I can see the rain pouring down outside, hear it splashing off the flagstone terrace. I knew I should have thrown that whole cord of wood in this morning. Blame the wife, an easy, unjustified target.

Up just after 7, I made coffee, fed the fire, got dressed and immediately went to gather wood and fill the stove-side cradle. In the woodshed, fresh cord dumped outside right up to the open doorway, I, of course, started tossing it in and got carried away. After 20 minutes, I had three-quarters of the load heaped inside when I heard the kitchen door swing open, my wife walking toward me. She wanted me to take a break, didn’t want me working like that. No desire to argue, I stepped into the woodshed, squeezed through a narrow lane created by the woodpile, brushed off in front of the coal bin, walked into the shed, past the pantry and into the kitchen. There, I poured a big cup of the coffee, walked through the dining room and into the parlor to relax. The woodshed chore could wait, wouldn’t take long to finish, maybe 10 minutes. I just wanted it behind me before predicted afternoon showers. Then, sure enough — or is it of course? — walking the dogs an hour or so later, it started raining and I had to head home to cover that small outdoor woodpile with a cheap blue plastic tarp. Women! Those much-needed voices of caution and reason, agents of procrastination! No sense getting worked up, though. The wood didn’t get saturated, will be just fine.

What a difference a week makes. My wool vest is back out and handy, hanging over the back of a birdcage Windsor tucked under the east end of the long, cherry, dining-room harvest table. Not only that, I’m back to turning up my collar for walks. No, it sure didn’t take long for Monday’s brisk north winds to reintroduce March and erase that nice summer mirage we all enjoyed last week. The trees and bushes seemed to savor the hot weather, too, budding way earlier than normal. In fact, I’m sitting here in my study peering out the window at a green lawn getting greener by the second, and a bridal-wreath bush that’s budded at least three weeks early. We’ll see what happens. Usually I trust Mother Nature to process such anomalies. But you never know how the old witch will react to the careless sins of mankind. I’m referring, of course, to the Gulf spill and Fukushima, the effects of which are still circulating out of sight and mind, along the ocean floor, in the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink. Yeah, yeah, I know the “experts” hired to deliver good news to head-in-the-sand Pollyannas claim those catastrophes have passed with no lingering effects. I say, bull-twinkie. And, trust me, you don’t need a sophisticated researcher to uncover an entirely different, unvarnished evaluation from unbiased, independent scientists, the ones Fox-News harangues daily as hysterical alarmist loons. Just don’t try to decipher truth from the mainstream. Except for rare and welcome exceptions, the available “news” there is just too clouded in objectivity. But why belabor an old, unworthy issue? Back to the early spring, that sacred red rock I visit daily, trout stocking, turkey-season prospects, a music smidgen, a brief diversion back into the woodshed, and whatever else enters my mind’s eye. Just one of them days, I guess. Lots of stuff buzzing between my ears.

Sirum’s serviceman Deane Wonsey stopped by Tuesday to convert my John Deere lawn tractor back from snowblower to mower, and also to perform the annual spring service. The previous day had brought an impromptu visit from landscaper Andy Melnik, in the neighborhood, now come and gone from his annual power-sweeping chore. It seems everything except my trip to accountant Tom Scanlon has been early this year. And now even he’s in the rear-view, sort of; yeah, a month late, but still a good thing. Which doesn’t mean all news from the old tavern is rosy. Nope. I must travel only so far as the kitchen to find a credit-card bill from Bank of America lying on the countertop; insignificant damage, yes, but there nonetheless. Yup, we too are slaves to that behemoth predatory lender that seems to have its talons curled into everyone. Oh yeah, one more thing out of the murky gray skies before I get focused. I see Chick Underwood died. Too bad, but I guess a man can’t live forever; he was 91. I liked Chickie, even though he was an unapologetic Yankees fan. Still, the guy was an authentic, small-town American character, a fixture for generations around the local diamond, gridiron and hardcourt. His infectious, sometimes sinister laugh and playful banter will be missed. They don’t make ’em like they used to.

Traipsing even further askew, I must say I was happy to hear from faraway pen-pal Hannelore, that bright, accomplished German lady who from time to time checks in on a blithe whim from her homeland or Hawaii. A friend of a late friend, she has a way of just popping into my inbox, always providing thoughtful, well-written narratives on this or that, all relevant, often enticing. Multilingual, she loves to write and ponder, has found a willing correspondent and soul mate. Maybe someday we’ll meet. It wouldn’t surprise me. Then again, even if we don’t, she’s fun, even invigorating at times, her topics random, the answers often elusive, sumptuous food for thought. I devour such stuff with my face in the bowl and come away messy. As it turns out, we’re both quietly working on introspective stuff. A Knut Hamsun devotee, I learned long ago to admire the European mind, at least what little I know of it; and now this pulsating, breathing, articulate human being, a lady no less; even better, regardless of Christian society’s stern warning that males and females, made by nature for each other, must proceed with caution, be forever wary, particularly after repeating chapel vows. I don’t play that silly taboo game. It makes no sense. … Time to stop right here, though, for that quick trip back to the woodshed.

Oh, yes, the woodshed. Once you’ve had one that’s connected to the house and handy, could you ever go without? Not me, at least not as long as I’m burning wood for winter comfort. Having your wood supply close and covered near the stove is a grand luxury indeed. Just Tuesday my shed was empty, excluding the small stuff piled high for the fireplaces in a north-side cubby-hole created by the protruding “indoor” outhouse, also a grand luxury in its day. This last load from wood vendor Blue Sky is beautiful seasoned locust that will easily carry me through May. Yup, I know, another 225 bucks down the drain. But what can a man do? I suppose I could buy myself a chainsaw and splitter and humiliate myself begging for free fuel by offering to remove toppled trees from the side of the road. But when you look at it rationally, what do you really gain from such a demeaning chore? Isn’t your time and labor worth something, too? I guess it depends how you look at it. And what’s the alternative? No wood? Stove dampered too low? Gloves and a  wool cap in the winter reading parlor? I could live with that little step back in time, but my wife? Uh-uh. It’s OK. I like keeping a fire from October to May, awaking in the wee hours to feed it. I can’t understand those who let the fire die most nights, only to start anew the next morning due to pure laziness. But, hey, that’s just me. Maybe I’m weird or something.

Readers may have noticed how I stopped mentioning travelin’ music a couple of weeks ago. To be honest, I figured no one really cared. Then, just last week I bumped into an unknown  fella who, maybe sarcastically, wanted to know if I was still listening to bluegrass. Well, kinda, but I ain’t going there. All I’ll say is that if you like Dylan, you’ll love Tim O’Brien’s “Red on Blonde,” be it putting along a dusty dirt road, roaring down the thruway passing lane, or just relaxing by the fireplace in a cozy wing chair, lights dimmed, cordwood crackling, Rare Breed on the rocks, twist of lime, enhancing the mellow warmth. It can get deafeningly loud on winter nights like that, doors sealed tightly, Pres Speakers rattling your eardrums. Good old Pres, a softball buddy from days past. Older than me, he’s still chasing the dream, playing Over-30 and Vintage baseball with a rare, admirable passion. Good for him. It’s not for me. I’m done with it. But I must admit to happening upon an Over-30 game at Herlihy Park last summer and, out of curiosity, pulling over to watch an inning or two from an overlook. Although I don’t mean in any way to offend my buddy Pres, I found exactly what I expected, not a ballplayer among the sorry wannabes. I don’t know where the teams stood in the standings but would guess somewhere on the bulkhead stairs. This much I can tell you, though: my Deerfield Pony League team from the old Pioneer Teen League would have mercy-ruled either team. Paaaa-thetic. Why even bother? To prove you could have been a ballplayer when a Big Y bagboy? It reminds me of that classic Brando “On the Waterfront” line:”  “I could have been a contender.” I say, so what? Move on. Get over it.

