for long enough, the chipmunks would venture out of the havens they had scooped out under the rock. In the summer, the roar of a dragonfly's wings or that of a bumble bee would drown out all other sounds, their impossible motion through the air drawing your eye, your ear, your mind's full attention.

I remember taking that rock to so many places - places it would have never seen and adventures it would have never known without me. We traveled to Never-Never land to fight Captain Hook. We got stranded on a desert island with Robinson Crusoe, only to somehow find ourselves in the jungles of Africa, racing to keep up with Tarzan and Cheetah. Batman joined us one afternoon to put the Joker and the Riddler behind bars. Mr. Spock even beamed down to help me retrieve some more dilithium crystals for the "Enterprise". We followed Lazarus Long on his journeys and listened to Hari Seldon give his lectures. We traveled in a time machine and hitchhiked our way across the galaxy.

There were days we didn't go anywhere or do much of anything. We just sat there in the sun, soaking up its warmth and contemplating the world around us. There were days of non-stop conversation. That rock was the best listener I have ever known. Its quiet, steadfast personality taught me patience, perseverance and the ability to weather almost any storm. Some might say stubbornness, hard-headed belligerence and unwillingness to change, but they can write their own stories. There were times that I would not make it by for a visit for days or weeks, but the rock was always there whenever I did manage to get back.

By the time I was ten or eleven, I felt I had outgrown my childhood friendship with my rock and stopped visiting. I would walk by it on weekly trips to repair fence lines, or ride by in the winter on monthly trips to cut trees for the wood burning furnace that heated my grandfather's house. I hiked through its neighborhood frequently out deer or pheasant hunting. At one time or another, every one of the three fields around it had hay, or oats that required harvesting. On other occasions, anywhere from twelve to thirty or forty head of cattle grazed on the grass that grew around my rock. Sadly, as I reflect on it now, I only visited once more before I moved 2000 miles away. Either I had been away too long, or my rock was not as good at dealing with broken hearts as it was at being a pirate ship.

Recently, I took my six-year-old son to visit Grandma and Grandpa. He had never seen so much open land in one place in his life Phoenix is somewhat more crowded than the area I grew up in. We went for a walk, and either by design or by accident, I'm not sure which, we ended up in front of my rock.

"Wow, Dad! Look at that big rock!"

"Would you like to climb it?" I asked. Silly question, Dad.

I gave him a boost - he wanted to climb it rather than have Dad put him up there. Bouncing to his feet at the summit, he began to survey his surroundings.

"Look, Dad. I'm a pirate. Aaaaarrrgghh!"

It was at that moment I knew that rocks really do float.

Learn more about this author, Michael Raymond.
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