publish that stated “Why not?”
Judging by the stylistic markers, it seemed like a number of totally different artists organising embellished rocks, however I by no means came upon who the artists had been aside from one, the proprietor of one of many canine I stroll, whose painted rocks depicted scenes from his homeland, such because the Sydney Opera Home. Over time, all of the embellished rocks have gone to good properties, I am positive, however up to now I wish to have had 5 – 6 collaborators on my fence publish venture.
A few yr into this venture, fence publish caps started to vanish extra often and in better numbers. I suspected the decapitators had been highschool youngsters on their each day masked walks, and as soon as I noticed a pupil systematically tear ten or twenty rocks from their posts and throw them into the grass. I did not get indignant. I believed that no matter motivated the scholar was simply as compelling to her as my venture was to me. Like Sisyphus, I persevered. I ended my fence publish capping venture the morning I found a decapitation that was thorough sufficient to counsel it had been completed by the individuals chopping the grass subsequent to the fence.
However earlier than I pulled the plug, it occurred. A day or two after a very thorough pupil beheading, I arrived to seek out every fence publish bearing not only a single cornerstone, however a stupendous little cairn of three or 4 stones every. I realized later {that a} boy who lives alongside my strolling route spent three or 4 hours constructing all these cairns. My first sight of them gave me goosebumps.
One other day, crossing the gravel parking zone, I met a bit lady and her grandfather. The lady was selecting up rocks and we spent a while speaking in regards to the kinds of rocks all of us favored. From then on, I referred to as her “The Little Rock Collector” in my Fb posts, and once I noticed a rock I believed she would possibly like, I left it someplace particular for her. Each time she sees me, she thanks me for the rocks I depart her.
Along with stones for constructing cairns and specimens for the Little Rock Collector, I additionally acquire fortunate stones. Fortunate stones, I used to be as soon as advised by an artist who etched them, are stones of 1 colour which have a band of one other colour that goes all the best way. I’ve discovered a whole lot of them, and I give them as items for birthdays and different particular events. You be taught loads about somebody while you give them a stone, and each recipient of my lithic largesse responded with a smile and a heartfelt “thanks.”
The parking zone additionally provides me stones within the form of a coronary heart. One night final winter, a participant on our highschool’s girls’s basketball workforce had a daunting well being drawback on the court docket. I gave her a coronary heart stone to let her know we had been all on the sidelines for a speedy restoration (which she had). Her mom advised me that the stone I gave her daughter is now a prized possession. A treasured possession for her, a treasured souvenir for me.
Once I began penning this piece I believed it might be about my slight fixation on gravel, however in writing I noticed my actual topic was all of the individuals who shared my curiosity within the rocks that I discover. I really like my rocks; I really like my pals.
#Opinion #Rock #Connections