Davey Crockett lived in Kentucky and liked his privacy. Once when learning that someone had settled somewhere about fifty miles away, he moved claiming that he needed more elbow room. At least that is how I recall the story.
I grew up with little seclusion. My first recollection was living in the upper level of a duplex. Many of the houses in the area had walkways between them such that you could easily stretch your arms and touch both houses. As time passed, Dad was able to buy his first house. It was one recently built only a couple years prior in a new development near Hampton and Sherman in Milwaukee. Here we had a little elbow room. We were separated from the neighbors by a driveway just wide enough to get the post-war Pontiac past the stoop and their house.
Dad carpooled each day to his job at AC Spark Plug, later Delco Electronics, along with three other electronic engineers who lived in the same development. On the weekends our getaway to seclusion was a long drive out to Dousman to the Fin and Feather Sportsman's Club on Hardscrabble Road. On weekdays we'd meet at the official club tavern on Vliet street and either talk about going to the country on weekends or bowl in the club league. I was young but remember lots of smoke and cigars.
Perhaps it was those early trips to Dousman that made me love the Kettle Moraine Forest so much. It was one of the reasons that when I finally surrendered to the threats from the drug house across the street from my home in Milwaukee, less than a mile from where I grew up, that I moved my young family to Waukesha.
As much as I loved the country, I like the convenience of the city so we bought on the west side of town where the country was less than a mile away. One of the great ways to enjoy lots of the county is to ride a motorcycle through it. You not only get an unobstructed view around you, but you also enjoy the smell and hear the sounds (if you have a muffler) that you miss in a car. This is part of seclusion.
There are signs that seclusion if beginning to elude us. Those curvy side roads that motorcyclist love to cut through now have dirt eroding on to them from someone building their dream home of seclusion in the country. As their elbow room diminishes from others wanting a piece of that seclusion, soon the speed limit drops lower, finally not being much enjoyment to the motorcyclist.
About this time the years without the companionship of my first Siberian Husky moves me to look for a pup who needs a home. Kanook is adopted by Pat and I and I commit to training him to be a hiking companion rather than a runner as his predecessor Kanuk was.
We'd spend weekends hiking the Ice Age Trail and other areas. All the time enjoying the seclusion and communion with Nature. We'd be aware of the hunting seasons and relinquish our enjoyment of the area to the hunters who only ask for a few weeks of time and a little elbow room. One day on a section of the Ice Age Trail seemingly in the middle of nowhere, we came upon a sign saying “Don't Shoot In This Direction”. Now, that is a question that begs an answer so we naturally hiked in that direction. The reason for the sign was soon apparent. Just outside a thickness of trees was someone's home. It was enough to make Davey Crockett's raccoon hat spin.
Now Kanook and I spend more time at the dog parks. Mitchell park has a nicely wooded area to the east, Minooka Park has woods all around. Both are good places to go to think and have a little seclusion.
Now that Fall has come, the leaves of the trees and brush have fallen to the ground. They no longer mask what is beyond the ever thinning thickness of the woods. At Mitchell, you can now see the cars park beyond the woods at the game fields of the Academy. At Minooka, the leaves yield to the houses nested against the park and the traffic on the road alongside of it.
As it is fast becoming in the county, seclusion is an illusion.