Moving to turkey hunting, I admit that even though I haven’t participated the past couple of springs, I do think about it often; that and trout fishing, which I haven’t done in decades. Every day as I visit that Green River red rock and downstream pools, I study the water from an angler’s perspective, reading the runs, the pools, the eddies where trout lurk. Once you’ve fished seriously and understand the game, it never leaves you, that ability to read water, identify hatches, search for subtle movement in sunny lairs at riffles edge. Word has it they stocked the Deerfield last week and plan to return again this week. Ashfield Lake’s also on the list. I’m sure the Green will soon be fattened. The water is perfect. Which reminds me: I think my days of providing weekly stocking reports are over. Why? Because it’s all listed online, and several people I would not expect to be Internet friendly are frequent visitors to that MassWildlife website. Yes indeed, times change. You can’t fight it. I’m afraid it|doesn’t bode well for stubborn daily newspapers that refuse to adjust. Yeah, I know it’s true there are those who still don’t use computers or watch cable TV. But are those the readers newspapers should chase? Not in my mind. To me, it’s literally a dying market. Myself, I prefer to reach people who get their news by modern means and visit newspapers looking for something different, news or the delivery thereof that can’t be found on the nightly news, 24/7 cable or Google. In my opinion, newspapers that don’t deliver unique news ain’t long for this world. But, even though retirement is near, why stir that stinky cesspool? It’s pointless.

Ooops! There I go again. Can you believe it? I got distracted and didn’t follow through on my turkey-hunting ramble. Like I said, I have been thinking about turkeys lately, mostly the fact that they had a gift-wrapped winter with minimal, if any, mortality except predatory. January and February spotters complained they weren’t seeing winter flocks where they had grown accustomed to seeing them. Well, guess what? The big birds are back with a vengeance after a long, glorious winter of foraging secluded red-oak groves of their choosing for protein-rich acorns. There should be a lot of jakes and some beautiful boss gobblers out there for the picking around the first of May. And with little snow and no mud season, the dangling beards ought to be long, full and undamaged, rare trophies. The problem will be seeing birds in the forest and hearing distant gobbles. Hunters typically get a couple of weeks of open forest, with no leaves and open sight lanes. Not this year. The landscape is already looking very much like a normal opening day. By the first day, it’ll likely look like the last, visibility poor, bugs pesky. Oh, well, you gotta accept what nature puts on the platter. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even get out this year. Then again, maybe not. I don’t intend to push it, am unwilling to become a zombie just to shoot a turkey I don’t need. The day is fast approaching when I’ll be calling my own shots, won’t have to worry about schedules and routine. For that day, I am eager. Change doesn’t frighten me. In fact, I welcome it, find it inspiring and new.

Hey, how about that! It stopped raining. Time to tackle the what’s left of the woodpile. Then back inside to finish “The Democratic-Republican of Massachusetts” by Paul Goodman, difficult but informative. Next up: an Ambrose Bierce biography. I finished “Death in the Haymarket” last week. Everyone ought to read it now that they say we’re headed back to the robber-barren-and-wage-slave Gilded Age. Why does the bad stuff keep repeating itself? Maybe people are stupid.

Daffodils stand straight as an Episcopal preacher, cardinals sing their joyous tunes and life is good, spring optimism saturating my nostrils, filling my lungs, penetrating deep into my cynical soul. I love spring but must admit it was not kind to me as a kid. When an adolescent’s sap ascends from his roots, oh my, the trouble it unleashes for some of us. But I’m old now and that’s behind me, right? Never know. I long ago learned to proceed with caution.

Many subjects worth traipsing into this week, starting with a reader flagging me down departing from my morning walk with the dogs through Sunken Meadow. It was neighbor Ed Galvin, an old skiing buddy of my late Uncle Ralph’s who I’ve known since his days at Clark’s Sport Shop. He signaled me to stop with a smile, pulled over to the side of the road, exited his gold Toyota Tacoma, and hurried toward me, magazine in hand: Winter 1994 “Vermont Life,” on it a two-inch chartreuse paste-on note directing me to Page 20. I opened to the page and discovered a color photo of a cougar, four-legged, a headline above reading “THE CAT IS BACK.” But hold that thought a minute. First, a few of other items worth mentioning, including the death of a loyal reader, new books on the parlor chest, an embarrassing correction, and various observations about new hunting and fishing regulations that have people squawking.

Let’s start with the passing of Leyden reader Edward M. Wells, 85, who died suddenly, the way we all should go, last week at home. A former teacher and World War II Marine, we were unlikely friends, I suppose, but he read this column, chirped in from time to time and even visited my Greenfield Meadows home a few times. Our common interest was this place we call home, the Pioneer Valley, where we both worshiped deep roots he referred to as “DNA in the valley’s oldest cemeteries.” He was proud of it and so am I, thus our friendship. I’m sure he cringed at some of my opinions about public schools and teachers, not to mention politics, but we got through it to establish a friendly relationship. I will miss bumping into him at the Big Y, greeting him, speaking to him. A dignified, soft-spoken, died-in-the-wool Republican typically dressed in a tweed jacket, he sometimes didn’t know how to take me but would eventually squeeze out a wry grin and engage in conversation that grew livelier as it progressed. A cousin of his emailed me on the morning he died to say “Mike” spoke highly of me. She even shared something he often told her told that I hesitate to repeat: “Gary has a true feeling for the ground and those who have come before. I may not exactly agree with some of his philosophies, but he is a fine young man.” I’m sure my enemies and political foes will choke on that one. Oh, well. Isn’t it too bad that legislators on opposite sides of the aisle can’t be as accepting?

As for the new books that arrived Monday morning, I’m sure my wife wishes I’d curtail these purchases. They add up. But, like I told her, it could be worse than reading, maybe even getting into mischief, the forces of Satan lurking around every corner. I tell her I don’t look for mischief, it has always found me. But let’s not go there. Deep down, she understands my reading and does respect my intellectual curiosity, not to mention that independent, at times defiant, streak. Anyway, I do look forward to perusing the “American Political Biography” catalog that arrives monthly in my mailbox from Jeff Speirs of Newtown, Conn., where my late Uncle Ray (Keane), an artist and good man, once owned a home. I ordered three books this time: one on the infamous Haymarket bombing along with biographies of Timothy Leary and Ambrose Bierce. You gotta love a man like Bierce, who served with distinction and valor in the Civil War, then had the audacity to say that some of the bravest soldiers followed their conscience to the firing squad. As for Timothy Leary, that Sixties icon of “Tune-in, turn-on, drop-out” fame, well, what can I say? I’ve always harbored a fascination for the man and his medicine.

