Canes and crutches, a forgotten hilltown bookshop and, yes, not surprisingly, more cougar rumors, one old, one new, the latter quite fascinating. In fact, I’d hesitate to report it if I didn’t trust the source. Fun. Another full plate, with lots of space and little local news to fill it. So, why not run with it?

Let’s start with canes and crutches, both of which I’m dealing with this week after a post-cortisone flare-up on my long-problematic left knee, the one I tore up years ago and have ignored warnings about ever since. The joint is again stiff and swollen, the pain more tolerable than the previous event, which necessitated a trip to the doctor. But still, here I sit, lame, aluminum crutches leaning against an extended desk leaf to my left. I dug them out before first light this morning to keep weight off the knee. The strategy seems to be working. Between aggressive icings and walking on crutches, hopefully I can reduce the swelling and get the joint back under control without medical intervention. In the meantime, no gym workouts or long walks on slippery, uneven turf; again immobilized with Motrin temporarily forbidden.

I have become quite accustomed of late to bringing an old hickory cane along for my daily treks, using it for balance through hard, icy bottomland terrain. I also happen to own a peculiar, crooked, sassafras walking stick, wrapped top to bottom by a thin bittersweet vine for artistic flair. I have used this quirky stick often for woods walks over the years. My mother-in-law bought it long ago from a Wilbraham old-timer known for his creative walking sticks. Dangling from its handle on a carriage-shed rack, it’s a great companion for foot-free forest rambles, a steadying influence, so to speak. As for the worn hickory cane, well, I found that in my dining room closet, likely last used by former Greenfield selectman and state Rep. Frank Gerrett, an owner of my home who died in 1934. It’s great for everyday walks out of sight but, to be honest, I may just search auctions for a better one with more character and a story to tell. I have seen many formal Federal canes sold over the years — you know, the kind statesmen once beat each other with, fancy canes with precious-metal heads, sometimes even a hidden trigger and rifle barrel that you’d need a special permit for these days. I may just buy one someday for special occasions and uptown travels, if needed and the price is right. No, not a priority, but I’ll keep my eyes open, a form of hunting I enjoy.

I guess I’ve become quite a bore with age. Despite that familiar, alluring smell of spring that led me to incalculable mischief during my younger days, I’m content nowadays to just read and probe and ponder, anxiously awaiting the arrival of an online book purchase or my latest “Rolling Stone” or “Orion” magazine in the mail. These days, I’ve grown fond of weekday visits to a secret, well-stocked bookshop I’m getting quite familiar with. Full of intriguing titles, the shop brings with it a cerebral, octogenarian couple programmed for interesting conversation. I enjoy the visits. Why not? You can never be certain where discussion between a bibliophile and an autodidact will lead. If lucky, you may even chop through dense, thorny perimeters into tiny, paradisaical spaces spiced by brilliant hues and pleasing wildflower scents. I suppose conflict could arise from our opposing political persuasions, me a 60’s radical, he a conservative. But that ideological booby-trap has never been an issue during our meandering discussions.

I’ve been through that tasteful, little, unheated bookshop several times in recent months, selecting warm, sunny days on midmorning whims, when my time and energy are right. Once there, my routine is to assemble a hefty pile of books to buy while pulling others partially out of the bookcase for future examination. Yeah, it can get expensive, but the man has offered me a fair deal and I love perusing used bookshops, especially ones like his, stuffed with titles pertaining to colonial and Revolutionary American history, an interest we share. “No one seems to want books about that period of American history anymore,” he scoffs. But count me an exception, thus a beneficiary. In the process, I am building a formidable library, accumulating helpful references right at my fingertips in the comforts of home, a grand luxury for any man like me who’s eagerly awaiting and nearing retirement. Actually, I never intend to retire, just stop working a regular job. Hopefully my son and grandsons will someday appreciate my books and eclectic collections. If not, someone will. Regardless, my offspring will benefit.

