Jul
18
2009

Wipeout

by Gary Sanderson

A neighbor and I were on our way to Halifax, Vt., Saturday morning when, coming around the corner to a small East Colrain produce farm, we were confronted by an unexpected catastrophe.

Farmer and friends were standing on the driveway below his hillside home, marooned from West Leyden Road by a muddy torrent as wide as Green River, maybe wider, tearing through his brookside pumpkin patch. I’m not exaggerating when I say you could have whitewater rafted through that meadow at around 11:15 a.m., helmet and flotation gear mandatory for survival. No lie, that wild — huge excitement for a little hilltop community dating back to the French & Indian Wars’ line of forts.

The potential natural disaster had already drawn a crowd of neighborhood characters by the time we arrived, including affable tie-dyed tree-man Blue Sky, “branch manager,” animated as usual, chatting with onlookers about the spectacle. It’s not every day an upland September meadow becomes a roaring river. Being familiar with the landscape, I immediately knew the cause. Decades-old beaver ponds a half-mile or more up the road, in a peaceful hollow once farmed by my Snow/Miller ancestors, had busted loose. Many times I had visited the overgrown, derelict farmstead north and east of that wetland to exercise and bathe my Springer Spaniels in the third of a series of at least four beaver ponds. I never traveled far enough back to get the exact count, but there were four I knew of.

Many times, as my dogs romped, I had remarked to whoever was accompanying me that all hell would break loose if a dam broke under the pressure of heavy rain. Well, it happened Saturday and was quite an event until the basin drained, sending a destructive pulse of water through East Colrain and into the Green River below, briefly polluting potential Greenfield drinking water with giardia and other harmful parasites or bacteria associated with beaver colonies.

When my friend and I returned from Halifax after 4 p.m. to inspect the damage, the roads and bridges had weathered the incident remarkably well, touch-up repair needed here and there. The damage was nowhere near as bad as the devastation that had occurred nearby, perhaps 10 years ago, above Camp Apex on Peckville Road in Shelburne. That rainstorm dam-break left a deep washout that closed the road for days, until it could be filled and repaved. Not so Saturday at Fort Lucas Road, where we drove over an intact post-flood culvert funneling the small stream under the road. Whoever built the hand-fitted stone collar surrounding that culvert should be proud of a job well done, because it proved miraculously capable of handling the ferocious flood that swallowed it without sweeping it away.

Sunday morning, I drove out past the old farmhouse and partway into an adjacent overgrown mowing with my wife, grandson and dogs to check it out. Nothing appeared to have changed from afar. I didn’t go all the way back to see precisely where the break had occurred, but the wetland looked undisturbed — dead, gray, triangular pine skeletons centered, hemlock and poplar along the lips, hardwood ridges forming a deep green V. But undoubtedly by then the industrious beavers, always fast and efficient, were already patching the hole.

On my way out, crossing the damaged land bridge, I looked upstream at the path of destruction. All I can say is that it’s fortunate no one was standing in the streambed that day, because they likely would not have survived.

”Yep, those are the beavers we protect,” said a sarcastic abutter, shaking his head, referring to state regulations adopted in 1996 forbidding leg-hold traps that once kept the potentially destructive wetland rodents in check. Yes, it’s true they create wetlands and habitat beneficial to fish and birds and wildlife. I understand that, and even support it to a point. But I must admit I’ve stood and observed that marsh and beaver ponds many times, thinking to myself how much nicer that hollow must have looked when my ancestors farmed it. I have pictured the land cleared, the hayfields scalped, tree lines following roads and stonewalls, meadow stream unobstructed and clean, probably pure enough to drink from, definitely squaretail water. A lot has changed since then.

In 10 more years, unless something is quickly done to reopen it as farmland or a clearing, that hollow will look a lot more like it did in 1740 than at any time since. The hardy Colonial Colrainites trapped the beavers, traded their pelts for supplies, drained the swamps, and built the fortified house known as Clark’s and Lucas’ fort. After the Native threat subsided in the 1760s came orchards, pastures and mowings, sugar bush and shacks, working farms with stately dwellings and barns, corncribs and henhouses, cider mills, distilleries and tanneries. Over time, most have been relegated to stone-clad craters, some larger than others. Soon this ancestral relic will join them in obscurity, buried under young forest that’ll rapidly grow old.

