On Yak tinkle trail

 

On Yak tinkle trail

    I have always found an easy bond with Ed and Kathleen Sheehy while hanging out with their parents at home or in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The kids like their Pop are easy to make laugh and once you get them going merriment can continue as long as the imagination keeps clicking. On this occasion it was one of Lissy's grueling mountain enduros that the entire family took part in while their old friend wheezed along trying to keep up. We had the finest little trail doggie that ever put paw on path in Clairie and the Froml fam set a brisk pace. Just to get the kids laughing I insisted that the trail we were on (I think it was Cardigan) was called "Yak Tinkle Trail" which was complete nonsense but fit the temper of the youth ready for silliness. Dad Sheehy and I were lagging behind a bit since our old hulks had taken a few too many puffs on joints and quaffs on the old John Barleycorn's potions.  The day had many an adventure and very different landscapes to cross in the attempt to reach the peak but when it came to getting to higher altitudes I begged off and my dear pal made a hernia excuse to keep us on safe terra firma. The children, especially woodsprite Em hopped up the narrow footholds and cardiac testing heights as if it were the streets of Freeport (which we will visit later) Many of the Ziesing enduros get mixed up in my clogged brain but I remember on the weary way back to the car three huge un-tethered dogs bolted into the clearing where we were taking a 4th or 5th wind and charged at the bewildered Clairie. Instead of grabbing a tree limb and braining the beasts we somehow acted accomadatingly to the idiot humans who allowed their dogs to menace hikers. Greg threatened afterward to bust a branch over the skull of the lead dog but as usual his threats were chimeras and the bad dog probably had a good snooze that night in a cabin somewhere in the pines of New  Hampshire