Stephanie suggested that her father visit the Nature Center at a part of the Forest Preserve that was further away than his normal trails. Every year when she was in middle school they took a field trip to that center and listened to the guides describe the wild birds and animals that lived there.
When her father reached the Nature Center he chose a loop trail realizing that he had been there before, long ago, with Stephanie when she was at a tender age, barely able to walk. He counted the decades and felt time disappear in his memory.
A healthy, but elderly couple approached and asked him how short the loop was concerned that it might go on for over a mile. He answered as one well-acquainted with this very short loop that even a child could walk saying, “It’s not long at all.”
Linked to Six Sentence Stories where Denise offers the word “tender” to use in the story.


Good metaphor. Time and space can never be separated anyway
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Thank you, Larry!
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Nice one Frank 💜
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Thank you, Willow!
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A pleasure 💜
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spontaneous smile at the end of your Six*
*the highest of compliments of a well-crafted story
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I am glad it brought a smile. Thank you!
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Beautiful! Loved how you ended the tale!
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Thank you, Ramya!
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A toddler length trail! You should read the post I wrote last spring about taking my husband on what I thought was a toddler length trail and which was anything but! Nice six!
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Some paths become very long. Perhaps this one was like that as well and he finally looped back to the beginning. Thank you, Dyanne!
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A very tender Six, Frank. No doubt the trail served as time machine for him, at least for a short time 🙂
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Yes, it did. Thank you, Denise!
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This is a tender tale of the trail!
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Thank you!
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Well done!
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Thank you, Lisa!
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Great job
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Thank you, Paul!
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‘He answered as one well-acquainted with this very short loop”
The line that ties the whole piece together. Well done, Frank!
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Thank you, Liz!
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