You never know what you’re going to discover on dusty old bookshelves like the ones I’ve been scouring, the books alphabetized by author and collected over more than a half-century by a learned man and former educator from a classical New England education and pedigree. One title I blew the dust off and purchased recently is “The Founding of Massachusetts,” published by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1930 for our state tercentenary celebration. A green cloth-bound hardcover, it’s shiny as new, a great resource for any fan of New England history, particularly descendants of Pilgrims and Puritans alike. The book contains rare and important documents like the “Massachusetts Bay Charter,” “The Agreement at Cambridge,” Rev. Francis Higginson’s “True Relacion,” and “New-England’s Plantation,” the first year of John Winthrop’s Journal, and “The Planter’s Plea.” Not only that, also included are early portraits of New England founders John Endecott and Winthrop, who built the Bay Colony, starting with towns like Salem and Boston and Charlestown and Cambridge and Watertown, along the way recording significant observations. I wish I could find similar descriptions by the first Anglos to lay eyes upon Pocumtuck. While such documents may exist, I have not found them. Who knows? Maybe there’s one buried right there in that hilltown treasure trove’s stacks. If so, it’s likely in a private bookcase in the home, not for sale.

Most interesting to me are Higginson’s observations about the landscape, the wild animals, the birds and fish, the weather and waters. Among the animals he mentions are “lyons,” which he had not himself encountered or even seen skins of. But he was told lions existed here, even then mysterious creatures worthy of respect. Perhaps the reason why he had seen no skins was that the Natives worshipped cougars and maybe didn’t hunt them for their pelts. His observations occurred in the year 1629, when the English population along our ancient New England coast numbered only in the hundreds, no more, some of them my American progenitors, a source of great personal pride. I do worship my deepest New England roots, especially those sprouting from the Connecticut Valley taproot sowed by Rev. Thomas Hooker’s Hartford planters. Their descendants dominate the families that built the shaded forest stonewalls I follow, the cellar holes I study and the discontinued roads that bring me there; well, at least those that weren’t indigenous trails that pulled my people here, now our most sacred pathways. Maybe I’m crazy but I find it comforting to patrol woods stained with my DNA, even walking with a limp and a cane or bent, bittersweet-wrapped walking stick. Like the fatalistic nurse once told me, “Like it or not, we’re all headed in the same direction,” a fact we can either embrace or challenge. And although I must admit I have tried both, I do accept aging, in fact enjoy it intellectually.

As for that other cougar rumor, the new one, are you ready for this? It involves the unsolved Molly Bish murder mystery that most local readers must be at least vaguely familiar with. To refresh your memory, she was the 16-year-old Warren teen who, working as a lifeguard at her hometown swimming hole, disappeared in June 2000. Investigators are still searching for the killer after recovering her skeletal remains scattered about in woods near the pond. Well, get a load of this one, which came to me from a neighbor who works at UMass. The man has an interest in cougar sightings, so most of our recent conversations have traipsed into the subject.

Our latest chat, his wide-eyed twin boys in tow, left me thunderstruck. After covering several cougar-related topics, out of the clear blue sky matching his eyes, the guy looks at me and asks if I’ve heard of Molly Bish.

“Yeah, of course.”

“Well, what if I told you they think she was killed by a cougar.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No. For real.”

Apparently, the man has spoken to an eastern Massachusetts forensics expert, a woman whose cadaver-decomposition research has led her to studying the carcasses of buried hogs. During a casual conversation three or four years ago, she told him that she had studied Bish’s skull — found high atop a lonesome ledge — and on it were claw or tooth marks (he wasn’t sure which) she believed were made by a cougar.

Wow! Chew on that for a while. Bizarre, huh?

I guess we’ll just have to chalk it up as another surreal chapter in the ongoing New England cougar-comeback saga; also, to me, more proof that you never know what you’re apt to find when walking your dogs through quiet, riverside meadows.

Here I sit, dilapidated, duct-taped knee brace strapped to my chronic left knee, recuperating from a flare-up that required my first drainage and cortisone-shot remedy since injuring the joint on a bad 1976 landing while stealing second base at East Longmeadow’s Veterans Field. Cortisone had been suggested once in the past but I settled instead for high doses of ibuprofen, a long-shot that worked like a charm in a day or two, surprising even the orthopedic surgeon. Problem is, anti-inflammatory medicine is temporarily off-limits to me, so I was forced to find an alternative pain-management tool, one that’s more invasive but seems to be doing the job. Question is: How many cortisone shots can the human body endure? Anyway, enough personal stuff, back to cougars, that subject that just won’t go away.

