I wanted to be the one who ran off into the Catskills and lived in a hollowed-out tree. I wanted to make my own fish hooks, and snare traps, and dig around for wild edible roots. I wanted a falcon named Frightful to call my own. Oh, to be Sam Gribley!
When I read Jean Craighead George’s book, My Side of the Mountain, I dove deep and vicariously through the life of Sam Gribley, the main character. As one who was not a great childhood reader, I probably read that book five times. Mrs. George had a way of taking me to gurgling mountain streams and all of the wild places I enjoyed so much as a youth and still do today.
What is it about the young desire to test out our independence? We all have that vision of the boy or girl with an inverted red bandana parachute full of necessities-on-a-stick that will carry us to beanie weenie campfires built by mei and me alone. The wild calls and we want to answer. Fictional Sam Gribley was the only success story I knew. And I felt as if I knew him so well. After reading that book I always wondered if any of her young readers ever actually ran away.
My seventh grade year I was among a group of students who spent an hour a week in some sort of gifted program. I gag to even write it. I was certainly not a good student or a deserving student to be termed gifted. In fact I had a predisposition against the gifted class because I had a classmate whom I heard braggadociously explain to an adult that he was in the gifted program with an air of superiority and far too much emphasis on the word gifted. What a poor road to self righteousness we set our kids upon. Sheesh. Anyway, one of the opportunities we had was to write down an author who we admired and what question we would ask them if we could. Of course, I gladly wrote down mine.
A month later, our group of gifted students were gathered in a small room. The teacher responsible for us said that she had a special surprise for us and lifted the receiver off a telephone. “Corey, would you like to ask your question?” What? What was this? Right now? Jean George? “Hello. Mrs. George? Thank you for taking time out of your day. I’ve got a few students here who would like to ask you some questions.” She hands the phone to me. Gulp.
I was star struck. Was this really my hero author? I pulled myself together and quickly spat out my question before my body had any chance to shut down and crumble in fear.
To her knowledge she had no children readers who had actually flown the coop for a life of a survivalist but understood the temptation to do so. She was kind, funny, and willing to hear our elementary questions. My day was made and the school library lacked Jean Craighead George books on its shelf for quite some time.
Maybe it was a gifted class, not for the intellect or arrogance of the students involved, but for the gift it was to the students.