Actually, I ordered four books from Speirs but was too late on the most important one, about Massachusetts’ Democratic-Republican Party of Elbridge Gerry, eventually James Madison’s vice president. Old revolutionaries and radicals, the Democratic-Republicans were 1790s anti-federalists from the founding-Puritan mold. Because my fifth great-grandfather, Deacon Thomas Sanderson of Whately, was one of them and used newly elected Gov. Gerry to facilitate the controversial 1811 annexation of a long-disputed portion of Deerfield to Whately, I have for some time wanted to understand precisely what those people stood for. Speirs’ catalog alerted me to the Harvard Press title and, after coming up empty on his site, I found another first edition for 15 bucks on bookfinder.com, in unread condition, dust jacket “near fine.” Hey, even saved myself a sawbuck. My wife will like that. The book will likely be my final purchase on the subject. Then I intend to pore over the Joseph Hawley Papers, looking for correspondence between Hawley and my Whately ancestor, also whatever peripheral information I can glean. I thought the 18th century Northampton radical’s papers resided at the Smith College Library before a Wednesday email begged to differ. We’ll see. But enough of that, on to the MassWildlife stuff.

Let’s start with the correction. I was wrong. Sporting licenses did not go up 30 bucks as reported here last week. The price is the same as last year, not a nickel more. I just erred when purchasing mine online, accepting two “Wildlands Fund Donations” I didn’t want. I feel like I was tricked into it and probably could get a refund by swallowing my pride and complaining. But it was my fault. I should have double-checked when the $93.30 charge caught my eye. Won’t happen again. But, while discussing hunting and fishing, a few other quick tidbits:
• First, don’t forget that lead sinkers are illegal this year, and folks are grousing about the steel and aluminum replacements, which, for one thing, are expensive, and, for another, are much lighter than lead;
• Second, there’s a new antlerless-permit system that has people scratching their heads. No one’s quite sure just how the new random-selection method works, but it won’t be drawn at a public lottery as in the past. So I guess we’re just going to have to trust the fellas to do the right thing, never a guarantee;
• Third, all hunting harvests except shotgun deer-kills can now be recorded online without going to a checking station. Of course, “Suspicious Sammy” warns it’s a bad idea to check anything online because it may flash the green light for game wardens to come snooping around your home, where they could stumble across some picayune violation. Although that concern didn’t cross my mind, it did cross my path and I thought I’d pass it on.

Which brings us back to that familiar subject of cougars, and the 1994 “Vermont Life” story opining that a beast today declared extinct was alive and well in Vermont 18 short years ago. Hmmmmm? Imagine that! Galvin must have stumbled across the magazine while spring cleaning and knew just the man who would be interested. After looking for me at home a few times and finding my truck gone, he caught me on my daily rambles and flagged me down. The magazine story was fascinating, even more so when I read a quote by John Hall, a Vermont Fish and Wildlife source I have known for many years, admitting that catamounts, gone for more than 100 years, were back in Vermont. I have never before heard or seen such an admission from a government official. Wow!

The story unfolded in the snowy Northeast Kingdom town of Craftsbury, Vt., where a laid-off Hanover man was visiting his grandmother the day after April Fools’ Day 1994. Out spreading bird seed, he noticed movement in the woods and saw three large animals he assumed were deer. When they briefly broke into the open, he was stunned to see three long-tailed mountain lions about 100 feet away. Spooked, he scooted back to the safety of Grandma’s house and phoned the State Police, who gave him the number of a Craftsbury man chasing cougar sightings. He placed the call, the investigator answered, was extremely interested and soon arrived onsite with a couple of his sons.

With deep, imperfect tracking snow on the ground, the prints were easier to follow than identify, but the experienced outdoorsmen knew they were dealing with a big cat. Carrying a video camera just in case, the fellas followed the tracks several hundred yards and finally came upon unusual scat samples, which they flicked with a ballpoint pen into a plastic battery case for analysis. The sample was sent to an Oregon wildlife-forensics lab and, sure enough, was identified as cougar scat. Similar to house cats, cougars wash themselves by wetting their front paw with their tongue and rubbing it over their head. Thus cougar scat carries easily identifiable leg hairs, which the Vermont sample contained.

Isn’t it amazing how, despite that discovery and subsequent cougar scat found at the Quabbin, the United States Fish & Wildlife Service took it upon itself a year ago to declare Eastern Cougars extinct? If you recall, less than three months later, a wild, transient cougar turned up as road kill on a southeastern Connecticut highway.

Oooooops!

Don’t you hate it when stuff like that happens?

Wispy morning fog, sodden turf, earthy aroma, no deer, not far. I had been playing with a doe and her yearling the previous two mornings, fun. Drawn by the fresh, tender, tasty green stubble sprouting under the brown hayfield, they’ll be back.

But it’s not like there was nothing else to jack up Lily and Chubby on our short walk through the small sunken meadow leading to that big red rock poking out of the Green River. At the base of a lip descending into the lower level, the dogs stopped to sniff at something. Upon closer inspection, fresh coyote scat. Then, maybe 35 yards ahead, skunk odor permeated the damp, still air as the low, filtered, eastern sun cast a blinding glare. The dogs picked up their heads and immediately chased the scent, sprinting for the thin riverside woods, taking different routes once they broke the tree line on a freakin’ mission. Maybe that coyote ate the skunk. Then again, maybe the skunk released a burning, stinging stink-bomb before waddling off to the safety of a brush pile. I lean toward the latter. Never know.

Back to that big red rock that’s captured my fancy lately. I’m convinced it has Native Pocumtuck significance. Don’t ask me why. I can just feel it. Wednesday morning, it was mostly submerged by turbulent water, the river rushing around both sides, a major eddy swirling under the south side, no doubt holding trout. Swollen and ebullient, that river was begging for a juicy nightcrawler or, better still, a weighted nymph, maybe an Early Brown Quill, a Woolly Bugger or Montana. I always had good luck with those Montanas, even here, three-quarters cross-country, probably because of the little yellow throat patch, an attractant on straight retrieves or fluttering, erratic ascensions. I do hope to teach my grandsons the joys of flyfishing — knots, connecting tippets, the double-haul, shooting line, roll-casting, mending line, setting the hook on loose-bellied slack line, the fly ahead of the loop in fast water. I’ll show them how to lift the rod ever so slowly and wait for just the right moment to flick the wrist back gently; a challenging finesse game. I collected many graphite and bamboo fly rods over the years that I can now share with the boys. Who knows? They may even re-invigorate my own flyfishing passion, once overwhelming, now dormant after long hibernation. My work schedule doesn’t line up with my fishing tastes. I have always said that if the birds are singing when I arrive, it’s too late, not interested. In retirement, I’ll make my own hours.

I’m sure no one wants to hear me wail but — who cares? — it’s been a brutal week. After procrastinating for more than a month, I finally started my annual, tax-preparation, accounting chores, the ones I most dread, worse than raking leaves when I could be banging away at cackling, ring-necked roosters. It’s true that I thoroughly enjoy playing with words and language. Numbers are different. They drive me bonkers, make me cranky, and right now I’m actually looking forward to getting out in the yard, picking up fallen sticks, raking, trimming, moving cordwood piles from that destructive October snowstorm. It can wait, will still be there tomorrow. I have to keep reminding myself it’s not May, that we’re way ahead, not your typical March. Ask the maple-syrup producers if you don’t believe me. They are the lords of spring. Enough of that, though. Let’s talk about local fishing on two major rivers, reviewing feedback that’s crossed my path since last week, when I led with fishing, specifically current pre-stocking Green River trout-fishing prospects. We’ll begin with good news, then bad; by chance, the way it came to me.