It surprised me how many local folks visit the MSNBC website, which ran a national New England cougar story last week featuring me as a scribe who’s reported several sightings and formed an opinion that’s unpopular among some state and federal wildlife officials. The cyberspace story drew emails and phone calls before I had even finished my coffee or run the dogs Friday morning, and the shout-outs continued pouring in through the weekend, from as faraway as Afghanistan. Included among the correspondents was a Connecticut naturalist, whose book, “The Quest for the Eastern Cougar: Extinction or Survival?” has apparently drawn wide acclaim. Also, the MSNBC scribe and my Afghanistan connection both mentioned the name of William Betty, a Rhode Island writer/lecturer who apparently shares my opinion that cougars are migrating back to the Northeast due to reforestation and other favorable factors.

When MSNBC writer Jim Gold, a Springfield native who now lives outside Seattle, asked me what spurred my interest in cougars, I told him I was hunting one day nearly 10 years ago along the banks of the Deerfield River in Conway when a buddy led me 150 yards out of our way to show me a fresh set of tracks he had crossed in perfect tracking snow. They were obviously cat tracks, also clearly way too big for a bobcat. This, my buddy, a longtime trapper, knew from experience. And get this: The guy was a total non-believer in local cougar sightings, and told me so, saying he even questioned his own dad’s 1960s sighting on Colrain’s Franklin Hill. But still, those riverside tracks he had happened upon had him scratching his head and potentially reassessing a longtime opinion. He wasn’t willing to say the tracks were absolutely those of a cougar, but he didn’t know what else could have left them.

My friend’s curiosity got my wheels spinning, and they continued to sing a shrill, gnawing tune for weeks before I finally published a story recounting that day. Figured I’d just throw it out there and see what happened. Well, that column drew an avalanche of responses from local people who had seen cougars on Franklin County’s highways and byways yet were hesitant to admit it for fear of being called loony. And still to this day, many years  later, I can count on unleashing that email torrent every time I revisit the subject as I have the past three weeks.

Take the case of a man from an old Bernardston tribe I won’t identify but natives of that town and many surrounding towns would recognize the family as hunters familiar with the wilds. Finally, after reading about 50 columns I have devoted to cougars over the past eight or 10 years, this man decided to chime in, responding to a New Year’s Day North Leyden sighting by Edward Caron, a man with Leyden roots likely deeper than the oldest sugar maple in town. Apparently, the fact that a rock-ribbed source like Caron would go public was enough to smoke out this man’s cougar tale, which occurred while deer hunting in southern Vermont many years ago. He credited the many Recorder stories he had read for drawing out his first disclosure of that old sighting; and now, after reading of Caron’s sighting, he was ready to share it with me in writing. So here it is, a sighting that occurring while hunting with his brother 20 or 25 years ago in “the West Brattleboro area:”

The brothers employed a traditional deer-hunting routine of entering the woods at first light and sitting in their stands for a few hours before regrouping at the truck for a 10 a.m. coffee break and strategy session. Well, because my source was experiencing a quiet day in his stand, he got restless and walked down the hill toward the truck a little earlier than planned, deciding to change his location to a site looking down at a stonewall 35 feet in front of him. He sat down and hadn’t totally settled in when he noticed movement coming his way from the other side of the wall. Thinking it was a deer, he got ready and waited for the animal to cross the wall, “but instead it jumped up on the wall and walked it. There was no mistaking what it was. I could see every muscle in its body and its long tail.”

The cat finally left the wall to the hunter’s left and sauntered up the hill away from him and out of sight. “After rubbing my eyes a dozen times, I still couldn’t believe what I had just seen,” he wrote, “and when I returned to the truck where my brother was, I never told him about it because he wouldn’t have believed me. In fact, I never told anyone about it until you started writing about it. I can still picture that cat in my mind. It was amazing. … You can believe that report from Caron. I know the gang.”