My people vanished long ago. Their farm’s following their path.

posted in Columns | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Tommy

by Gary Sanderson

I went through the wake, the funeral and a reception, spoke to many and wrote only ”Andy, 13” in my notebook. He’s Tommy Valiton’s grandson, lives in Austin, Texas, left an indelible impression.

I spotted the boy with the kind, smiling eyes opposite me in the J-shaped greeting line and knew immediately who he was. They were Tommy’s eyes, and the kid had Tommy written all over him across the bridge of his nose and brow. When I reached him and shook his hand, I looked directly into those warm, light-blue eyes and could have sworn I was looking at Tommy 60 years ago. And although I may never see the kid again, it was comforting to know that as I bid a dear friend adieu, his young sprout stood in the same room, the spitting image of his grandfather.

Isn’t it strange how laying a friend to rest opens a window into his life. Perhaps that’s the purpose of the ceremonies: to stir memories, bring back the smile, the guttural laugh, the heart-to-hearts. You think of the qualities you loved and will miss most. With Tommy it was his enthusiasm, his warm heart, fierce competitive spirit, fiery anger. Tommy had great passion, an extraordinary teammate, I am certain. But I was not his teammate and cannot articulate what it meant to be one. That’s the problem with sitting here writing a farewell to Tommy. You could literally write a book if you covered all the bases, spoke to everyone whose life he touched in the two rival communities he represented — the Mohawk school district he called home and the Frontier district where he taught. Maybe he’s the reason that rivalry has lost its intensity.

I’ve heard the stories about Tommy’s unbeaten/untied Arms Academy football team and his stolen-base record at the University of Maine, but those are tales for others to tell. I didn’t know that Tommy, and never heard him blow his own horn about those athletic feats. Far too humble for that. Myself, I first knew him as Coach, then Tommy, even ”Tomcat” once in while when he performed well in the field, which was often.

I suppose my lasting image will always be the slick, tightly packed hole driven into the dirt between his feet along the Frontier baseball bench. He had over the years literally dented the earth with his Louisville Slugger fungo bat, taped halfway up the handle, always in his hands during a ballgame or practice, a tool of his trade. Come to think of it, he had to carry that bat, because when he laid it across his thighs he wanted a bunt. Although I can’t recall him ever giving me that signal, I knew it and looked for it despite wanting no part of it.

Tommy the coach was all about fundamentals and execution: baserunning, walk-off steals, first-and-thirds; cutoffs, cutoffs, cutoffs; relays, relays, relays; rundown rotation; knowing where to be and being there. That’s all Tommy ever demanded — that you knew the game — and he’d drill it into you every day in practice. Rain or shine, hot or cold, indoors or out, he taught the fundamentals, knowing they’d be the difference between winning and losing the tight ones.

No one stole more runs than Tommy. He was the master. Learned from brothers Jim and Jack Butterfield, his coachs at Arms, then Maine. The Butterfields had demanded sound fundamental play from him, and he demanded the same from us, all of us. And we were better for it. Strike out on a curveball in the dirt or fastball up-and-away, let a bad hop skip past your backhand, or overthrow a rushed play from deep in the hole and you were spared. Part of the game. But miss a sign or cutoff man, forget to back up a throw, or get suckered on a defensive first-and-third situation and that’s when the fungo would crash into the turf with vicious fury, him pounding it loudly into that hole like he was trying to drive a spike to China.

That was Tommy: forgiving of physical mistakes, merciless about mental ones. If insightful you knew that even during his angriest moments Tommy was faking it. Behind that red face, wild eyes and bulging jugular was a gentle, kind-hearted, caring soul who wanted more than anything else to see you succeed, experience the satisfaction of getting it right under pressure by applying practice skills to game-time situations.

