Notes from my Knapsack 3-23-23

Notes from my Knapsack 3-23-23
Jeff Gill

Spring break plans without complications
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From Newark City Schools to the more rural districts in Licking County, the next few weeks mark "Spring Break" for students and households.

With college students, spring break has a meaning all its own; Denison and Ohio States have already taken their time off. I'm thinking more in terms of school age kids and their families.

The State Department is issuing warnings about "south of the border," so Cancun and other more tropical beaches seem to be risky; even heading down onto the Gulf of Mexico in the US feels a little off right now.

If you've got time and money to burn, maybe the South Pole or at least Antarctica are on your list; Florida tends to attract the biggest crowds, with Texas right behind around South Padre and Mobile, Alabama fairly popular.

Or, what about Licking County?

I know, spring break is supposed to mean travel. Get me to the Aegean, or maybe the Hawaiian Islands. Nice "work" if you can get it.

It was my senior year of college, and I had a few of them (long story), before I realized that maybe 20-25 percent of my classmates were making it to Florida and Fort Lauderdale for spring break, or so where Purdue students ideally went since "Where the Boys Are" came out in 1960. My impression was people like me were a freakish minority going home for spring break, but in fact we were an overwhelming majority.

Most of us then, and most students now, go home. Like, to here. Ditto school age kids. Some families may visit exotic ports of call, but most of us are right here. To do what?

Let me make a few suggestions for how to spend a spring break, most of which will work fine in this county, but might just be useful in tropic locales.

Take a walk. Not a stroll, but a longer venture, one where you get a small day pack, or even a knapsack, and put a couple of water bottles and energy bars in it. Walk a long, long way, then turn around and walk home. Five miles, ten, maybe more, but just do a long walk. We have rails-to-trails options, but if you walk facing traffic on roads with good shoulders, there are many options.

Find a good place on a mostly sunny day to lie down. Take a blanket or quilt or whatever to buffer your experience of the soil and grass, and lay yourself in a comfortable pose, where you can see the sky from horizon to horizon. Then, watch a cloud from its first appearance, likely in the west, across the sky overhead, and all the way to (usually) the eastern horizon. Repeat a time or two. You will never, I guarantee you, look at clouds the same way again.

Pick a spot. Take a foot or two of red yard, and make of it a nature trail. On a tree branch to a trunk, from the roots to a nearby anthill. Think through ten or twelve stations. Find someone also on spring break, talk them through the hike. Switch, and let them design the yarn's path and tell you the tour.

Enjoy your spring break, wherever it is!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's used to spring breaks close to home. Tell him about your travels at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.