Enough said … for now … in a continuing saga with bold muscular legs.

Good thing I dug out my rugged hunting boots with the aggressive tread for a Wednesday-morning trek with the dogs. Icy and treacherous underfoot, I|couldn’t even walk my regular path. Nope. Had to trudge along the edge, crossing the path several times, previous days’ footprints glare ice after overnight rain, the ice getting harder and slipperier by the second. But, hey, it’s winter. At least I can still get to out-of-the-way spots that were inaccessible in January last year, when, with four-foot snow banks lining the roads, there was nowhere to park.

Not sure where I’m headed today. Probably stream-of-consciousness ramblings about cordwood and cougars, beavers and ballots, maybe even idle thoughts stirred by flatpicker Jorma Koukonen, the old Jefferson Airplane guitarist and current Hot Tuna frontman. Just this morning in the truck, I was listening to Jorma’s version of “Breadline Blues,” a Depression-era tune about downtrodden workers and corrupt government. It took me off to another place, mind wandering. My salient thought was that the smart folks weren’t standing in breadlines or sitting in soup kitchens back then. No sir. They were making moonshine in the basement or scheming to rob a bank. But that’s just my twisted way of thinking, I guess. You know how it is. Some kids grow up rooting for the cops, some root for the robbers. Out of those two schools of thought come conservatives and liberals. Me, well, let’s just say I’m no law-and-order man and leave it at that. But let us not digress. How about beavers? Yeah, beavers. I’ve been waiting to throw in my two cents’ worth ever since reading a couple of scholarly books about the 17th century Massachusetts economy, which initially relied heavily upon valuable beaver pelts.

Oh, before I continue, here it is getting cold and windy again and, sure enough, outside my window, the bluebirds are back. Just saw one perched on the electrical wires to my left. They’re here for the rose hips and bayberries. I do look forward to their visits, like sparrows in bright, happy colors. Which reminds me: I’m also expecting a visit from another bird of sorts: firewood vendor Blue Sky. Good thing the snow’s not deep and he can still get his dump-truck to the woodshed out in the backyard alcove. Otherwise I’d have issues I’d promised myself never again to endure. No, I hope I never in a pinch have to throw wood in the carriage shed out front, right in everyone’s freakin’ face, including my own. I probably should have never gotten to this point, but it wasn’t entirely my fault. Because Blue Sky was busy cleaning up tree damage left in the wake of that weird October snowstorm, he apparently fell behind in his cordwood duties. But now, thanks to an unusual winter with minimal snowcover, I’m going to sidestep a major inconvenience. Whew! But, again, let’s not get distracted. Back to the beavers, which have been multiplying and creating quite a mess in these parts ever since leg-hold trapping was outlawed almost 20 years ago. What an idiotic measure that was. If you don’t believe it, ask the landowners. They’ll tell you straight up that the laws are insane. If only the government would listen. The majority of voters, who, of course, had never seen a beaver dam anywhere but in a wildlife sanctuary or a movie before the vote, sent a message loud and clear that trapping was cruel and unacceptable in our modern, dignified Commonwealth. And while it’s true that trapping can be ugly business, it’s also true that trappers played a key wildlife-management role. Well, those days are apparently forever gone.

Here’s what irks me most. History tells us beavers are easy to control, and they were, indeed, indiscreetly managed by trappers for centuries before the ivory-tower animal lovers intervened to greet the new millennium. Back in the mid 1630s, when William Pynchon and son John were building Springfield into New England’s No. 1 beaver-trading outpost, the black, furry rodents were the most marketable New World commodity in England, and easy to come by. Beaver pelts made the Pynchons wealthy men overnight. But then, less than three decades later, the beavers were gone. Because the critters are slow reproducers and do not migrate, they were soon wiped out of primeval wetlands on both sides of the Connecticut and Hudson rivers. Here today, gone tomorrow. That fast. No lie.

