When my sister-in-law told me she had a boyfriend, I was taken aback. Linda quickly assured me, though, that her admirer was a hard-headed, well … rock.

My brother Harry good-naturedly explained further: A few years ago I wrote a story inspired by Linda’s dalliances. She passed on your request for the story, & I’m happy to oblige. Although it’s fiction, the rock itself & the conflict between whimsical hikers & the humorless land trust is real. As you can guess, the character of Emily is strongly influenced by Linda, & Max is basically me.

Note to Emily, er … Linda: I know Harry’s use of ampersands drives you nearly to distraction. But since he sent this story to me on National Ampersand Day, it seemed like the decent thing to do not to edit them out. Just this once.

Thanks to Harry and Linda for their story, photos, and good humor.

Emily’s Boyfriend

“… every day Love puts on a new face” ~ Joni Mitchell

“Hey la, hey la, my boyfriend’s back!”   ~ (The Angels) Feldman, Goldstein, Gottehrer

“Max, I have an idea,” said Emily as we were sitting down to breakfast one sunny October morning. “Since we have nothing planned for today, let’s go visit my boyfriend this morning!”

“Coming from a married woman, that’s pretty scandalous,” I replied with mock indignation. “But I’m game. If we don’t poke through breakfast we can get to the trail by nine, spend a little quality time with your boyfriend, and finish the hike around noon.” 

“Sounds good. Instead of packing our lunches, we can eat at that funky hippie café.” 

Emily’s boyfriend lives on a smallish mountain called Floyd’s Nose. He is a rock face, but not in the technical climbing sense of the term. He is the remnant of a washing-machine-sized boulder dropped on the mountainside by an ice-age glacier. Centuries of cycles of freezing and thawing split the boulder in two like a giant watermelon. Gravity pulled one half further down the slope of Floyd’s Nose, where it settled alongside what is now a hiking trail.

Running from one end of the rock’s split surface to the other was a slightly curved vein of white quartz which stood out like a grin against the dull gray background. The nearly flat surface was at a shallow enough angle with the horizontal that judiciously placed objects would stay where they were put. Using the quartz vein smile as a reference point, various hikers routinely supplied the rock with stone eyes and nose, twig eyebrows, moss or pine-needle facial hair, and other creative touches.

For Emily, it was love at first sight.  

Less than an hour’s drive from our place and with an excellent view from the summit, the Nose was one of our favorite hiking destinations. Each year we climbed it as a warmup hike in spring, as a last hurrah each fall, and once or twice in between. For the first quarter mile the trail was nearly level, skirting the base of the Nose before turning left for the ascent. Emily’s boyfriend was usually just before the turn, smiling benignly at us from his spot a few yards uphill from the trail. 

Yes, I meant just what I said: usually, but not always. On two occasions we saw only a bare rock: the features had been wiped off his face, leaving only the quartz vein like a Cheshire cat grin. The second time there was a crude plywood sign posted close by, with a message in black magic marker:

Please do not place other stones on top of this or any other rock. Such piles of rocks can be mistaken for directional cairns and confuse hikers. Thank you. Floyd’s Nose Land Trust.  

“That’s ridiculous!” scoffed Emily at the time. “My boyfriend is not anywhere near a junction, and he doesn’t look anything like a cairn—he has much more personality! Besides, the trail is clearly marked. The maintenance crew does a good job touching up the blue blazes every year.”

I’m happy to report that after each of these acts of desecration, the boyfriend’s smiling countenance had been restored by our next visit.

On this October morning, Emily was so eager to rendezvous with her boyfriend that she skipped reading the paper at breakfast, and even left the dishes unwashed in the sink. We collected our gear and loaded the car, left the house at eight, and reached the trailhead at quarter to nine.

“So, Em, do you think your paramour will have a beard this time?” I asked Emily as we laced up our boots. Because of the land trust’s purges and subsequent unauthorized restorations, her boyfriend’s features tended to vary from one hike to the next.

“I hope so,” she replied. “It makes him look really sharp. But he was even sexier last year when his eyes were sparkling with mica! I’m glad you’re my husband, but he’s my true love. Like I always say,” —I knew what was coming and joined in— “he ‘Loves me like a rock!’” Emily has repeated that line so often that she must owe Paul Simon a fortune in royalties.

Usually I take the lead on a hike, but this time Emily, in her eagerness to reconnect with her sweetie, was several steps ahead of me. When she came face-to-face with the rock, she gave out a gasp.