Although I do come into daily contact with the neighborhood river Natives called Picomegan, I have not actually wet a line there in years, since the old days of bumping elbows with Marshall Denison below his family’s East Colrain sawmill at first light, to me, the best hour. Now out of touch with this beautiful stream, I asked readers to chime in with interesting observations. Well, a couple of responses appeared in rapid fashion, one from Hatfield the day the column hit the street, the other from Colrain the following day. Both sang praise of the fall fishing and sent color photos of nice, healthy Green River rainbow trout to support their claims. Aren’t those tiny digital cameras and the ones in cell phones great? The shots from Hatfield were dated Dec. 4 and 28; those from Colrain undated but showing brilliant fall colors in the background; October, I assume. Interesting comments accompanied the snapshots.

“Everyone (at the Deerfield River Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited) is raving about the quality and quantity of holdover trout that are being caught in the local waters (sans the Chickley of course … but that is another matter entirely. Too much human intervention.),” wrote the Colrain correspondent, a female artist I have known for a couple of years. “There is even a large number of trout being spotted breeding, and breeding in newly enlarged small creek-beds that are Deerfield tributaries as well. Flooding was a giant flush for the system, and while some things will take time to flourish again — it did do wonders in other ways.”

The Hatfield respondent was in full agreement, and his photos backed him up: “Green River is well-equipped for holdovers. Flyfishing from Thanksgiving and up through Christmas was fantastic! Well after the October storm and earlier Hurricane, fish were everywhere, but mostly off the beaten paths and far from the swimming pools ’skinnies’ frequent all year. There are fish to be had before the trucks start rolling, but it will take a little effort. I will try wetting a line there maybe later next week to get a more recent appraisal.”

When I answered his email, he shot right back the next day to assess the post-Tropical Storm Irene flood damage. One observation was particularly relevant in light of this week’s Recorder coverage of Pumping-Station dam and retaining-wall reconstruction. The spot took heavy damage.

“My concerns for the Green are from the covered bridge down,” he wrote. “I saw first-hand the massive machinery in the river restoring the banks. Those track monsters were scooping out goodness and flattening it out all over the landscape. Earthmovers were grinding the north bank. Unfortunately, we  haven’t had any high waters this winter or early spring to correct the manmade mess. I didn’t traverse farther down the meadows of your ramblings to see what damage occurred there.”

So much for the good news. Now the bad, which came from a devoted South Deerfield angler I’ve known for years. He called noontime Tuesday, wanted to speak about the Deerfield River and validated his outspoken opinions by claiming to know the river better than he knows his wife. Don’t doubt it. He wisely insisted he remain  anonymous. No problem. I wouldn’t do that to a man, anyway, but can confirm that he loves to fish the Deerfield … well, at least he used to. Nowadays, he says it’s a waste of time.

“I’ve been out almost every day and there’s no fish,” he said. “I was there again today and the river’s color was disgusting. There were fishermen at Stillwater and the Twin Bridges but I didn’t even bother stopping. I knew what they were catching: nothing! I don’t believe trout can’t survive in that water. It looks terrible. It’s been muddy much of the time since August. I don’t know what they’re going to do. They say the ugly brown water is coming from upstream construction around Rowe. At least that’s the word down here.”

As it turns out, he was correct, according to Western Wildlife District aquatic biologist Dana Ohman, who confirmed river disturbance created by big equipment working in the upper Deerfield. Complicating matters are open sores called “bank slides,” which let loose during Irene along the main stem and tributaries and continue to contribute harmful siltation. “Right now (those washouts) are bare earth and the dirt’s getting washed into streams by rains,” she said. “There’s nothing we can do. We just have to wait for vegetation to re-establish itself and hold things together again. It’ll all correct itself over time.”

Ohman substantiated another rumor from my South Deerfield buddy. Indeed, just as he said, West County’s Chickley and Cold rivers and lower Clesson Brook will not be stocked this year. The notice posted on the Western District’s page of the MassWildlife stocking website says it all: “Due to the dramatic physical changes from the Tropical Storm Irene event in August 2011, the Cold River, Chickley River and the lower section of Clesson Brook have been temporarily removed from the trout-stocking list. Stocking will resume in future years.”

Although Western District stocking is idle, not so for the Valley District, which sent stocking crews out and about this week, hitting brooks and streams. So, if anxious, you may want to give it a shot this weekend at such waters as: Shattuck Brook in Bernardston; Poland Brook in Conway; Mill River in Deerfield and Whately; Mill River in Hatfield; Roaring Brook and Sawmill River in Leverett; Mill Brook in Northfield; West Brook in Whately; and Cushman Brook, Fort River and Mill River in Amherst.

Which reminds me: I bought my sporting license online Tuesday, with the same additional stamps and permits as last year, and the cost increased a whopping 30 bucks. Imagine that! Thirty bucks in one year. Do they call that inflation? Terrible news for a week when I’m a little ornery to begin with, in the midst of irritating tax chores. I guess I should just let it go. Why get all worked up? Not worth it.

So, off I go, back to “Quickbooks” insanity. Soon the tedious chore will be in the rear-view for another year. Never soon enough for me, even if the hourly wage does blow away my real job’s.

I learned long ago that a well-paying job isn’t necessarily a good one. Money isn’t everything.

Always dangerous to compose a column one day, then sit down for rewrite chores the next, exactly where I today find myself. So buckle your chinstraps, me a Cancer, waxing Full Sap Moon casting a contemplative midnight hue out back by the brook.

Isn’t it nice how this last winter moon cleared the air, lit the snow-blanketed terrain with a warm, seductive glow, and brought in frigid overnight temperatures — all the while the image of a massive, pale-red, sandstone ledge poking through the Green River captivating my imagination. Why, you ask? Well, two reasons: one, that familiar reddish rock reminds me of boyhood Sugarloaf adventures and, two, the race and pool following that submerged ledge’s south side offers a classic trout lair, a great outdoor classroom to teach a kid to read water and catch fish; quiet and secluded, my kinda place.

I discovered the site weeks ago while exploring new territory along a little-traveled section of the Green, a stretch of river I had meant to investigate since moving to the neighborhood 15 years ago. Since day one I have suspected it was ripe for fishing, yet never ventured there to confirm my suspicion. Well, now I have. I must in the future bring my grandsons there to savor the thrill of hooking stream trout, an art Babe Manson taught me many years ago on West Brook. So, I guess today we’ll talk a little about that and — surprise! — whatever else rises to the surface while sitting here tackling a weekly duty that has become quite dear to me 32 years later. Great fun, I’m never certain where I’m headed. But let’s start with that huge, red, Green River molar that likely plunges deep into Greenfield Meadows’ jawbone.

I can imagine uninhibited skinny-dippers sunning themselves on that massive red rock, not unlike one I know in the nearby Deerfield River. I’d guess this new stream monument measures better than 30 feet long and half that width, flat but undulated with soft, shallow contours to comfortably accept a body soaking in the hot summer sun. It sits along the east bank, where the river takes a sharp right turn, forming a backwater above before a short rapid sluices around a jutting point and drops gradually into a clear, deep pool that climbs around the corner into another shaded flat-water run across the river. I can picture halving a frisky nightcrawler, showing the boys how to thread it onto a No. 10 hook, bait-holders curling upward off the rear shaft, in such a way that the worm can expand and contract naturally as it rides the current, activity always enticing to hungry trout. I’ll then teach them how to cast upstream into the current above the rock and finesse the bait through the fast, tight channel at its head before dead-drifting it down into the shadowed, undercut feeding lair.