So now, as I monitor the unfortunate souls trying to manage a beaver problem along the periphery of a riverside meadow I visit often, and learn in discussion of the annoying rules interfering with their task, I wonder how such foolish laws could have ever been adopted. Then I wonder how they have managed to stay in place for two long decades. It’s unbelievable. An old trapper friend of mine told me last week that he could solve the problem down in that meadow in two weeks, tops; that beavers are easy to trap. Yet the poor souls trying to work by the letter of the law have no chance, no matter how many times they demolish dams (illegal), install corrugated pipes for drainage, hire an expensive wildlife exterminator (probably also illegal), or erect chain-link fences, all of which accomplish only short-term solutions.

Back when trappers were working their trap-lines, few people were aware of their presence, and beavers were isolated in the wilderness, where they bothered no one. Now they’re back in the bottomland meadows of civilization, where they multiply as privileged nuisances laying waste to landowners’ property and wallets. Who can blame the folks who shoot and trap them illegally? Some laws are made to be broken, and game wardens with a conscience know it. Sad, indeed, the problems a misguided ballot initiative with overwhelming support can create. But enough of that. Let’s move to cougars.

Yes, the email feedback just keeps on coming. I hope it never stops, even if the experts do think I’m irresponsible for writing about cougars. Remember, they tried to silence me about the doomed Connecticut River Atlantic salmon-restoration project, too, to no avail. Included in my cougar correspondence were comments from people who had reported previous local sightings and felt vindicated by the Edward Caron sighting in Leyden, another from an Orange man who was stunned to see a cougar cross the road in front of him early one morning a couple of weeks ago in Windsor while traveling Route 9 to Pittsfield, and — get this — one from an msnbc.com editor/reporter working on a national
story about Northeastern cougar sightings. He said he’d been all through my blog, read about the many sightings I’ve reported and wants to interview me and some of my sources for a story about an “extinct” wildcat that keeps showing up in unlikely places. Imagine that! I told him it’s a good thing he didn’t work for Fox-News, because I would not have answered his query. I have no tolerance for that right-wing propaganda machine, to me a black mark on our so-called democracy. We’ll see what comes of this msnbc.com gig. I intend to cooperate.

Anyway, that’s all I’ve got for now. Blue Sky’s come and gone, he’s paid and I have a pile of wood to throw in. Can’t say I’m looking forward to it. Not only that but a shallow, five-foot pile of snow came off the slate, carriage-shed roof overnight and is frozen solid to the driveway I cleaned Tuesday morning with a snowblower. Oh well, I guess it’ll either melt away or soften up enough for later removal, because I’m not going to put my snowblower through that stressful chore today. I may just have to live with that annoying pile and other winter irritants until the crocuses push through in March.

In the meantime, I’m wondering where I’m going to find time to feed and walk the dogs and fix something to eat before heading to work.

Another hectic start to column-writing day, which began with a robust workout and moved fluidly from a doctor’s appointment, to running the dogs, to the bank, to the gas station, to Foster’s for dinner and finally home, where I filled the stoveside wood cradle, swept up the debris and poured myself a cup of coffee. And, now, here I sit at high noon, hazy sun softened through sheers, pondering where to go and how to get there.

I suppose I could write about the preliminary archery and shotgun deer harvests that arrived in my inbox late last week. But why? The numbers are preliminary, incomplete (no blackpowder stats) and uninspiring if you live west of Worcester. What else is new? Hunters in the eastern half of the state recorded 78 percent of the 3,689 archery kills and a mere 74 percent of the 5,345 shotgun kills. Enough said until the final numbers are released and we can understand them in comparison to previous harvests.

