Eugenious

Sylvan and I are going to be famous — in Eugene. And everywhere where bikes are sold. And among active parents looking for creative ways in which to haul their offspring. Sylvan and I were in the right place at the right time last week when our friend Cary, the marketing director at Burley, called. Burley, located in Eugene, designs and builds bicycle trailers, bikes, baby joggers, and raingear. Cary had plenty of men who work for Burley who could take part in a photo shoot the next day for their new trailers, but he needed women. I’m sorry, what actually happened was that Cary called and said, “We’re having a photo shoot for Burley’s new catalog, and we need superbly attractive moms and their adorable children. I immediately thought of you and Sylvan.”

So of course we said yes. Well, Sylvan said, “daw,” but that’s just because the photo shoot was in the park, with its plentiful pooches. We just viewed the photos, and some are fantastic; it’s amazing what a professional photographer can do. Unfortunately, we can’t post any of the photos on our blog, but, let me tell you, they’re great! And, when they’re published on Burley’s website or in a print catalog, I’ll let you know.

It sounds like a Billy Collins poem, but today, it’s an observation about abstract concepts.

When Sylvan and I go for walks, I like to point out the objects along the way and talk about them. Usually, the objects we see are mundane and straightforward, at least to Sylvan: truck, dog, tree, bird, light. Sylvan understands these objects. He even has words for them and will point them out to me, repeatedly and unprompted.

The other day we passed a parking meter, and Sylvan was giving it a look, so I tried to explain. “That’s a parking meter. When you’re driving your car and you want to park, you put money into the meter, and you get to park for an amount of time based on the amount of money that you put into the meter.” That’s when I realized that a parking meter is a much different class of object from a truck or a dog. Especially a dog.

While a parking meter appears to be an ordinary inanimate object, certainly less complicated than a truck or a dog, just the opposite is true. Understanding a parking meter requires understanding, at minimum, two abstract concepts that many adults don’t even grasp: money and time. A parking meter’s function is to turn money, an abstract concept whose true meaning and value eludes most people, into time, an even more abstract concept that eludes even more of us.

These are the things you learn when you walk with a one-year-old child.

Chris’s summary of camping last weekend with Sylvan: “Camping was great. Sylvan loved the tent, and the water, and the trees, and the trucks, and the squirrels, and the birds, and the hollow tree trunks, and the watermelon, and the big fish, and the dirt, and the snuggling in sleeping bags. He was quite pleased.”

Due to commitments at 5 p.m. Friday and 5 p.m. Sunday, along with the reality of travel with a one-year-old, we needed to camp and hike somewhere nearby; but we wanted to visit someplace new. Chandra recommended Clear Lake, which is considered to be the headwaters of the McKenzie River, although Ikenick Creek, Fish Lake Creek, and the Great Springs all flow into it. The lake, which owes its clarity to 38 degree water that supports little life, was created when a lava flow dammed a river 3000 years ago. Some trunks of the trees submerged when the river backed up still stand upright in the lake, preserved by the cold, lifeless water. The water appears turquoise in some places because the bottom is covered with the silicate bodies of diatoms, a type of algae. The pale sediment reflects sunlight back through the water, giving the lake its Caribbean color. As Chandra had promised, the vine maples were also losing their summer chlorophyll, turning red and orange and yellow, depending on how deeply they were buried in the shady forest.

Sylvan has been a super camper since he was eight weeks old and snuggled in the tent on the way to Monterey, but he truly enjoyed this camping trip. He toddled into the tent as soon as it was up, recognizing that he’d found a soft, forgiving playroom; he tumbled around, flopping to the ground and burying himself in sleeping bags. Sylvan and Chris read a bedtime story by headlamp. Sylvan’s riveted expression is typical of storytime; if we offer to read Sylvan a book, he says “book” and sits down, patting his legs with his hands in anticipation.

And the big fish Chris referred to were spawning chinook salmon. Chandra told us about an artificial channel created for salmon habitat just downstream of the Trail Bridge Reservoir. The quarter-mile section of gravel stream (effectively a cul-de-sac, although fed by McKenzie water) held 40-50 salmon, holding position in the cold water and occasionally swimming splashily up over the artificial log steps. Chris says the fish weren’t over two feet, but I’m convinced they were closer to three. I just kept imagining them next to my 27-inch-tall son; they were bigger.