What has really been bugging me, though, is the salient question of how many trout are left in that river after the devastating late-August flood that big-time disrupted it and others. A few days after the flood, I found a dead, 11-inch rainbow in a dried-up bottomland puddle just downstream a bit and suspect there were many more like it that died similar slow deaths. I know the blue herons were having a ball in a sunken wetland border along the edge, likely devouring stranded fish, easy picking. At the time, I queried fisheries biologists who speculated that the mortality had been significant, if not from turbulence and river overflow, then from the fine, dense, suffocating clay particles that remained suspended in our rivers for more than a month. Trout can easily handle that fine debris during temporary summer events activated by heavy showers and flash floods, a common, short-lived phenomenon that stimulates superb angling because of all the feed washed into the stream. But six solid weeks and more of clay-fouled water can do a job on fishes’ respiratory systems, clogging their delicate gills with deadly accumulating grit that overloads their filtration system like an air filter exposed to powdery, dusty roads.

Reader Fred Bourassa sent an email last week saying he was glad to read mention of the stocking trucks revving their engines for their annual spring distribution. He said he couldn’t wait to fasten his hip boots around his belt. But, like me, he’s concerned with what he may discover upon visiting the likes of Clesson Brook, the North or Green rivers or, heaven forbid, that poorly reconstructed Chickley River before trout populations are replenished. Because the state hasn’t assessed post-flood trout mortality, early-bird anglers will be our best field researchers. So, please, if you find something worth reporting, fellas, give me a holler. I’d love to hear some homespun evaluations from those capable of comparing this to previous pre-stocking springs. My guess is that there will be fewer “holdovers” than usual, fish easily identifiable by their oversized heads and slim bodies that haven’t had time to fill out after winter dormancy.

Moving on, I’m still studying pre-Revolutionary Boston and must admit I’m proud to have deep roots here in Massachusetts, the cradle of American liberty and radicalism. Monday passed and I heard nary a word to note the 242nd anniversary of the Boston Massacre, accepted by most historians as the true first battle of the American Revolution. British soldiers shot and killed five “demonstrators” in the streets that day, March 5, 1770, when threatened by an unruly mob objecting to British military occupation of Boston. This largely forgotten skirmish preceded the Boston Tea Party by more than three years and set the stage for that day of Concord/Lexington infamy, April 19, 1775, another patriotic anniversary on the near horizon. Trust me, you can count on some mention of that one.

Britain back then was then the world’s imperial superpower, its military peerless yet unable to hold back a torrent of colonial rebellion. The result was victory by the radical leaders. The rest is history. But, wait, just for the heck of it, why not digress a bit by fast-forwarding to May 4, 1970, nearly 200 years to the day later, when National Guardsmen responded to Kent State University anti-war protests by killing four students and wounding nine? Out of one bloody demonstration came independence from a foreign oppressor, out of the more recent one, a sharp right turn by the law-and-order gang that led us in our current situation, “Occupy Wall Streeters” bludgeoned by city cops and thrown into filthy jails to the cheers of the mainstream; yes indeed, the same clueless lot whose pockets are picked daily at the pump and supermarket till by bankers’ greed. My, of my, how times change. Not always for the better, either. I truly believe that we arrived where we sit today because of three “timely” Sixties assassinations — supposed random acts by kooky loners, one an Arab, no less — that boomeranged the nation’s political direction back toward McCarthyism. I better not get going, though. Way too inflammatory.

Honestly, I should know better, having suffered the consequences of criticizing the Kent State killings as a peach-fuzzed, hormone-driven high-school junior. Let me summarize briefly without mentioning names. I can’t resist. My English teacher, long gone, was a horn-rimmed flat-topper who had carved a local reputation as a Recorder-Gazette scribe before making a career change and bringing his big ego and haughty air to the teaching profession at age 40, I’d guess. This squinty-eyed, tallish man praised my first essay to the heavens, giving me an A and — horrors! — reading it aloud to the class as I turned 19 shades of crimson, slumped low in the back row. Later, he handed out another assignment, potentially far more dangerous. He wanted us to opine on Kent State. Did we think the National Guard was justified for actions taken? Well, it probably comes as no surprise that I believed the soldiers should be punished, even prosecuted for murder. The teacher, now a local hero with some silly track and field sportsmanship award named in his honor, wasn’t interested in such immature claptrap. An erect, red-white-and-blue law-and-order man, he obviously thought the soldiers had performed a patriotic duty by finally teaching long-haired, malingering commies an overdue civics lesson. Love it or leave it! That was his chauvinistic mantra. And he probably even owned a cap or T-shirt to display his love of country. Anyway, he put a big red D on that essay and never a better subsequent grade. His criticism had nothing to do with my composition. Chalk it up as one more reason why I have no fond memories of that high school which abutted family property on two sides, and also why I have absolutely no respect for most of the teachers and coaches I encountered there. But, hey, that’s ancient history, right? Yeah, definitely. I’m way past that, an irrelevant speck in my rear-view mirror.

Just one more item before I skedaddle, a little alert to folks who recommend books to me. Although I do appreciate the gesture, scan the lists and keep them handy, I seldom follow through. The reason is simple. There is a method to my reading madness, always exploring, one subject leading to another, most recently the early New England mind. I have taken a few short diversions the past couple of weeks after bumping into an E.B. White book of essays in a place I wasn’t expecting to find it. I bought it, probably paid a little too much and have enjoyed reading it, studying the language, the construction. It’s what I do. If you get the drift, I sometimes read for information, stuff like history and biography, typically cumbersome, academic writing, the authors historians, not artists. Other times, I immerse myself in literature, reading for pleasure, studying style and literary device. White is worth reading for the latter. Though not in a league with my favorite novelist, enigmatic Norwegian Knut Hamsun — introduced to me by a UMass poet and Vietnam War correspondent whose UMass department head told him to strike “Pan” from his reading list — White is a tactician whose native language is English, a plus. I would recommend his 1959 revision of Will Strunk’s “Elements of Style,” known today as Strunk & White’s, to anyone who enjoys writing and language. It’s a good “little book” to keep handy, even though it may clash with AP Style and does remind me of school and the many unfair, uninspired high-school teachers who bored me to fury. But again, just water over an ancient stone dam, nothing more. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s always easiest to kowtow to authority, pull on those cushy knee pads for a big, loud, wet smooch. But in the end, given innate intellectual curiosity, do you really need high school and many teachers with little to offer?

Oooops! There I go again. Enough!

I’m outta here, a proud autodidact fortunate enough to have found four or five great teachers for guidance. They were easy to identify, though rare, even in college.

Then again, I went to college to play baseball and party, not study.

Lots of stuff and little space, nothing new, more like a weekly dilemma; that is, how to touch all the bases without busting allotted space, getting carried away, so to speak. Well, with snow falling, the press running an hour early and local activities canceled, why worry? There’s space to fill.

To begin with, grandson Jordi is in town for the week and I must say I’m thoroughly enjoying his bright-eyed companionship. So, I’ll give you a bit of that and a little more on our ongoing turkey discussion, something on fishing, particularly trout stocking but also shad and salmon, plus a quick mention of Buddhism and another brief diversion into traveling music.

Let’s begin with fish, the salient question being: Exactly what impact will our mild winter have on the Connecticut Valley stocking schedule, not to mention the timing of our anadromous fish runs, spurred annually by water temperature and flow. Well, Valley District Fisheries Manager Dave Basler confirms that indeed he intends to start trout-stocking next week. So there you have it. Could a better sign that spring’s sprung appear on the horizon, despite the snow that began falling after noontime Wednesday? As for our wild, migratory fish, it seems likely that Connecticut River water temps will be running a little high this spring, new snow notwithstanding, thus perhaps an early run, unless my knee-jerk logic is sadly twisted. Always a possibility, I suppose. A chance I take. We’ll see.