Another subject that keeps passing through my mind of late is this weird winter we’re experiencing. My snowblower has been sitting idly in the carriage shed for more than a month, totally unneeded. Can’t say I ever in my lifetime remember bare lawn into the double digits of January. But that’s where we’re at this year, and I’m not complaining. I need exercise and the walking is great, hard surface underfoot, brisk air to invigorate the lungs and keep you fresh. Great therapy for one who loves to set his mind free, pondering, plotting, fantasizing, justifying. But I must say I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the weather’s been so strange. Not after what we’ve put our planet through the past two years. First the Gulf ‘s Deepwater Horizon spill, then Fukushima. Remember that? The press doesn’t seem to. Talk about poisoning our own plate. We seem to be good at it, and justifying it with lame excuses. Yeah, I know there are some who’ll call me loony. Who cares? My shoulders are strong enough to handle criticism. I truly believe that those two disasters disrupted Mother Earth’s digestive system in a big way, no matter what the fatherly figures on the boob tube and editorial pages would have you believe. But enough of that. Why beat my head against the wall? Onward ho!

Grandson Jordi’s due in town this weekend. We’ve been waiting for him since Christmas. Daughter-in-law Debbie finally called. He’s ours this weekend. Great news! Although the Christmas tree’s been down for a week, the presents are still handy, some for him, others for younger brother Arie. I still wonder where Gary came up with that name. He called him Arie Safari. Me, too, in his honor. The kid’s growing up fast. Heading on 3, not yet quite independent enough for my liking. But I know it won’t be long before I’m lugging two boys around in my travels. Can’t wait, even though I’m probably not the best mentor to produce that highly desirable front-row milquetoast skilled at telling people what they want to hear. Yuck! Definitely not my type.

My wife spoke to Jordi Tuesday night. She was thrilled to hear from him. Always is. Had left several unanswered messages since Christmas. In her conversation, she said the kid asked for me with true adoration in his voice. He wanted to know where I was.

“He’s at work.”

“Oh. Did he get that new truck?”

“Yes, we’ll drive it up to get you.”

“Good.”

To be honest, I can’t believe the kid remembered. I had just mentioned in passing that I was thinking about buying a new pickup. Wanted enough room for him and his brother. You know, just in case I needed it for Fort Ticonderoga or some other weekend adventure. He hadn’t forgotten. Which reminds me, have you priced Tacomas lately? Outrageous. But I have had good luck with two others, and I do know how to use them. I can see why some folks choose to buy a roadside beater that you start with a screwdriver. But why? Been there, done that. Life’s short. Hopefully, you’ve outgrown that kind of vehicle by 25. But that’s just me. More power to the folks who choose to live in unkempt shacks next to stinking cesspools, drive junk cars and read Penguin paperbacks while relaxing in Bob’s Furniture’s finest. All so they can die with money in the bank.

Whew, sorry! How did I get so distracted? Oh yeah, probably the devil himself, always lurking, seeking an opening, me often vulnerable. Or maybe it was that beautiful full moon, particularly alluring to a Cancer moon child like your truly. But enough of that! Onto cougars. Yeah, that’s right. Big cats again. Can’t resist.

There was plenty of feedback, some too intriguing to ignore, from last week’s column about a Leyden sighting that was difficult to dismiss. Not only that but peripheral information that went unpublished kept falling into place like windblown pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, which, to be honest, don’t often just fall into place. In fact, had the related information not come together so magically, much of it would have never made it into print. But here we go, despite the fact that some news Pooh-Bahs  may call me irresponsible, even inappropriate for reporting it. Those are among these fellas’ favorite descriptions of stories they don’t agree with: irresponsible and inappropriate, two charges that roll down the back of my raincoat. But remember, these are the same people who’ve advised us to ignore the dangers of nuclear power, DDT, global warming, mercury amalgams, infant vaccines, and water-supply fluoride. Inquisitive folks, liberals, tend to take heed and explore issues like those. Others quickly dismiss them out of hand. Count me among the former.

But, anyway, back to cougars. It seems there’s no shortage of local big-cat sightings  these days and, as usual, new ones came flying at me after publicizing the latest reported to me. What’s interesting is that a lot of this stuff started before last week’s column even hit the street. A friend of mine, already bored silly by winter, got right on what I’ll call the Caron-cougar tale because he knew some relatives of the source. He called a cousin to evaluate the man’s credibility and came away totally convinced the story was sound. Not only that but he implored me to speak to the cousin myself, said he had plenty to say about local cougars, starting with the matter-of-fact assertion that, “they’re definitely here, and there are people with photos to prove it, one in Shelburne and another who placed trail cameras near the Mt. Toby caves.”