When I caught up a few seconds later it was my turn to be shocked: the rock was crying!

Instead of lifting up into a smile, the far ends of the quartz vein were turned down into a frown. Above the grapefruit-sized stone eyes, the hemlock-twig eyebrows added to the picture of distress by imitating the curve of the quartz-vein mouth, higher above the nose and sloping down toward the far corner of each eye. But the most poignant touch was a descending dotted line of mica-flake tears below each eye, glittering like salty drops on each stony cheek. Though I should have known better, I took an objective and dispassionate approach.

 “Quite a transformation,” I mused out loud.

“Somebody must have picked up the rock and turned it 180 degrees. It must weigh at least half a ton. I’ll bet it took five or six strong guys.”

“Oh stop being so analytical, Maxwell!” snapped Emily. “Look at how sad he is! What could have happened?” I’m not too bright about women and their emotional lives, not even Emily’s, but I had sense enough to keep my mouth shut and avoid digging myself into a deeper hole.

 “I’m not as silly as you think,” she continued in a gentler tone. “But somebody has gone through some sadness or pain recently and made up this face to express their sorrow. It was probably good therapy for them.” 

And then, to show she had been listening and had forgiven my lack of empathy: “And you’re right, Max, whoever it was had friends who helped turn the rock upside down. That’s even better; that means they were sharing their grief instead of bottling it up inside.”

We continued our hike up Floyd’s Nose.

On the trail we talked very little about the sad rock, but it was often in my thoughts. Emily’s explanation that it was someone’s expression of sorrow grew on me; experience had taught me that she’s rarely mistaken about matters of the heart. It must have been quite a tragedy to make somebody go to the trouble of turning a half-ton rock upside-down. My curiosity was aroused and I would have liked a second look, but the trail formed a loop and we did not pass her boyfriend on the way back. Shortly after noon we returned to our starting point, changed into sneakers, and drove the few miles to the village for lunch.  

At the Kismet Café the proprietress greeted us, led us to a table, and took our order.

Since we didn’t know her name, we referred to her as Ms. Kismet. She appeared to be forty at most but was one of those matronly women who can get away with calling everyone ‘dear,’ or ‘hon.’ She was also a tough lady you messed with at your peril. Once we saw her reduce a quartet of rowdy, F-bomb-dropping college guys to contrite choirboys as masterfully as any old-school nun from my Catholic childhood. I wondered if she could shed any light on the mystery of the weeping rock. When she brought out our tea and sandwiches, I brought up the subject.

“We really enjoy hiking that trail up Floyd’s Nose. We probably tell you that every time we come here.”

“You’re right dear, you do!” she laughed. “So do a lot of people who come here. And no wonder, it’s a gorgeous place. I’m not a big hiker myself, but I like to climb it this time of year and look at the trees turning color in the valley.”

“So you must have seen the big smiling boulder near the trailhead. I don’t know if you’ve been up the trail lately, but today the rock seems to be having a bad day.”

I didn’t need to say more.

Ms. Kismet smiled knowingly. “More like a bad couple of months. I could explain it to you, but there’s somebody here who knows more about it than I do and would love to tell you about it.” She turned toward the kitchen and called: “Hey Victor! Come on out here for a minute.”

A husky fellow in his mid-twenties emerged from the kitchen, wiping his brown hands on his apron. When Ms. Kismet explained our interest in the rock, he smiled as broadly as the rock did in its happier days, but there was a touch of wistfulness in his dark eyes. He glanced around the half-empty restaurant, then at his boss, who nodded.

Pulling up a chair from a nearby table, he sat down with us and began his story.

“There was an old man who lived in a little house near the trailhead—you must have driven right by it this morning. They say he was a descendant of the original Floyd, who settled here in the early 1800s. I got to know him a little bit. He told me when he was a kid, he started making a face on that rock every spring and kept it up for over seventy years. I like to think his dad and his grandpa did the same thing, maybe going all the way back to the first Mr. Floyd.

“About ten years ago the land trust acquired the property. That was a good thing, to save the mountain and trails from development. But the trustees, or at least a few of them, seemed to think that making that face on the rock was spoiling the natural beauty of the place. Two or three times a year they’d send the trail maintenance crew over to dismantle the face. I know, because working on that crew was my first job when I moved up here four years ago. I didn’t like taking apart the face—none of us did—but that’s what they paid us to do. I have to admit, it made me feel better that every time we removed the face, within a few days the old man put it back again.

“I think it became sort of a game for him.

