As many years as I have lived on The Planet Ann Arbor, I have never walked Eberwhite Woods. Even though we performed a play in their gym/auditorium/cafeteria/whatever back in my YAG days.

Neither of the beach urchins could drive yet and I schlepped them and a bunch of neighborhood kids back and forth every evening during tech week. Two memories stand out during that period. One is when a little altercation occurred backstage during a rehearsal. I’ll leave the details out. Tech week rehearsals are long and often difficult and actors (and their parents!) are tired. We were on our way home and I had every seat filled in the loverly old Island Teal POC and it was pretty quiet and some tears were shed (not mine, but I felt like it!) and then someone said, “[sibling], I’m sorry that I kicked you!” After a split second of silence, somebody (me?) giggled a bit (tentatively) and then everyone in the POC exploded with laughter, even those who may have been shedding tears a few seconds before. We’re all in this together and some days are better than others.

The second memory is that I totally, utterly, completely ran OUT of toilet paper that week! And then, during the ensuing emergency toilet paper buying run, some nosy old biddy at the Westgate Kroger had the nerve to ask (shrilly), “Why are you buying so much toilet paper?” Because I don’t want to run out at an inconvenient time (or ever, fer kee-reist). She’s lucky I didn’t strangle her. How the heck did she know anything about my life? What if I had eight kids? Sheesh!

Nevertheless, I have never walked Eberwhite Woods. I suppose I could have snuck out of a YAG rehearsal there to walk. But I was shy about that. Why? Because, in the mid-1990s, a serial bludgeoner/killer bludgeoned his first victim in that woods. A 50-something woman taking the walk that she probably took EVERY morning, if she is anything like me. She recovered from her injuries but I bet (if she’s still alive) she never recovered enough savoir faire to be able to walk in that woods again, as friendly as it is without a serial bludgeoner/killer’s possible presence.

He operated in my general area of town and although I wasn’t terribly afraid I would encounter him on my solo walks, I was always watchful. But then, I am *always* watchful. I call him a bludgeoner because his modus operandi was to beat a woman up and leave. He didn’t rape and didn’t seem to care whether he killed or not. Some of his victims died, others did not. Alas, even though he was caught and put behind bars in 1995, in 1999 I was still leery of entering Eberwhite Woods alone.

I got the idea to go there this weekend via the Damn Arbor blahg, which posted earlier in the week that Eberwhite Woods was filled with trout lily. And yes it was! I have seen this spring wildflower only in small patches before, in the yooperland with Radical Betty out on the North Country Trail at Naomikong Point. In Eberwhite Woods, Trout Lily is almost like a ground cover. It is everywhere.

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