Although that information piqued my interest, I figured it would be way too difficult to substantiate and could open me up to criticism from the grand Pooh-Bahs of news. Then the plot thickened when back-to-back emails arrived within an hour of each other Saturday, both reporting sightings near — you guessed it — Mt. Toby. The first response came from an Amtrak engineer, the second from a woman living on Dry Hill Road in Montague, in the vicinity of other sightings reported here over the years. Hmmmm? Definitely worth exploration.

First, the railroad engineer, who said he had read my column for years, had followed the cougar sightings with interest, and had a front-row seat for wildlife sightings from his train. In seven years of driving “The Vermonter” between our Springfield  and Brattleboro, Vt., he claims to have seen two mountain lions, both in Leverett under the afternoon shadow of Mt. Toby. The first sighting occurred four years ago when traveling north across Depot Road. That big cat ran eastward across the tracks and was gone. The second sighting occurred two miles north of that site as the train passed through lower Toby. That cat ambled slowly across the tracks and the engineer got a good look, said there’s no mistaking a cougar, even one running, for anything else. But here’s the kicker. All Amtrak engines come equipped with video cameras that capture everything in their path, including the two Leverett cougars.

The engineer said he considered, in response to all the cougar controversy, asking his foreman to download the movie for public consumption, “But then I thought, ‘I know it’s here, it knows it’s here and why bother it?’ I think if there is a next time, I’ll have the images downloaded and share them.”

To be honest, I hesitated to even put his exciting offer in print. Why, you ask? Well, because I wouldn’t put it past the same federal wildlife officials who a year ago declared Eastern Cougars extinct to lean on Amtrak administrators to keep such video evidence hidden from the public. It’s clear that such officials would prefer to continue dismissing Northeastern cougar sightings as creative figments of gushing imaginations.

That’s the way some people who control news flow operate — always, of course, for the good of the reader. But remember: YouTube and other New News mediums are badly hurting Old News standard bearers, many of which are dying slow, tedious deaths by self-inflicted wounds spurting denial.

It’s before noon Wednesday. I just finished Chapter 6 of a book I’m reading about a colonial Boston minister and poured myself a soothing cup of tea sweetened by Apex Orchards honey. So, now, here I sit at a familiar station for the first time after more than a month of vacation, looking out at a snowless January front lawn, small flock of bluebirds, six or eight of them, flittering about, perching on a bayberry bush not 10 feet out the window, picking the red berries one by one, flying off a short distance to a multiflora rose bush and returning. The cold has increased their appetite.

I started the morning at the gym, then a brisk mile-long walk on hard, frozen turf at Sunken Meadow, where the beavers are back with a vengeance, flooding three or four rows of infant Christmas trees planted just this past spring. If something isn’t done fast, there’s going to be a problem down there. Well, at least for the tree farmer leasing the property. But I guess it’s all relative when it comes to beaver “damage.” The ducks and blue herons don’t seem to mind the tidy dams and ponds a bit; nor do my dogs, Lily and Chub-Chub, for that matter, both lean and mean and rambunctious in the frigid winter-morning air. But still, why do the authorities make it so difficult to manage beaver populations these days? It makes no sense. But that’s a subject for another day. Today, I’ve plunked myself down to revisit an interesting subject that’s been prolific in this space over the past decade. Let’s just say I don’t have to chase it. No, it seems to pursue me. So here I sit, having talked to myself along the solitary walk, composing potential lines for the first time in some time.

