Hunting Mushrooms with Bob

My sister is on her way to the Southwest, and I just got this text:  en route with mushrooms and asparagus!

My love for both of these things goes way back.  I remember Mom's failed attempts to grow asparagus, but there was no failure involved on our annual mushroom hunting with Bob Buchholz, biologist and long-time family friend.  As the college professor in charge of the field station on the Mississippi, he had developed friendships with local farmers who let him roam their back fields and woods.  In addition to his ecological studies, he located the best mushroom and berry habitats, and he generously shared them with us.

I was never a big fan of the berries (and man has THAT changed), but I loved the thrill of the hunt, and Mom loved the free fresh fruit, which she promptly turned into jelly.  I still remember those summer/autumn days, standing on the dusty side road, testing the berry with a gentle tug:  if it falls into your hand, it's ripe.  Then we would go to the river, driving past the nanny goat, who was perched on a rural dog house and looked at us, superciliously, through those uncanny slotted eyes.  Dad loved the attitude, and called "Na-a-a-a-n-n-y!" when he saw her.

Mushroom hunting was a different matter.  You had to push through the brush, looking for the right slope, the right trees, while dodging the slapping branches, bent over, pawing through old leaves.  It was every man for himself, as the family deployed throughout the stand of trees in the back forty.  Identification was easy, because we were looking for morels, and there is no poisonous mushroom that looks like a morel, with its little sand-drip-castle tower of brown wrinkles standing in unassuming pride.  Mom always sauteed them in butter, and there were never enough.

Years later, I went mushroom hunting in the Pacific Northwest.  There, the goal was the mighty chanterelle, an equally unmistakable fungus, with bright orange top and nutmeg flavor.  But, it never eclipsed my love for the rich earthy morel.  Every spring, I think about that.  My sister now owns a tree farm, back in IL, and every year she gives me the mushroom report, and every year I whine because THEY ARE EATING MORELS AND I'M NOT!!!  Once she dried them and sent them out to me, but of course it's not the same.  And a couple of years I was there in May, and we went out to the farm for a hunt and a fry.  D fries them in an egg batter, which is also delicious.

I was just talking with a New Mexico friend about Bob and the annual mushroom hunts.  In fact, I talk about him a lot.  For instance, in January, I talk about the annual snow picnics at Delabar State Park on Super Bowl Sunday....Bob instigated them, and the family kept up the tradition.  In fact, on most of my Christmas visits, we go out to my sister's tree farm and stand around the fire pit, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows.  We walk the woods, warm up by the fire, and go home, replete with food and camaraderie.

The Fourth of July brings back memories of the picnic at the isolated rural church.  He brought chicken, marinated in Italian dressing.  The charcoal grill turned the outside a crunchy, savory black, and the inside was moist and flavorful.  We brought home-made ice-cream, still in the churn, packed in rock salt and ice that we pounded into small pieces.  I still remember sitting on the hot stoop before the towel-encased ice, hammer in hand.  I remember turning that crank, endlessly, and the thrill when it suddenly met the resistance of the frozen liquid.  It was done!

The church was a gem, set in an emerald green lawn, a perfect circle created by trees.  It was cool and quiet.  After lunch, we walked over to a freezing-cold and delicious spring, a pool at the bottom of a cliff.  At the top of a cliff was a pioneer cemetery, where we wandered, looking at the dates and the epigrams.

We only did that once, but it remains so clear in my mind.  Recently, E and I were talking about ice cream, and she remembers doing the same thing:  packing up the the ice cream and going for a picnic.  She's 54 years older than me;  is this a farming-community activity, or just something that certain people like to do?  Do people do this any more?

I could go on endlessly about the ways Bob enriched my family's life.  But the thing that I am most grateful for is his ongoing friendship with my Dad.  They shared a sense of humor and adventure, and they had wonderful times together.  In fact, a few years before Dad's stroke, Bob took Dad to England and included a side trip to the site of the Battle of Hastings.  Dad was both an historian and an Anglophile;  this was a total Bucket List trip, and I am forever glad that he had this opportunity.

I haven't seen Bob in years, but I see him in my mind's eye constantly.  We're driving through the woods, and I see a bird flash by, and I remember Bob's eagle eye, scanning, finding, and pointing out birds, plants, the passing wonders of the world.  The snow falls, and I think, "We should have a snow picnic!"  I see morels, extravagantly priced, in the market, and I ponder:  how much easier and cheaper it would be to find my own.  And how much more satisfying.

Yesterday I heard that he died, just a few days ago.  It was not expected, but it was not unexpected, either.  He had been failing mentally and physically for several years.  There will be no memorial service, and I understand that.  So, here is my memorial to Bob.  You were a wonderful person, and your passing is a grief, but your life was a blessing.  We love you.

He took us to hunt
Mushrooms and berries. He was fun,
Smart, and a good friend.