On the music front, yes, I’m still enjoying bluegrass in my travels but I also dug out Townes Van Zandt from that black, faux-leather sleeve strapped to my visor — turkey and partridge tail feathers poking out of a slot to add the wild effect. I’m enjoying Van Zandt’s introspective lyrics, not to mention the all-star acoustic session musicians backing him up on “The Nashville Sessions,” for my money, his best album. A Texas singer-songwriter, Van Zandt is in a class with Dylan as an artist but lesser known. A talented and troubled man, he was tortured by inner demons, chief among them depression, which comes through loud and clear in his lyrics, haunting stuff like:

If I had a nickel I’d find and game.
If I won a dollar I’d make it rain.
If it rained an ocean I’d drink it dry,
and lay me down dissatisfied.

That’s a thought-provoking verse from “Rex’s Blues” that has always touched me, gets my wheels spinnin’ in a philosophical manner. I guess we’ve all been there. Not a pretty place to linger. It’s manageable when unusual and brief, but Van Zandt, dead for 15 years now, lived it, couldn’t shake it while battling substance-abuse demons that deepened his melancholia and contributed to his untimely demise at 52. He was among our best poets but likely never reached his pinnacle.

Which segues nicely into Buddhism, of all things, a subject that really grabbed me while reading the latest “Orion,” a literary magazine focused on nature/culture/place and published every other month, the likes of Wendell Berry and Barbara Kingsolver among the contributors. The latest issue (March/April) is jammed with great, highly recommended stuff, including a little short story by Mark Slouka titled “Russian Mammoths.” Sloutka opens by explaining that Buddhists separate their lives into quadrants, the last of which is “enlightenment.” I guess what hit me square on the chin first was an old friend’s opinion that I was a closet Buddhist because of my fascination with moons and waters, citing particularly the way I often compare flowing waters to the ebbs and flows of life itself. To be perfectly honest, at the time I knew nothing about Buddhism other than its Far-Eastern origin, but I did find that long-ago comment from a friend alluring, a real wheel-spinner I have not forgotten. I remember thinking back then that maybe there was something to reincarnation theories. Perhaps in my past life I was Buddhist. Or, then again, maybe Buddhism just came to me like the sweet scent of a flowering Memorial Day lilac bush in the early-morning fog. Could it be that there’s a little Buddhist in all of us, or at least in those of us with Pantheist tendencies? When I read Slouka’s lead about the final enlightenment stage of Buddhism, I realized I’m living it, wondered for the umpteenth time where it’ll take me in the future. I hope to continue living this introspective stage of life for decades, reading, reflecting and relating intricate pieces of life experience into a final perspective. I find it exciting, something to live for, to share with those dear to me. But enough of that. Onto turkeys, a subject mentioned frequently here of late, another harbinger of spring on a snowy day.

The focus of my recent turkey dialogue has been the lack of sightings by travelers along local byways typically littered with birds of winter. Well, just a day after last week’s column hit the street — Bingo! — things changed. First the Conway observer who’s been bemoaning the scarcity of turkeys around his property for months sent me an email that arrived Friday at 6:17 p.m. and read: “They’re back. Not sure where they were, but there were about 80 in (my neighbor’s) field this afternoon. Not much for deer, though … yet.” Because I was working a rare Friday-night shift, I wasn’t home to receive that email but did, within an hour of its arrival at my home, receive a phone call at work about a sighting off Route 63 in North Amherst, near Cherry Hill Golf Course. A woman identifying herself as “The Hatfield Chick” called me from the Rendezvous because she had seen a large turkey flock earlier in the day and wanted to send me cell-phone photos. Hmmmm? I was confused by “The Hatfield Chick” moniker, immediately thinking of another lady I call “The Hatfield Filly.” But then it all came into focus and I placed her. She’s an acquaintance from the annual “Soup Party” I look forward to each February at my old South Deerfield home but missed this year due to a business engagement. Anyway, her photos show a longbeard fanned out in full display for what I at first believed to be a harem of lovely hens. Well, check that. Upon closer Photoshop inspection, they’re all males, some gobblers, some jakes, maybe 12 in all, but still in their winter mode. So, no, I guess our turkeys are not confused by this so-called winter of ours that finally reared its ugly head Wednesday.

In closing, back to grandson Jordi. I drove up to get him at 1 p.m. Friday in Randolph, Vt., and was stunned by the bare brown fields along the way, that and the total absence of cows anywhere on landscape once littered with them. Not anymore. In fact, never saw a cow anywhere. Isn’t it sad how New England dairies have vanished? As for snow, well, also basically nothing but postage-stamp patches here and there in shaded depressions until I got past Bethel on Route 89. Then, climbing into Vermont’s snow belt on the way to Randolph, consistent snow cover finally appeared on both sides of the road. But even there, very little, maybe an inch or two in the woods, a generous estimate. Likewise, on the faraway Green Mountains vista encompassing Sugarbush and Mad River Glen, there was snow but much less than you’d expect this time of year. Well, wouldn’t you know it! No sooner had I snuggled into the Randolph-McDonald’s parking lot under somber skies than a wet, sticky snow began to fall. The storm was short-lived for Jordi and me. By the time we hit I-91 in White River Junction, Vt., it was far in our rear-view. By mid-afternoon, we were parked in my Greenfield driveway. Jordi was pleased to learn on the drive that there would be a 1704 re-enactment the next day in Old Deerfield. His excitement pleased me. He needs joy in his life. No boy should experience the devastating loss he has endured at his tender age. The kid just turned 6 a couple of weeks ago, wasn’t even 5 when his father died. Now he has other vexing issues that are no fault of his own. I won’t even go there, but let’s just say life can be unfair. I will be there for the kid, and for younger brother Arie. I owe it to their dad, my late namesake son who died at 28.

I can’t say Saturday’s re-enactment compare favorably with the one we attended in June at The Fort at No. 4 in Charlestown, N.H., but it was still worth the trip. The weather was chilly, there were fewer re-enactors and no booming cannons, which are always a fascination for youngsters. Nonetheless, Jordi got plenty out of our Deerfield adventure, another important seed of discovery planted. He talked to costumed French, Indians and English colonists, made a partial candle by dipping a wick, dangling from a thin stick, into an iron pot of liquid wax hanging from an Indian House fireplace crane, and even got to handle New England, Oak Tree, Willow Tree and Pine Tree shillings, America’s first colonial coins, minted by none other than his 11th great-grandfather, proper 17th century Bostonian Robert Sanderson, called the father of American silversmiths. The discovery mission didn’t end there. On our way to the re-enactment perch overlooking the flood-ravaged Deerfield Academy athletic fields, we paid a visit to the Old Albany Road burial ground, Franklin County’s oldest, containing no less than 14 pairs of grandparents and many other ancient relatives. That little diversion I also viewed as an important seed planted, one that’ll sprout a sugar-maple sapling, not one of those sorry Norwegian maples dying along the roadside. Those foreign trees didn’t do any better here than our sugar maples did in Europe, proving one more time that some things are not meant to be.