The phone call came from North Leyden Sunday at 3 p.m. I was sitting in what I call my green parlor, toasty Rumford fireplace crackling, watching the Patriots go 21 points down before roaring back for a 49-21 win over the Bills. Seems like the Pats enjoy digging deep holes for themselves, then coming back to win. But you have to wonder if that’ll be a good formula for postseason success. I would guess not. We’ll see. But let us not digress. Back to the phone call from a man named Edward Caron, whose farm is situated on a remote dirt section of Greenfield Road leading to Guilford, Vt. He had seen something two hours earlier that blew his freakin’ mind. He thought the sighting would be of interest to me. He called the creature he saw a mountain lion, and no one will ever tell him different. He said he saw it clearly and claims someone else who stopped in a “blue station wagon or SUV” did as well.
“I wish I could have spoken to them,” Caron said. “I couldn’t see the license plate so I don’t know if they were from Vermont or Massachusetts. I thought maybe if you put something in the paper they’d respond. I’m sure they saw it, but I’m curious why they backed up. They could see it from where they stopped first, so I’m wondering if maybe there wasn’t another one with it.”

Being familiar with Leyden’s Caron family from a good hunting buddy of mine, I asked the caller if he was related to Elliott Caron, the late hunter and outdoorsmen who lived down along the Green River, not far from the infamous rifle range that has created such a ruckus in recent years. “Yeah, Elliott was my uncle,” said his 70-year-old nephew. “I live up top of the hill on the other side of town.”

When I phoned my buddy to tell him about the sighting, he didn’t hesitate to lend credence to Caron’s report. “Coming from one of the Caron boys, I wouldn’t doubt it for a second,” he said. “They’re good ole boys, have hunted all their lives and he wouldn’t call unless he knew what he saw.” A couple of days later, my buddy called a Caron relative to make sure his trusting knee-jerk reaction was valid. The fella he called concurred. He told my friend he knew Ed Caron well and, “if he says he saw a mountain lion, take it to the bank.” Of course, I needed no reassurance. I had spoken to the guy on the phone and had absolutely no reason to doubt him. He knows our hilltown woods as well as anyone, has been a lifetime farmer, logger and hunter, hounding bobcats, bears and likely snowshoe hare, not to mention hunting deer. Who would insult such a man by questioning the veracity of his sighting? Only a fool. Or maybe a government man with a party-line to protect; you now, like the recent reclassification of Eastern cougars as extinct. But let me repeat the man’s story, lay it all out there as told to me. Read it. Then be judge and jury.

Caron suspected something was amiss right off Sunday morning when he released his draft horses from the barn and they didn’t move to a feeding station midway down the pasture, where they feed daily. He didn’t make much of it at the time but his curiosity was piqued as the morning progressed and the horses still hadn’t fed, choosing instead to remain close to the barn. When he finally went out after noontime, there they were, still standing nervously near the barn door and Caron started looking around. When his eyes traveled down toward the feeding station, he spotted the big cat in the background a couple hundred yards away. He could clearly make out the long, muscular body and tail and knew precisely what he was looking at as it moved across the field. Then, when the big animal realized it was being observed, it “started zig-zagging” and disappeared. The horses saw it, too, because they became fidgety and snorted as the passing blue vehicle slammed on its breaks and sat motionless for a while before shifting into reverse, backing up a bit and stopping again. Then, off it went, Caron with no way to query the occupants about what they had seen.

But wait. There’s more. The plot thickens. During our phone conversation, Caron, out of the blue, asked me, “What kind of noise does a mountain lion make, anyway? Does it scream? My daughter-in-law and grandson where visiting for the weekend and they both heard the awfullest scream in the woods Saturday night. They heard it clearly but didn’t know what it was. It was probably that cat.”

Yep, quite likely, but don’t even bother making such a case to government wildlife officials. They don’t want to hear about New England cougar sightings. They’d probably claim the scream was a blustery north wind whistling through a high, jagged break in a toppled oak, the long-tailed animal an optical illusion, actually a bruising tomcat magnified in magical midday sunlight that can deceive the human eye.

Caron doesn’t care what anyone says. He knows exactly what he saw, and “it weren’t no barn cat.”
When I phoned Caron after 1 p.m. Wednesday to check facts, I asked if there’d been any more sightings in the neighborhood. He said no, “but I did tell an abutter what I saw and he told me he had seen one in his field in the summer but didn’t tell anyone because he didn’t want people to think he was crazy. Then he told me another neighbor saw one and didn’t say anything for the same reason.”

Caron wasn’t so timid. No fear. He knew exactly what he had seen and didn’t hesitate to report it.