A return to roots - 75 years running

Arden Travis

Arden Travis at the tree he's visited annually for over seven decades. The row of horizontal carvings march up the tree trunk. Submitted photo.

A return to roots -
75 years running

Few individuals renew a connection to their past with more dogged consistency than Arden Travis of Prospect Street in Spencerport. Curiously enough, he was also born and raised on a Prospect Avenue in his native town of Canisteo. Both roads head uphill, and that is just what he takes an annual pilgrimage to Canisteo to do - climb a hill overlooking his home town.

This October 10 marked 75 years - uninterrupted - of making the trek up the hill to where a sturdy oak tree overlooking a ravine, patiently awaits his annual arrival. Each year Travis pulls his pocket knife and carves his initials and the date into the tree. Three columns with 25 carvings each decorate the uphill side of the oak tree, now over five feet in girth, and give testament to the sure and steady march of time.

The tradition began in 1931 when he was 11 years old. His grandfather had just given him a jackknife that year, and an older cousin invited him to go up the hill with him to carve his initials and date into a tree.

"I thought that would be fun and I went with him. I first carved it on a pine tree but when I went back in '32 the tree had bled quite a lot and I didn't want to do that to a tree so I transferred to the nearby oak tree," says Travis.

Since then the retired RIT business professor says he cannot recall ever climbing the hill alone. "It's not that I'm afraid to, I just always like to share it with someone," he says. This year Travis hiked up with his son, David, and two grandsons, Matt and John, who are inclined to get somewhat side-tracked hunting for fossils, turkey feathers or arrowheads en-route. His wife, Jean, and many other relatives and friends have accompanied him on the steep, half-hour climb over the years, where they might stop on the way up to nibble on wintergreen leaves, or enjoy a refreshing drink from the mountain stream. The stream, like the town which has changed little in 75 years, seems as pure and drinkable as it was on first climb in 1931. Their trip to Canisteo usually ends with a hearty lunch at the "base camp," a nearby relative's home.

Caleb's climb
"This was my 'Caleb's Climb,' " explains the 85-year-old Travis. He opens up the Bible to Joshua 14 and relates the story of the faithful Caleb who as a young man climbed into the hill country of Canaan to spy out the land for the Israelites. When Caleb was 85 years old he approached Joshua and asked to be given that hill country as Moses had promised him. Joshua gave the hill country to Caleb as an inheritance. "Caleb was my same age," says Travis, "and he really wanted that hill country."

Travis holds no less affection for his 'hill country,' however, he doesn't own the Canisteo hill on which he climbs. He explains that it had always been owned by the village and was open to public use. But one year, the perpetuity of his pilgrimages was in jeopardy when he and his son came upon a "No Trespassing" sign at the base of the hill. A man then approached them to insure they were heeding the sign. Fortunately, after a discussion with the new private owner about his purpose, permission was granted to continue his yearly climb.

Back trouble in September of 2000 also threatened to put an end to his uninterrupted streak of visits to the hill. But his back started to improve and his son, David, a faithful companion many of the years, encouraged him to go for it.

Journey away from his roots
In his younger years, events outside of his control did not always make getting back to Canisteo convenient. During WWII Travis found himself as far away from his roots as North Africa, France, Italy and Japan. He was a senior in college in 1941 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. With the war on, his draft status changed and he decided his best course of action was to try to get into a reserve officer training program. However, he was under the required weight of 132 pounds. He spent his weekdays fattening himself up on whole milk and eggnogs, and on Saturdays he alternated between visiting the Navy and the Marine recruiting centers to see if he was up to weight.

"I don't know for the life of me why, but I concentrated on the Marines and the Navy," says Travis. "At that time, second lieutenants in the Marines, well, they were cannon fodder. The week that I got up to the magic 132 pounds, I had gone to the Navy office. I'm really glad I got in the Navy."

Before he could be sworn in, Travis had to travel to Albany for a final physical. By the time he got there his weight had dropped again to 129 pounds. So before his appointment he filled up on a meal of hearty stew at a restaurant, then stopped at a fruit stand and bought a large bunch of bananas. He sat outside on the capital steps consuming one banana after another. He was quite a spectacle, he says, and it attracted the attention of a group of civil service workers who were overcome by curiosity and asked him what he was doing. After explaining his predicament they all wished him good luck. Travis then went in to be weighed, but just before stepping on the scale, excused himself and scurried into the hall to a water fountain where he drank all he could hold. "I then went in to get weighed and sure enough, I was a good 132," he says with a satisfied smile.

Travis served as second officer on an LCT (Landing Craft, Tank) and landed troops, tanks and supplies in the invasion of Sicily and Anzio, Italy where, he says, he saw the most action. He also participated in the invasion of southern France. In 1945 Travis was transferred to a larger ship transport in the Pacific and they were assigned to deliver medical technicians, doctors and supplies to Nagasaki, Japan, right after the atomic bomb was dropped.

"We went in and saw Nagasaki just as soon as you could go in," says Travis. "It was just sad." He recalls that there were Japanese bodies floating down the river as they came in, and there was hardly anything left standing above waist height. But on the war, Travis says: "It was just part of what we all had to do. I didn't know about people demonstrating against (the war) like you have now. We were attacked by the Japanese and we had to go over there and get it over with. Most of your friends were doing the same thing, if they were young and healthy. It's very different than this thing in Iraq. It's a war, sure, but it's a very different kind of war."

The treks continue
Even with spending more than three years in the European and Pacific theaters of WWII, Travis never let a year go by without making his Canisteo climb. Transfer of duty stations or leave always coincided in such a way to allow him to make it back each year, although one of the years the timing forced him to make a spring, rather than his preferred fall, pilgrimage.

Will he continue the tradition? "I pretty much think I've done it. I ... I think I've really done it," Travis says with some reluctance and a touch of sadness. "It gets wearing. It's quite a hill. It's become steeper in recent years. I've often said that I wish I had picked a tree lower down the hill," he adds with a smile.

But if he can't get to the tree, maybe the tree can come here. He and his son, Dave, brought back some acorns from the tree and hope to get one growing in Dave's back yard in Spencerport. The memories, however, will certainly be re-visited, of sitting quietly on the hill after the carving was finished, and surveying the valley below. "It's very remote up there," he says. "One thing I so much enjoyed was to just sit up there and listen to the valley sounds, especially the church bells, and the old Erie railroad coming through. It's a beautiful valley. I have a very good feeling toward Canisteo, my hometown. It was a great place to grow up."