I believe Jordi understood his deep-rooted attachment to Deerfield when, standing atop the mound capping the mass grave for 1704 victims, he flashed me a soft, humble smile. He “got it” when I explained to him that one of the fallen was “Brave Benjamin” Wait, another great-grandfather of his. A proud, experienced, hard-headed Indian fighter and former captive from Hatfield, Brave Ben foolishly fell in the Meadow Fight he should have known was a death sentence, pursuing triumphant French and Indian attackers escaping town with captives through the North Meadows. Today, I carry some of that innate stubbornness with me everywhere I go. I’m certain Jordi’s got a little bit, too. I guess we’ll have to work on it in the future.

Soon Jordi will be able to read and write and ponder life’s mysteries. I am anxious to help show him the way, be a sage guide during this, the final stage of my Buddhist existence. When fathering my own boys, I was in a far different space, still figuring out who I was and how I fit into the total picture. True, I planted valuable seeds in my boys, many of them sprouting suspicions of authority, never cool in the classroom. But I know in my heart and soul that the grandfatherly seeds I now can sow will produce a sweeter fruit. Who knows? Maybe even a tad less defiant.

Whew! Finally at my accustomed Wednesday seat, albeit late. It’s been one of those days. One thing after another this morning, mostly related to putting a car that’s been sitting idle back on the road. Perfect running order when I pulled the plates. But that was almost two years ago. Try it some time and see what happens. This and that. None of it good. Oh well, see ya, winter financial cushion. What else is new?

But, hey, that’s the bad news. The good? That in my mind, winter’s over. Actually, I’ve felt spring in my lungs for weeks. Now my backyard brook and the larger river it feeds are singing agreement tunes. Yes, sping’s sprung, no matter what happens from here on in. Honestly, it’s nothing new historically. I have always in my adult life identified the fading point of winter to be Presidents Day Weekend, now upon us.

Something else that’s following a familiar pattern is winter’s cabin-fever doldrums that leave a man like me searching for stuff to talk about on a weekly basis. Yeah, sure, I could praise the outdoor shows, chase tippet flags and regurgitate press releases from this and surrounding states. But that stuff is cream of wheat with saccharine at best, extra-strength Sominex to most. So this time of year always gives me a chance to ramble, touch on eclectic subjects not germane to hunting and fishing. Believe it or not, many readers prefer the stuff that wanders, anyway. How do I know? Easy. Feedback says so. I listen. A man trying to entertain strictly a hunting and fishing crowd these days is serving a shrinking audience declining to the brink of endangerment. The old “Sports Afield” and “Outdoor Life” yarns of the 1950s have, sad but true, gone the way of the horse and carriage. But, hey, I guess no one can really pin me down with a column titled “On the Trail,” can they? What trail? That’s my question. And the way I look at it, the hidden trails leading away from hunting and fishing are many, ones I enjoy traipsing. So why not write about that stuff, too? A change of pace, so to speak.

Just Tuesday I discovered something that really got my wheels a spinnin’. A friend told me about an old family portrait that has “surfaced” and, of course, I’ve already started figuring out a way to jump in. That’s about all I’ve got to say about it at this point. But I’m an old horse trader from way back and have usually found a way to throw in my bid when really interested it an item. This one is special on many personal levels important to me. I’m eager to chase it, learn more about it, own it. So don’t count me out just yet.

Enough of that. Something else worth mentioning is a query I received a couple of weeks ago from a frequent Conway e-mailer from whom I once bought an extraordinary black Lab gun dog. He lived in Leverett or North Amherst then, before moving to an idyllic Conway spot overrun with deer, turkeys and you name it. No cougars. Not yet anyway. At least not the four-legged versions. But he’s still looking, camera-ready. His recent concern was turkeys. In an area where it’s not unusual to see hundreds daily, he’s seeing zero and is understandably perplexed. Myself, incapacitated by knee woes (yeah, those aluminum crutches are still with me, leaning against the wall, leg elevated under the desk), well, I haven’t really been out and about much. But I have taken a few rides through turkey country in Leyden, Shelburne and Conway since the query and, like him, have nothing. I surmised when asked that the turkey disappearance may be related to the lack of snow. Winter birds typically seen at silage piles or picking corn kernels from fresh manure spread on fields this time of year had many secluded options this winter. So that’s probably the reason those large winter flocks have vanished.

What’s interesting is that the first turkey sign I crossed caught me quite by surprise recently on one of my daily treks with the dogs. I am able to maneuver a short distance there with crutches along a double-rutted farm road bordering the east side of a brown standing cornfield still being picked by the owner for hog fodder. Well, hogs aren’t the only animals enjoying that corn. My puppy, Chubby-Chub, has ripped off an ear or two a day and eaten the kernels, a sight to behold. He’ll munch some standing, some laying down, leaving naked cob fragments and random kernels scattered about. After watching Chubby go through his foraging routine on a bitter-cold day, I returned during a thaw the next afternoon and, sure enough, a small flock of turkeys had been through, picking up the kernels left behind, likely also foraging the cornfield. The fresh tracks left in the shallow mud along the road told me all I needed to know. I can’t say I was surprised. I’m used to seeing turkeys there but haven’t seen one in months. Then, out of nowhere, fresh turkey tracks. So, indeed, the big birds are still lurking, yet out of sight. Red-oak acorns scattered along the lip overlooking the river probably interest them as well. I think the tracks I encountered were made by a gobbler flock, always much smaller than the segregated, winter hen-and-poult flocks. The gobblers travel in groups of five to eight, occasionally more, while the hens and poults can accumulate to 50 or more in rapid fashion. Had such a large flock been through where I walk, there would have been many more tracks than I saw.

Well, that’s about all I’ve got this week. Actually, there’s more. Much more. But I’ve run out of space. Back to my winter reading list, focused on Revolutionary Boston, a fascinating time and place. I’ve studied characters from both sides of the conflict, Whig and Tory, including ministers, magistrates and governors, soldiers, sailors and militia, merchants, mechanics and artisans, rebels, moderates and loyalists. They all played a role. Given what I have read, let me just say without a glint of hesitation that were we to bring back the rebels who paved our way to independence — people like Samuel Adams, James Otis, Dr. Joseph Warren, Dr. Thomas Young, Patrick Henry and their “radical” brethren — they would embrace our Occupiers and clothe the Wall Street bankers and speculators in tar and feathers. You know, the ones spiking our gas and food prices so they can rake in $59K a day without working. If you don’t believe me, get reading and you’ll laugh in the face of those camouflaged, red, white and blue tea-party phonies wearing tricorns. These modern-day tea partiers created by devious Tom DeLay, Dick Armey and their Texas two-step cronies, have absolutely nothing in common with our sacred Revolutionary heroes.

Quite the contrary, they’re reactionaries

.

Wow! Time flies when you’re having fun. So here I sit, noon chimes passed, sentenced to filling this space again. No. Just kidding. I look forward to this.

Anyway, the day started early. Had to be at the gym for 8 a.m. and, after a robust workout, scooted home, took the dogs on a brisk mile-plus walk through Sunken Meadow, uncharacteristically open yet muddy this winter. Back home, I filled the wood cradle, swept up and took a call from Bill Betty, the Rhode Island cougar expert who, word has it, gives intriguing two-hour Power Point presentations and lectures on the subject. He wants to do one in my tavern ballroom come April. I may just cooperate. Why not? We’ll see. Google him. He’s fun and outspoken. But to be honest, I’ve had my fill of cougars for now. Need a break. So maybe I’ll just ramble. Touch on random subjects that pierce my consciousness as I sit here stirring the imaginative cauldron, always dangerous for a man who’s never shied from mischief.

