Give Benjamin Tower a compass and a sky twinkling with constellations, and you’ve got a ticket out of the wilderness.
Along with a menu to go with it.
He’ll tell you what berries and roots you can safely consume – even as he’s gently moving you away from that plump, innocent-looking mushroom which could prove fatal in your frying pan.
Never mind the obvious, life-saving component.
In terms of the out-and-about factor, those are some just-plain cool skills to possess.
Especially in a society that couldn’t be more sedentary.
However, on a sun-dappled Wednesday afternoon, at the extreme outer reaches of the parking lot at the headquarters of the Mountain Stewardship and Outdoor Leadership School near Morgantown, he was employing another skill.
One that just may have been cooler than the above.
In the moment, anyway.
Juggling.
Yep.
Three bright-orange spheres, in the air all at once.
Over and under, this way and that.
Sir Isaac Newton, with a slapstick sense of humor.
“You know the hardest thing about juggling, right?” he asked, while the bobbing show of his making commenced.
“Juggling is about convincing your brain that you can actually do it. Mind over matter.”
He knows a few things about that. He’s a student pursuing neuroscience at WVU.
During the summers, though, he’s an instructor at the outdoor school, which introduces the wilderness way of life townie kids from the ranch house developments and cul-de-sacs that grow like moss in Morgantown.
Jen-Osha Buysse, the school’s director and co-founder, likes the juggling metaphor.
“We really are giving kids the confidence that can go out do these things,” said the Yale-trained forester and environmentalist who taught English for two years in Ecuador as she went forth on her own explorations.
“We teach them,” Buysse said, “and most of them stay with us after they go to college to teach the next groups of kids coming in.”
For a history of the school and rundown of its courses of instruction, some of which operate in tandem with the Morgantown Learning Academy next door, visit www.mountainsol.org or the school’s Facebook page.
Meanwhile, Wednesday was a chance to reflect on the most recent activity hosted by the school.
It was the annual survival-skills outing on Cheat Mountain, complete with fishing and hiking forays and all those tweaks and hacks that can make such a go memorable – opposed to miserable.
There was even a spectacular, rumbling thunderstorm, which campers, dry and sequestered under tarps, safely took in.
“Yeah, that was something,” said Jason Ruehl, the school’s resident frontier skills expert and Taekwondo black-belt holder.
Along with Benjamin Tower, the young campers-turned-teachers included his sister, Toria.
Mirada Miller was there, too, along with Owen Sorensen and Elijah Wellness-Osha.
Rowen Buysse was also present.
Miranda, a University High School student who plans on a career in nursing, has learned about herbal medicine during her time at the school as a camper and volunteer instructor.
She’s always had an outdoors bent, he said, and that’s even more so because of her experiences,
Well, there’s that and her friend from Florida who is enthralled by the hills and greenery.
Said friend is up visiting and Miranda is showing off the Mountain State.
Without even breathing hard, she said, laughing.
“She’ll say, ‘Will you look at this place?’ She’s in awe, and we’re just on a county road. Sometimes, we don’t appreciate what we have.”
A little juggling in the outdoors of Almost Heaven might be the key.
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