Blackberries and Other Treasures

For all the artificial divisions we try to create, in fact there are only two kinds of people in the world. There are those that get the world’s work done. They are constantly in a hurry, never have time, and we call them go-getters. Then there are the second group: the ones I like to call Pokers. Pokers never take fast walks. You’ll never see them, arms swinging with military precision, marching at a rapid clip, eyes fixed straight ahead with steely determination. Pokers are more apt to be meandering down some dirt road slowly, stopping every few moments to look at some little thing that’s caught their eye.

Pokers see a beautiful flower where someone else sees a weed. I like to think they’re the first ones who notice a struggling violet making its way up through a crack in the sidewalk in spring, or who never miss the sadness behind a smile. I suppose pokers are, in some ways, abnormal. It does seem as if more of us are in a hurry most of the time. But we are all natural-born pokers from birth and through our childhood. But somewhere between ages 10 and 14, we’re told to “Grow up”, and most of us do. But some-though they are few and far between-do manage to keep the gift of noticing and wonderment. They never believed that fast is better, that blue skies and the shape of clouds aren’t nearly as important as bottom lines.

I came by being a poker quite naturally. My father was one. It was he who taught me how to find beaver dams, Lady-slippers or wild berries, and something sadly no longer true-how to tell if the water in a brook was safe to drink or not. (If it rushed over the rocks in the sunlight, it was safe, then). He was a railroad brakeman. I still cherish the memory of Saturdays riding on his train, far from highways, to some spot seemingly known only to God and him, where blueberries, blackberries or wild grapes grew in profusion. How did he know the location? Probably because he was a poker. Long before I was a property owner, I owned several prime berry patches. They were scattered all over Central Massachusetts-any isolated place off of the beaten path that developers hadn’t yet gotten around to developing. I’d discover them as I drove, see the distinctive red of blueberry leaves in autumn, or the broad-leafed cascading vines of wild grapes in mid-summer, or my personal favorite, in late spring, the shower of white blossoms of a wild blackberry patch.