Speaking of which, how about little Chub-Chub, my 10-month-old Springer Spaniel who’s no longer little or chubby. Oh well. I could see it coming long ago. Now the little guy’s been introduced to his first TriTronics collar, one that’s been sitting in its charger for months. Fact is, Chubby didn’t require the disciplinary tool until recently, when he suddenly grew from independent to defiant, my kinda fella. But still, I don’t want him to break free and get hit in the road, thus the collar, which extends my disciplinary arm a half-mile.

The battery-operated shock collar is controlled by a remote control I hang around my neck on a lanyard. The gadget controls three color-coded collars, black, red and blue. One dial selects the targeted color, another sets the shock intensity, beginning with an audible warning. The way it works is that when you give a command and the dog ignores it, you give him an audible (beep) warning and, if he doesn’t respond, follow it up with a low-level shock. If the animal|doesn’t respond to gentle persuasion, you increase the intensity until it does. After a few “corrections,” the dog associates the beep with the subsequent shock and obeys commands. In fact, once a smart dog knows the game and the collar is on, you seldom need the beep; it responds to your verbal or whistle commands.

Chubby learned fast. After months of ignoring my neighbor’s chickens, which I feed and enjoy, the little liver-and-white ball of fury flushed two of them out from under my front-yard rosebush and took after them with vigor as a well-bred bird dog should. When he ignored my command to “leave it” and continued the rambunctious chase, coming dangerously close to the road, I said to my wife, “Well, Joey, as much as I like what I see, I guess it’s time for that collar.” She agreed, nodding.

Well, when I strapped the collar on Chubby the next day and was presented with “a situation,” he ignored the beep and I began experimenting with the shock at levels 1 and 2. When he didn’t blink, I increased it to 3 (out of 5) and he yipped, shook like he had just exited water and ran back to me. The next day on the way back to my truck from a walk, he took after a flock of what looked like seagulls, flushed about 100 of them across the road and got dangerously close as a truck headed his way. I hollered, “Chubby,” blew the “get-back-here-now” whistle and pushed the remote’s audible-warning button, which he totally ignored. Then, just before he reached the road, I switched to No. 3 and pushed the button. Bingo! He yipped, turned, stood on his hind legs, shook his head and neck and sprinted back to me. Ever since, he has come happily to the whistle. Problem solved.

Some people think those collars are cruel. I don’t. To me, they’re more of a safety precaution than anything else, an expensive one at that. Ask my wife. Let’s just say it’s been mentioned. I like to tell her jokingly that I wish we could have used them on the kids, to think of the legal fees we could have saved. But it seems these days you can’t even yell at kids without facing a stern judge.

As for my troublesome knee mentioned last week, well, it seems to have responded to that cortisone shot. The question is, how long will it settle my angry joint down? We’ll see. In the meantime, my weight continues its slow decline. That ought to help, too. Soon I’ll be under my first milestone of 200 pounds. I don’t remember the last time I weighed less than 200. It was probably in the late 1980s, when I was still clinging with a white-knuckled grip to my youth on local softball diamonds, which did absolutely no good for that chronic left knee. But, hey, you only go around once. That’s what I always say. So why get cheated?

I do vividly recall the first time I reached the 200 mark. It was back in the winter of 1975, when I was working a flim-flam deal for the Connecticut State Police in Danbury. Downstairs from our office was a Danish pastry shop with the richest deserts money could buy. The woman chef’s specialty was cheesecake squares with fruit topping — pineapple, cherries, strawberries, I tried them all, averaging at least two fat squares a day with coffee, and rising from 175 to 200 pounds in six weeks. When I came home for a weekend and walked through my parents’ door, my mother was standing by the kitchen table to “greet” me. “Oh my God, Gary,” she said. “I didn’t even recognize you through the window. How much weight have you gained?” So let that be a warning to stay away from cheesecake.

Of course, there was more to the story than cheesecake and its pretty little Scandanavian chef with the seductive accent. Those were my single days, living out of a suitcase in Holiday Inns and Sheratons across the land, enjoying the good life, if that’s what you call it. On that particular deal we spent our nights at Pete Demasi’s Stockyard East, a pricey New Milford, Conn., steakhouse. Later we discovered the five-star Candlewood Lake Inn Restaurant. We liked it so much that four of us moved in at cheap off-season rates, eating and drinking like royalty every freaking night. Prime rib, rack of lamb, New York strip, baked-stuffed shrimp, lobster — you name it, we ate it, more than we should have. But we were young and bulletproof back then, fresh off the UMass baseball diamond.

What’s funny is that the chef, a big man named Jimmy Campbell who attracted the elite summer  Wall Street gang, weighed more than 400 pounds, as did our boss, a man whose last name matched our then president’s. I should have paid attention to their girth but was having way too much fun. I’d guess Campbell is dead by now. Big men like him die young. But the guy took a shine to me. He liked Dewars, me Turkey, the wilder the better. We’d sit at that bar chatting and drinking and laughing and betting ballgames into the wee hours. Eventually, I joined him in the kitchen out of curiosity, picking up little tips from the master himself while offering him a hand with mundane chores. I wish I had learned more but he did teach me how to roast, broil and fry meat, not to mention raise hell in that big black Cadillac of his with a moon roof and velour seats. Next thing I knew, we were gone to a new deal, big Jim an indelible memory.

Word has it that my 400-pound boss is still going strong. At least, that’s what I was told by a telephone solicitor who tried unsuccessfully to shake me down for a police donation a few years ago. “I’ve taught a hundred men like you,” I told him, “and you could never have worked for me. I learned from the best.” We got talking and he informed me that my old boss and mentor, self-described “Honest Irv, so crooked I screw my socks on,” finally did time for telephone fraud and spent two or three years in a federal prison. I’m sure if I bumped into him today he’d tell me he had no regrets. When I knew him 35 years ago, he had set himself up quite luxuriously in the Bahamas, where he and his father often traveled to play golf and gamble. He had made a lot of money, invested it wisely in offshore tax shelters and never punched a clock or took orders from some self-centered idiot whose crowning glory each day was standing in front of the mirror and saying, “I love you.” I personally watched this big, mustachioed man deck his boss one afternoon in an Illinois parking lot. I loved it. The three years he spent in a heated cage on the taxpayers’ dime were likely, in his mind, better than a lifetime of clock-punching with a Prozac smile, then rushing home to beat the wife, kick the dog, growl at the kids and  sit with the family in the front row for Sunday worship.

Ooops. I could go on forever but had better stop before I get in over my head. I could and may well yet write a book about those days on the road, the characters I met, the scams, the mischief, the laughs, the ladies. I guess it would have to be half Henry Miller, half Knut Hamsun, debauchery and inner turmoil laid bare, traipsing back and forth between real and surreal. To be honest, I think I could write a book just about a five-day 1975 summer trip to and from Rock Springs, Wyoming, between stops in Addison, Ill., and Denver, Colo., not to mention that six-week Denver gig alone. I’d call it fiction but you’d have to be a fool to believe I made it all up. Fact is, much of it I’m not nearly creative enough to invent. I have to see it with my own eyes, live it, touch it, smell it, taste it, roll in it. That’s what it takes for me.

I can’t hold back much longer. In fact, it’s already under way, has been for a couple of years. Not the road songs. Something else. I wonder if anyone will publish it when I’m done? If so, I’ll brace for the backlash, maybe a trashy lawsuit. What a hoot that would be, pure entertainment and amusement.

Why cheat yourself, live by preachers’ rules and die of acute boredom? Not me.