“After I quit the trail crew job, I apologized to him for taking apart his face, but he said not to worry, it gave him a chance to put together a new one a few times every year. Sometimes other hikers added touches of their own, which he often liked. Once somebody added a mustache out of pieces of moose shit, and he really got a kick out of that. But if he didn’t approve of the change, he’d get rid of it. Once somebody stuck a real cigar into a crevice at the corner of the mouth. I thought it looked cool, like an old-time gangster, but the old man didn’t like it. ‘Only natural objects found on the trail belong in this face,’ he said.”

By now I was pretty sure Victor knew the old man’s real name, but something prevented me from inquiring. I had a sense that ‘old man’ was a title of respect combined with affection. Instead I asked, “Were you still working on the crew when they put up that silly sign about cairns?” 

“No, I’d left by then, but I remember seeing the sign and thinking it was bullshit. No hiker could possibly mistake that face for a cairn. No, I think it was some purists on the land trust board with no sense of humor. I mean, I’m all for ‘leave no trace,’ but those guys went too far. I think a few of that bunch are armchair environmentalists, and I sometimes wonder if they ever get off their asses and onto the trail to see for themselves.”

Emily was fidgeting a little with all this backstory and cut to the heart of the matter.

“So what happened to make our friend so sad?”

Victor’s eyes moistened, confirming my feeling that he knew the old man much more than ‘a little bit.’

He continued: “For the last year the old man’s health had been going downhill – COPD, I think. One day this spring he came to the café and said ‘Hey Victor, will you give me a hand with the face tomorrow morning? Those damn fools from the land trust have wiped it off again.’ Of course I said yes, and the next day I could see why he needed help. He was breathing pretty hard as we walked out to the rock and had to stop a few times. I asked if he was sure he wanted to continue, and he said yes. When we got to the rock, he plunked himself down on a fallen tree trunk and obviously had no energy left to collect what he needed to make the face.

“Mostly he gave me directions and I did the work. He didn’t say so, but I got the sense it was his way of asking if I would continue the tradition when he was gone. He knew he didn’t have much time left.

“That might have been the last walk he ever took.”

Victor’s voice had become husky. He paused and took a deep breath “A couple of months ago the old man died. I would have gone to the funeral but there was no public service. So instead, after I got the sad news, I asked a few of my friends to come to the trail with me. They all had worked on the crew at some point and had all dismantled the face at least once or twice, so maybe they felt like this was making amends. They’re also strong guys, my size or bigger, which was important. 

“When we got there the face was still smiling, just as it was when the old man and I put it together. I asked for a moment of silence. Then we removed the eyes, nose, hair, beard, and everything else. It felt kind of the way my mama described preparing my grandpa’s body for burial after he died. Then I said ‘okay, here’s why I picked you big strong macho guys for this job,’ and somehow with the help of a few tree trunks as crowbars we managed to turn that rock upside-down so the happy face became sad. We gathered rocks and sticks and by the time we were done there was one more mourner in our group.”

“Was it you who added those little bits of mica under the eyes?” asked Emily softly.

He nodded and turned away. Emily’s boyfriend was not the only one shedding glittering tears that day. Victor raised his apron to his face briefly, then turned around smiling. “Well, time will heal. I don’t know how long it will take, but he won’t be in mourning forever. Anyway, I’m glad you guys asked about him—the rock, that is. It felt good to talk about it. Hope you like my sandwiches.” With that, he rose and went back to his kitchen.

That was our last hike of that fall. November brought deer season, and we left the woods to the hunters. Most of our winter outdoor time was spent on skis and snowshoes, but not in the boyfriend’s neighborhood. 

Late the following April, between the end of mud season and the beginning of black fly season, we returned to Floyd’s Nose for our first hike of the year.

On the drive over we didn’t mention Emily’s boyfriend. We didn’t need to, as our thoughts were unspoken but shared. 

As usual on this trail, Emily took the lead and arrived at the rock before I did. When she turned her beaming face toward me, I knew what I would see for myself a few seconds later: her boyfriend was smiling again. That makes three of us, I thought, as Emily took my hand. We gazed on the smiling rock for a minute, glad to see the long tradition would continue. 

Before we moved on, Emily stepped off the trail for a minute and came back with a slightly curved stick several inches long. She removed one stony eye and put the stick in its place. Her boyfriend winked at us as we resumed our hike.  

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“Emily’s Boyfriend” ©2026 Harry Vayo. Photos courtesy Linda Woods. All rights reserved.

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