A man and his mountain ways

 Sitting by the fire, he traveled back in time when life was an open book of discovery. He strokes his long white beard and remembers throwing away his razor on his forty-fifth birthday. It was the same year he left the city behind, choosing a life of quiet solitude on a mountain, where wildlife became his friend and the seasons his clock and calendar.

In the quiet night, as the fire spat out tiny sparks of light, it reminded him of headlights down below, where the people of the city blew their horns and yelled at the traffic as if it would matter or make it possible to move a few inches forward.

As he sat in the cold of the night his face warm from the fire he remembered his first time smoking some weed with friends deep in the darkness of the forest where the sounds of nature and a lone guitar filled the air as that sweet smell of pot filled his lungs and opened his mind to the true meaning of what he wanted his life to be.

He could have followed the masses and become another sheep following the rituals of those around him, but his true self couldn't allow that, no matter how hard he tried. He was a solitary man who craved the mountains and forests and the sweet smell of weed filling the air as his imagination ran wild and his spirit soared with the eagles.

At seventy-two years old, he had become a legend in the mountains. His cabin was a welcome station for hikers passing by, who sat by his fire as he passed the pipe around and told them stories of yesteryear, capturing their attention as their minds opened to the true reality of his life and what he had given up by choice.

Years later, a simple wooden cross marked the spot where his cabin once stood. It's said he fought off a grizzly bear but lost. Others said he ventured down the mountain for reasons unknown, made it halfway, sat against a tree, and fell asleep, but never woke up.

I sat by his fire once a long time ago, where he shared the pipe with me, telling stories, some real and others a byproduct of decades smoking the weed he loved so much. I never met such a man whose life was a story many would never read, but he was as real as it gets, and his legend will live on as long as there are those who choose to believe in a mountain man with a very long white beard and a well-smoked pipe.

Mike  2026