Give Tommy mediocre ballplayers and he’d routinely outexecute his foes to beat them. Give him real talent and he’d win it all as he did with his 1978 state-championship team.

Again, I never saw Tommy play ball, was never his teammate, but I watched him hunting pheasants with me in the fall and can judge his attributes as a teammate from that experience. He’d be there at 8:30 a.m. sharp, or earlier, never late, wearing a broad, enthusiastic, maybe even devilish grin that would shake me joyously from the fatigue of short sleep. His joy of life was contagious, consumed you like a loving mother embracing a toddler saved from the well. In deep cover with alder obstructions it was all about teamwork to Tommy, constant encouragement, being in the right place, covering the flank, exuberant upon success. ”Atta boy, Bags!” he’d holler triumphantly from the other side of the alders, then later he’d hear it from me, ”Atta Boy, Tommy!” after tumbling a cackling rooster from the cool fall sky. We worked well together, like brothers, always communicating back and forth to achieve our goal of being in position for the flush. Teamwork is great fun when you know the game, and we knew it.

No stranger to playful needling, Tommy loved to heckle me about this column. ”Read your column last night,” he’d say. ”Not bad for a guy who couldn’t pass high school English.” I used to get a kick out of that line. Tommy would never let me forget my senior year, when I dropped Spanish, flunked old witch Alice Spindler’s English class on a bogus plagiarism charge and was ruled ineligible to play baseball. It gets worse. We had to forfeit a game or two I had played in, a mortal sin in Tommy’s eyes. ”That was my fault,” he told me at the time, and he never held it against me, just teased me about it over the years.

For me, Tommy’s passing leaves an abyss. The longer you live the more you understand how valuable and few true friends are. Although his enthusiasm for the hunt had waned the last couple of years, he still wanted to know what you were doing, what you were seeing. ”I don’t know what it is, Bags,” he’d say almost apologetically, ”but I’m losing my drive. I used to live for it but I just don’t care about hunting like I used to.”

But he cared enough to call and talk and go over scenarios, always the teacher, the coach. And no one knew more about deer and deer hunting than Tommy and Tunnel and Hezekiah and his other Buckland boys. A great motivator, Tommy remained positive, always encouraging that tomorrow was another day.

I knew Tommy wasn’t going to live forever, and so did he. He told me many times he was living on borrowed time, had been brought back to life after a heart attack two decades ago. Then the bypass bought him quality time, nearly 20 years of blissful existence before passing last week in Maine at 69.

No sir, Tommy never got cheated. But all things must pass, including Tommy. And so it was that on the morning of Aug. 29 while helping a friend cut down a tree and remove the brush near his summer camp, Tommy reached the end; told his friend he felt dizzy and was gone before he hit the ground. Massive heart attack. We should all be so fortunate. Then he even got to ride home with boyhood pal Jack Turner, who passed away hours after Tommy, also in Maine. Could that really have been a coincidence?

Tommy’s dear wife and high school sweetie, Patty, seemed remarkably composed later that dreadful day when I called soon after the news had reached me. I told her I was heartsick. She told me that she and Tommy had talked about the end recently, that he’d told her he wanted to go quickly, in the woods or in Maine, that he didn’t want nurses looking after him. Denny Rancourt, his grieving high school buddy, said the next day he was glad both wishes had been granted.

So now Tommy lies peacefully at Arms Cemetery, resting in the morning shadow of the Mohawk Trail ridges he knew so well. And Little Texas Tommy, that chip off the old block, is waiting in the wings to carry on his grandfather’s legacy — soft, devilish grin and all.

It’s a steep challenge, the kind his grandfather lived for.

posted in South Deerfield | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Keeping Up

by Gary Sanderson

If you want to find out where you stand physically, try following two enthusiastic English Springer Spaniels through dense, wet, tangled cover for the first few days of the pheasant season. It’ll put you in you place fast if you’ve made your living sitting behind a desk for any length of time. So I guess it’s a fact that crippled office rats who refuse the health club can’t hunt forever. They just think they can.

