Special Authors Note:
Celebrating One Year Together on Substack!!! I cannot express the gratitude I have for you. I am humbled and will continue to give you my all.
While I am preparing some new short fiction for you, I thought you may enjoy another fun true story. I often find myself taken aback when casual moments of nothing result in an opportunity for deep self-contemplation. Many times, I am on the wrong end of preconceived notions. I guess the skill is recognition of this when the moment presents. This tale proves my point.
What can you learn from a grasshopper? Not much, right? After all, aren’t they just little critters that love tall grass and rub their powerful legs against their wings really fast making a hissing sound similar to that of the slightly fiercer rattle snake?
While there are a lot of interesting things we can learn about grasshoppers, you and I properly reserve the right to be skeptical we could learn something from them. But you’d be wrong.
With that, I hope you enjoy my short tale, The Grasshopper. You can read it below or listen to me read it to you! At the end, I also provide objective evidence of the truth behind this tale.
Listen, before you scroll down (or after you read this and smile) do me a favor and share this Substack with someone you love. The truth is, a tale such as this takes me quite some time to develop, and short fiction even longer. The best way to show me some support is to share these efforts and spread the word. Together we can grow!
There is one more bit of groveling and pleading… I am celebrating one year on Substack! Over that time, I hope you have found enjoyment, something to look forward to, and most importantly a reason to smile. Here’s the deal, while I post most everything on the free side, for the price of a warm, delicious, frothy latte a month (mmmmm… latte), you can switch your free subscription to a paid subscription and that would be the ultimate show of support. Simply click the link below, select my substack, Timberline, and upgrade to paid. I mean, why not?
Okay groveling over… Enjoy!
The Grasshopper- A True Story
Listen here:
Read below:
By early August the big summer sun beats just a little harder. The air thickens into a dense stew as nature takes notice. Tall thirsty prairie grasses sway in a warm breeze, and perched upon their slender stems one may find the tiny grasshopper merrily singing its familiar song.
August also signifies the final month of summer break. As much as children don’t want to think about it, the start of a new school year lurks somewhere within those long evening shadows. This slow realization means kids of all ages try to squeeze as much time out of their remaining carefree days. With the initial thrill of video games waning, it seems nothing will stop them from enjoying what the outside has to offer.
It’s hardly a surprise that anything can be of valuable entertainment during this time. On this particular day, the grasshopper proved to be an insect of interest for my then five- year-old son during one of our late summer nature walks.
He casually observed one bounce from the grass onto our path. He laughed, bent down to get a closer look, and tried to catch it in his hands. Alas, the little fella hopped away and landed a few feet further down the dusty path. He tried again, but the result was the same.
“I want to catch one,” he cried and chased a different critter.
It turns out there isn’t a single grasshopper that enjoys being pursued by a toddler. Every one of them managed to escape. My son huffed and stomped his feet. “This isn’t fair, they’re too fast.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t think you can catch one, son. They think you are too scary.”
He looked up at me, the sun beamed off his eager blue eyes. “I’ll catch one.”
“Maybe we just let them be and finish our walk,” I said and pointed up the path. “There’s still a way to go and more to see.”
He shook his head and glanced into the vastness of the prairie. “No,” he said, crossing his arms. “I don’t want to go until I catch one.”
He bounded after another. I exhaled loudly and adjusted my tattered baseball cap. The sun burned my exposed skin, and I took a deep swig from my water bottle. The grasshopper escaped yet again. “See. You aren’t gonna catch one.”
The breeze may well have carried my words away, because he ignored them. I gave up and decided to rest under the generous shade of a nearby Cottonwood tree. I guess he’ll learn this lesson the hard way.
I watched as he leapt, crept, and even crawled after these hard-backed ancient creatures equipped with an innate knowledge of boy avoidance technology. Then something happened that I will never forget. He stopped chasing and stood still for a minute or two—his eyes trained on a grasshopper resting atop a blade of grass. He slowly walked closer and bent down, careful to keep an arms distance from his object of desire. Next, he slowly moved his arms to the base of the blade and gently plucked it from its root.
A smile stretched across his face as he carried the blade of grass, complete with a grasshopper, over to me. I looked at him and he looked at me. “I told you I’d catch one,” he said.
To this day, I wish I could have replied, ‘I knew you would’, but I couldn’t. The three of us finished our walk, mostly in silence as I contemplated my words. I found myself once again humbled by the ingenuity of a child, and it stood in stark contrast to my supposed aged wisdom.
It was at that moment I realized wisdom is no more than a thief, robbing us of our ability to think differently and replacing it with a selfish mechanism by which we say, ‘I told you so’, when it ought to be a tool by which we say, ‘imagine if’.
The grasshopper taught me that.
By the way, I did indeed document this moment. Check out the picture of my son holding his grasshopper:
So today, take a moment, slow down and imagine if… And remember, don’t let your grasshopper jump away—always, seize the blade!
End