SIMPLE PLEASURE—


It was an impromptu dinner out that Friday night that morphed into one of life’s spontaneous and warmly enjoyable events.

After dining, we left the Oak Park Restaurant and enjoyed a couple of random, back-road turns when I offered to show our companions a near-by eagle’s nest; one of at least four local nest sites that had been active earlier in the Spring.

From there we rolled down Harlan Rd., to SR 603 and a visit to the secluded Copus Monument.

It is an off-the-beaten-path memorial to a family and friends slaughtered by Indians there in 1812.

We decided to continue wandering the back roads under cumulus cloud remnants arranging themselves in a spectacular sunset framework while enjoying the first few of nearly countless whitetail deer that shared the quiet pace of our summer evening.

Sue and I were with our friends Don and Roberta Karger and were grateful for that fact alone.

The highlight of our countless deer sightings was the spotted fawn peering at us through a wire fence with a mournful expression while the township road separated it from momma deer.

Their reunion likely happened shortly thereafter as we slid quietly down their road and passed through Pinhook, OH. That’s one of those small places where the entry and exit signs for the town are on the same post.

I silently remembered renowned artist George M. Biddle had a hilltop home there where he died in 1959.

Somewhere along our way down there in the hilly woods of Monroe Township we obeyed the right-of-way of a squadron of young turkeys. They clucked and we smiled and all was well.

We trundled through the boat launch area of Pleasant Hill Park and enjoyed families; themselves enjoying the timeless pursuits of boating and fishing on a warm, summer evening while sparks blossomed from nearby campfires.

We eased up Bromfield Rd., and pondered almost visible apparitions from the story of Ceely Rose and the ghastly events of the late 1800s in that house right over there on Louie's Malabar Farm.

On a dead end of Tucker Rd. with daylight failing, our skin tingled again with legends of the paranormal as we visited the desecrated cemetery of Mary Jane’s grave then wandered toward home up Hastings-Newville Rd.—the latter name for a town long abandoned and submerged under the lake now known as Pleasant Hill.

As we bade good night Venus sparkled in the Western sky as if it was a celestial exclamation point to our collective gratitude for the simple pleasures just shared.