I know, I’m one of them — north of a half-century and feeling like the plump warhorse I am, fatigued, groins aching and wondering when the day will arrive when I won’t be up to the task. Something tells me that day will come, or at least I’ll have to change my style, but please allow my denial to last a little longer. I prefer it that way, regardless of the messages my body is transmitting.

Thank God I finally gave in and strapped a knee brace on my scarred, mangled left knee, the one that’s been painfully operating just fine, thank you, since May 1976, when the ACL snapped never to be repaired. Yup, that’s right, 29 years worth of loose abuse, and still plugging. I can only imagine the pain that would be emanating from that joint was I not lining it up properly with the brace to limit the bone-on-bone grinding. It’s a sound you hope you never hear, and one I’ve learned to live with for nearly three decades.

So I guess that’s the good news: the brace seems to be working fine, and the knee’s feeling better than it has during Octobers of the recent past. Now it’s my quads, groins, hamstrings and lower back that are killing me as I sit here pecking at this noisy keyboard, trying to pen a column with a tired brain.

Oh, I’ll be back out there tomorrow, sleep-deprived, pushing my body to its reduced limits. You can bet on that. You only get six weeks to hunt birds, so you can’t step into it gently. No sir, it’s full speed ahead. But I am for the first time cognizant that the day will come when even stubborn willpower will not be enough to outweigh the pains of aching wheels.

I suppose the primary problem is that Springers were created to slither through, burrow under and bound over the most unforgiving cover, which cannot be said for aging two-legged creatures, particularly ones who’ve abused their bodies on the field of play. Sure, it was great upending a second baseman with a take-out slide or lowering your shoulder to punish a tackler or drop a punishing runner, but there’s a price to pay for the nicks incurred from such violent behavior, and now it’s time for me to pay the bill. At least that’s how I look at it. No denial, no regrets. It is what it is.

Perhaps, for the first time in my life, I’ll have to give in and change my style. You know, slow it down a bit, maybe even purchase a pointer and make the transition to a gentleman hunter during my gray years. But how can I do that with a year-old Springer bitch that has seven or eight good years ahead of her? It just wouldn’t be fair, would it? And besides, it’s that steady, sometimes furious chase behind a flush-and-retrieve dynamo that pushes my buttons and calls me to the covert daily. The chase is more challenging, and so are the wing shots.

But still, I may be approaching a familiar crossroads. What I’m going through today brings me back some 30 years, to my days on the baseball diamond. I can vividly recall stopping at a local watering hole on my way home from a game back then and bumping into old high school teammates or foes in their finest teasing mode. They were slo-pitch heroes, and they’d have a half-hour head start on me sitting at the bar. The ribbing would begin soon after I walked through the door and ordered a beverage.

“Hey Bags, when you gonna give up baseball and play a man’s game,” they’d bellow. But the playful banter didn’t bother me. “It won’t be long,” I’d reply. “As soon as my legs can’t handle the big diamond.”

And, sure enough, I was a man of my word. Sporting a noticeable limp, I moved to the smaller diamond with the bigger ball at around 30 and proceeded to delay adulthood another 10 years. To be sure, it was a different game — slower, more mistakes — but there were still four bases, a mound and a bench, and the dugout camaraderie was worth every hour of commitment. Couldn’t give it up, especially when I discovered the semi-fast alternative. Fastballs, changeups, knucklers, risers — as close as you could get to the real thing.

Now, with that activity 12 years in my rearview, all that’s left for me is the exhilarating flush-and-retrieve game. The adrenaline flows as you challenge yourself to follow a better animal than you on a chase through thorn-laced cover — stumbling over hummocks, pulling your feet through snaring swamp grass, and bulling through bittersweet vines on the way to a flush. Then, when you hear the flush, you step toward the sound, locate the fleeing bird, point, swing and fire to drop it from the sky.

