Forty years ago this summer, when I was twelve years old, my father bought seventy-five acres of wooded property in Bradford County, outside of Towanda.

Even today, I vividly recall walking through the property for the first time, along with the real estate agent and my father, making my way along one of the newly cut logging trails. The woods were recently timbered, leaving an aftermath of trails, stumps, and cold campfire rings. I remember running ahead of the other two on that warm August afternoon, following the trail signs the loggers had left. To me, the woods were beautiful, and even if they were still somewhat scarred from tree-cutting, I definitely remember not caring.

My dad and I had driven up for the day from Philadelphia, looking for property to buy. An agent had sent us a list of properties (two hand-typed pages) and we had come up to take a look. Earlier in the day he showed us farm pastures and smaller parcels of woods that were impressive by the standards of a kid growing up in the city but not quite enough to satisfy my “Daniel Boone” imagination. I envisioned camping and tracking, and these woods were a central part of that image. I held back the urge to interfere in the grownup conversation, but when I heard my father ask the agent what a lawyer’s fees would be (the “better part of $200,” he answered), I knew a deal would be struck and my father would buy the land.

Appropriately, my dad and I were the first campers, although it was closer to Army-style bivouacking. We slept on a tarp on the ground (not even tents) and washed up with sand from a nearby stream (“field soldiering”). I heard stories about my dad’s experiences in the war; about crossing the North Atlantic in the winter and then crossing the English Channel into France and finally the Rhine River into Germany. If my father was thinking that he was barely a few years older than I was at the time, he was tactful enough not to mention it. 

During my mischievous teenager years, I came up to camp out with friends. We were city kids and none of us had much camping experience and we were usually unprepared for what nature sent us, such as the odd snowfall in April. Who knew that a gully becomes a stream in a downpour making it not the best place to pitch a tent. We started a tradition of carving names and dates on a tree. My name is still visible (Len ’72) although many carvings are now illegible while other names I simply can’t recall anymore.

After college I moved away from this area and yet I always made it back for at least an annual visit to the land, even for just a day of two. I flew up with my children from Atlanta during the ten years I lived there and, for seventeen years afterward, I made the annual trek from Israel in a kind of “reverse pilgrimage.” Maintaining tradition, on my wife’s first visit to the United States, she carved her name on the tree. I’ll wager that we have the only bilingual (Hebrew/English) “sign in” tree in Bradford County.

Six months ago my wife and I moved back to the United States and we’ve made

Wellsboro our first home. Our move has been made much easier by the warm and friendly people here. It’s not clear if we’ll stay here permanently (a job opportunity may appear in the “Big City”) but, in the meantime, we’re enjoying the beautiful area and I’m making up for all the years of quick annual visits designed to “keep me going.” I’m traipsing like a kid again through the woods my father bought, albeit at a slower pace.

The woods have grown in nicely over the years. The ruts have all filled in and the stumps rotted away years ago. The only logging trail left is the one leading from the road to the campsite. Young trees, which sprouted up when the forest’s canopy was lifted, are now fully grown. Old trees which were spared forty years ago look a bit bigger.

Of course, I’ve changed a little in the last forty years. My hair is now mostly gray (at least I still have hair!) and I keep it much shorter than when I started going camping (those magical 60’s) The “generation gap” that divided my parents and me (and many in my generation) is now gone. Sometimes life smoothes out the rough edges and teaches you tolerance. Sometimes living apart makes you miss someone so much that you just want to enjoy the time together. Now that I’m back in the States, I get to see my parents more often. Shortly after I left home my parents moved to Florida. My father suffered frostbite in the Battle of the Bulge and the northeast winters became too difficult. My parents understood how much I loved the land, but I never knew how much they understood until a recent trip to Florida. There they presented me with the title to the land. Any reader of this story will know what a meaningful gift it was to me.