The breeze on my face carried notes of algae and fish as I walked towards the edge of the bluff. I wondered how many people would find the odor as pleasant and familiar as I did.

Not many, I guessed.

The scent was a synapse through time, a permanent bookmark tucked into the brain of a boy who loved fishing more than anything else. Though there were glints of gray in my beard, I was a kid again and filled with the same sense of anticipation I got whenever I fished this Illinois river backwater.

I reached the crumbly precipice overlooking Material Service’s Illinois River port and saw my childhood friend Jacob setting up a rod for catfish on the beach below.

I hollered down, “We can’t use these leaves; they’re all wet!”

He stopped in place, looked up at me, then broke into laughter.

“I was just talking about that story this morning!”

I’ll come back to that reference in just a bit.

In June of 2014, with an eleven point buck mount in my shotgun seat, I drove a moving truck containing the entirety of my parent’s earthly belongings out of our hometown of Ottawa, IL.  That buck had been on the wall in our home ever since I was a kid and while he wasn’t much for conversation on the way to his new home in St. Louis, I was glad to have a familiar face along for the ride.

In the cracks and gaps between thoughts of whether or not insurance would cover the loss if I got into an accident with my parent’s possessions and mental parallels of the Beverly Hillbillies, a sadness crept. For 12 years I had lived away from my stomping grounds, but always had a home base with my parents still residing there. That safe harbor was pulling up and relocating to be closer to us, something I was excited and grateful for, but it marked the end of an era. Our family was leaving the Illinois river valley.

Not everyone will get this, but those who love the outdoors will. The land and water I stalked as a boy, then a teen, then a young man; those places are like friends to me. I know them. Their moods, their subtleties, their treasures, all hardwired into my mind and all backdrops for experiences that continue to impact my life. It’s a kinship only outdoorsmen understand and when we move away, those longings to be reconnected are only exacerbated.

I feel the same way about visiting with friends from my youth. We age, put on weight, lose hair, but our true and unvarnished selves were appreciated by this person before we had any influence in the world. That means something to me.

I hadn’t seen Jacob in a few years and hadn’t fished the Illinois river behind his old house in 20. When he invited me to come over for a visit and fish in our old spot while I was nearby for business, I went.

Though we fished, mostly what we caught was up. Family, work, how we never get to spend enough time chasing fish and squirrels and deer, fishing was mostly a context, until he hooked a nice channel cat. We’d been friends since 1979 and nothing much had changed. I was on the water I loved with a lifelong friend. It was good to be back.

The wet leaves reference?

During high school, we’d camp and fish down on that beach during weekends. On one fall overnight, a few other buddies joined us. One guy arrived late and started gathering fuel for the fire. While on his quest for tinder, I might have directed him to an area where I had previously relieved myself. His thought process was audible and hilarious.

“Yeah, lots of leaves over here!”

“Wait. We can’t use these leaves, they’re all wet.”

“Oh man. They smell like ammonia!”

“You guys are a bunch of #*!&%=@s!”

That’s probably the only story I ought to tell about our escapades down there on that bank.

For me, moving my parents away from our hometown was a type of finality I’d never expected. It was hard for them. In some ways, it’s still hard. For those of us who move away, reconnecting with the land and people that shaped us is a deep and rich homecoming, a way for us to cherish the past in light of the present; even if that history includes tricking someone into scooping up urine-soaked leaves.