Maybe as my legs grow older, my eyes weaker, my back and shoulders stiffer, the success rate will diminish. Perhaps my endurance will diminish, shortening the typical hunt. But somehow I don’t believe those humbling issues could ruin a good day afield.

posted in The Dogs | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

No Holding Back

by Gary Sanderson

Sometimes a story changes abruptly and forces a ”touch-up” like this one did late Tuesday afternoon.

It was supposed to be a tale about a lean and leggy four-month-old pup’s first pheasant hunt, the trials and tribulations of a mere baby trying to learn a new game while figuring out how to maneuver through dense, thorny cover. I felt comfortable I had it pegged Sunday after composing my first draft during dead time leading up to the big Patriots game in Dallas. Then I improved it with ”finishing touches” Monday morning before my Day 2 hunt. But like I said before, stuff happens and stories change, sometimes in such a way that necessitates deadline doctoring, much to the chagrin of the scribe. But let’s just say I got through this one.

So let’s begin at midmorning Saturday, a cool opening day with a rich blue sky lit by a bright autumn sun, sparse, white billowy clouds wafting in the easterly breeze cooling my face. The 60-acre wetland with my bloodlines flowing through it displayed muted reds and blotchy yellows, dirty greens and browns typical of a pre-frost Pioneer Valley marsh.

It wasn’t going to be a strenuous hunt, just a gentle walk-through mostly for the dogs’ benefit. I always prefer to sit out the hectic opener, avoiding the maddening crowds and wild frenzy to beat the other guy to your favorite alder row, brook’s edge or small cattail depression. I’d rather wait a couple days and clean up what’s left after the opening-day craziness subsides: dogs everywhere, owners hollering, whistling, screaming at the top of their lungs; a freakin’ madhouse I’d rather skip. But there I was after the daybreak rush airing out three energetic springer spaniels at about the same time I always run them. Two of the dogs knew it was not going to be their basic daily run as soon as they saw my khaki-brown Filson bibs and vest and the hard-plastic gun case carrying the sweet 16 side-by-side whose roar they’ve grown to adore. As for the third little beast, daughter Brown Bess, it was her first hunt, hopefully, the first of many.

Bess was no stranger to thick cover, running water, vines and thorns, having previously tiptoed into all of the above during daily walks. But this was going to be different and I knew it. She’d feel the increased enthusiasm of her mates, their heightened sense of purpose, and she’d soon share their commitment to finding and flushing game birds, launching airborne off her back legs after a furious chase and close flush. But that day she was just getting her feet wet, literally and figuratively, and I was interested in observing her introduction to the activity I bred her for.

I intended to put no pressure on Little Bessie, who I expected to be diffident the first time out, hanging tight at my feet, standing up occasionally, front paws placed softly on my midsection, a bit intimidated by the consuming cover she will eventually worship. But on her first day, she’d just be a tagalong — all eyes, ears and nose, especially the latter, scent being her most dominant sense. Just going along for the joyous ride; freewheeling, no pressure, that was our mission; exercise and education.

We weren’t in the field 10 minutes before our first crisis arose. A friend was already hunting there and we bumped into him along a tree-lined ditch. He was searching with two inexperienced female springers, relatives of my animals, for a wild flush and landing he had marked. He wanted my experienced 10-year-old male Ringo’s help to see if he could put it all together.

When Ringy and Lily heard us discussing the plan, they went to my friend, whom they know, and one of his young dogs got nervous, emitting unsettling, high-pitched yelps that stopped Bess in her tracks. Sensing danger she froze, reluctant to approach the threatening sound, and remained cautious for several minutes before gingerly approaching me and mother Lily. After timidly approaching, eventually touching noses with the two strange dogs and realizing they were friendly, she dropped her guard and the youthful, carefree bounce returned to her step. … Onward ho.

