It's tradition to read this book aloud
to every ten year old boy in the family.
As expected, Pal was no exception to falling
into a dreamy haze of love with it.
We finished the other day-
quietly crying in our lawn chairs,
among a patch of ferns (or maybe Poison Oak),
under a canopy of forest leaves and storm clouds,
with three deer grazing fifty feet away.
That's about as romantic as it gets around here.
Or so I thought.
That is until we wiped our eyes,
blew our noses, packed our chairs up,
and started to walk quietly home past our pond.
And there we found Pal's trap.
The trap that had been achingly empty
"of anything important" all spring.
The trap that only seemed attractive to
little brothers, possums, and skunks.
The trap he'd checked faithfully,
every single day -usually twice.
The trap intended to transform him
into Davy Crockett, Daniel Boone,
or Merriweather Lewis,
with a coonskin hat of his very own.
And now, finally, after months of waiting,
and after reading the very last page of the book
that only exacerbated the desire,
a real raccoon!
A miracle as miraculous as the 'red fern' itself!
Now that's love.
And even if I wasn't convinced by the book,
-of God being in the details of a ten year old boy's life-
I certainly am now.