It will take many days in the field for the little one to gain her full confidence, to know when to burrow and when to bound; how to quarter and how to circle and cut off a runner. Slicing through sparse ragweed cover is easy, comes naturally in fact, and so does the bounding, but that’ll arrive with confidence built over time. Early-on a young bird dog will slither through the golden rod effortlessly and get hung up in the thick tangles. Bessie was no different. I’d seen her on our daily walks trying to follow her parents into jumbled masses, poking in her head and shoulders, giving up and backing out. And a young dog will continue to negotiate the densest cover like that until they trail a game bird aggressively into it, in the process learning to tunnel through and bound over the most impenetrable stuff. That’s when they become brush-busters, which I knew was way too much to ask on Day 1. I was happy just letting her find her courage as a tagalong, like watching a toddler who’s recently learned to walk trying to run through a scalped hilltown hayfield. Such foot-free children will lose their balance and fall many times before gaining the agility and balance to stay upright through the tilted contours. The key is to keep them smiling through their mistakes; at least that’s my theory, one some will differ with but has always worked for me.

In a little over an hour that first day Little Bessie got to hear the cackles of two flushing roosters, the whistling flush of a hen, and even got to witness a retrieve, a lot for a young dog to absorb. It’ll be repeated many times by the end of the short season, when she’ll know the game much better and will probably have at least flushed birds. If I leave her parents home for one-on-one with the little lady, we may even see some flushes and retrieves, but there’s really no pressure to force the issue. It’ll all fall into place sooner rather than later. Bess was bred to hunt and her instincts will lead her gracefully and joyfully to game birds — a sight to behold minus her youthful inhibitions.

That’s where the story was supposed to end until late Tuesday afternoon, by which time I wasn’t certain how much Little Bessie had learned in three short days afield. But what unfolded in my back yard demonstrated that indeed she had been paying attention, albeit in a cavalier manner.

She had observed a lot, including retrieves, wanting a piece of the action when her parents returned, limp bird dangling out both sides of their mouths. But she hadn’t yet independently hunted for any length of time, choosing instead to stay within sight of me, often right at my feet, and that hadn’t changed by Tuesday, at least not in the punishing coverts. The same could not be said for my back yard, though, which was an entirely different story. It was there at my cook-shed feeding station, that she recited her first lessons learned.

Having filled the three dogs’ dishes to the brim with Iams after a long, hot day afield, I was on my way to the kennel when, right at its doorway, Bessie froze on full alert then burst into a sprint over a stonewall and into my neighbor’s garden like a streak. It happened so fast that I wasn’t aware of what was occurring until I heard the flapping and cackling, then to my horror saw chickens, black, white and gray, fleeing noisily in all directions, some flying, other running, making a racket like a fox was in the hen house. Little Bessie was on a mission, one I was quickly able to stop with the help of my wife and neighbors. None of the birds were hurt, not even the rooster she picked up and marched around briefly with.

Yes, Little Bessie was paying attention from afar those first three days afield, and in no time she’ll be pounding unforgiving coverts with the same determination. By then let’s hope she’s learned that barnyard chickens are off-limits.

She will. Her parents ignore them.

posted in The Dogs | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Free & Easy

by Gary Sanderson

After enduring the frightful years of parenting difficult adolescents, you tend to forget the joys of young, sponge-brained, preschool boys, eager to absorb whatever you throw at them. Then, if you’re lucky, a grandson arrives and drops a refresher course right into your breadbasket.

This past weekend was a case in point, when Jordan Steele Sanderson, 2½, brought me to a place I had been meaning to go. For weeks I had wanted to inspect the beaver dam that broke and wreaked havoc in East Colrain late on the morning of Sept. 13, sending a surge of water a mile downhill into the Green River of Falltown Gore. The West Leyden Road neighborhood now refers to that event as ”the tsunami,” which may be overstating it a bit. But it did indeed damage a couple of culverts that required touch-up repair, and could have been worse, far worse, when you ponder it.

Anyway, with little Jordie in town Sunday, I had the needed impetus to go up there and closely examine the breaking point The boy would be the beneficiary. Nothing like a nature lesson from Grampy for a young, inquisitive, bright-eyed boy, totally absent of the distrust spawned by stifling schoolhouse discipline. You know the suffocating, military-style routine: Don’t ask if you aren’t called upon, and sit still, no wiggling your foot to release the anxiety of being cooped up on a bright, otherwise invigorating afternoon. And don’t bother asking why, either. The answer is, ”Because I said so.” Never what an inquiring mind wants to hear. How boring. Like my Vietnam combat veteran pal told me many times in intimate conversation: ”Give him a half a thimble full of brains and one more stripe than you and you gotta take orders from him.”

What a nightmare for a private or student.

But, back to the flood and its destructive path, which has, in a month’s time, pretty much blended back into the landscape. All that’s left is cold-patch here, roadside reinforcement there, and a gaping 15-foot hole akin to a dynamite blast in the middle of the secluded, once-formidable earthen dam. The hole vividly displays the violence and force of the event that unleashed a disruptive torrent through a tranquil hilltown hollow for an hour or two, dropping the depth of a mucky, two-acre beaver pond some five feet, lots of water, filthy brown.

I remember thinking shortly after discovering the flooded meadow at Paul Moyer’s produce farm that it wouldn’t take long for the beavers to repair their dam and again impound Johnson Brook to reinforce their wetland colony. But, being no beaver expert, I was mistaken. To my surprise, the hole was intact, with no hint of attempted repair. Instead, the beavers had constructed two small dams within 10 feet of each other 20 about feet downstream from the blowout. I assume that they will, in time, build it back up and refill the pond to its original depth. So, it’ll be interesting to monitor, a nature’s classroom for me and the young boy. And although it’s just an amateur hunch, my suspicion is that a lot will change between now and the spring freshet, maybe even between now and snowfall.

Once out and about on-site — grandparents and boy — I led them afoot a short distance back into the wetland to show Jordan the pointed stumps and felled trees as my three dogs slashed and splashed through the dense cattails, their enthusiasm infecting the boy to the core, jacking him up like the sound of a playground Ding-Dong Cart. You could read it in his face, his eyes and his light-footed gait — the pure joy of open, boyhood freedom I myself enjoyed during years of unsupervised play in the South Deerfield woods and fields. There was then much more open space down there than now; more freedom, too.

After poking around the dam for a while, the three of us took a soggy walk around the perimeter of a freshly brush-hogged field to a solitary apple tree standing tall and green along the overgrown foundation of an old barn that once wore the sweat stains of my ancestors, Jordan’s too. Standing 15 feet from the tree, the boy was captivated by the dogs’ activity. Having never seen a dog eat an apple, he thought it amusing and described it as ”silly” in his imperfect tongue. He stood and watched them slither in and out of the dense underbrush surrounding the tree, disappearing briefly before poking back through carrying small red apples in their mouths. They’d trot a short distance into the clearing, lay down, patiently break off bites and devour them before returning to the tree, picking up another apple and repeating the process several times. Soon Jordie joined into the game, picking up apples, running out and throwing them into the field, where one of the animals would chase, pounce on it and eat it to his youthful glee. When the dogs had had enough, we walked back to the truck, boxed them up and headed home fulfilled. A worthwhile trip.

Upon our return, we kenneled the animals, two in the back yard, one in the box stall, and went inside, he to his toys in the TV room, me to the computer, where I Googled ”beaver,” pulled up a site and went to retrieve the boy. When told that there were beavers on the computer, he enthusiastically sprang to his feet, reached for my wife’s hand and said, ”Nanny, come.” She didn’t, but he and I did, going promptly to the study, where, on the computer screen, he saw many pictures of beavers, beaver ponds, beaver huts, beaver footprints, and beaver dams, all sights fresh in his recent memory. I enlarged the individual photos, described what we were looking at, and he listened intently, the field-trip imprint still clear in his fertile little mind.

The young, inquisitive boy had tasted the succulent fruit of non-threatening exploration and discovery, a short but meaningful trip, about perfect in duration for a curious, far-from terrible 2. There will be more, many more similar lessons, equally invigorating, fun and free of pressure. Can there ever be too much of such learning? Not in my world. Soon enough for him, though, the dynamic will abruptly change, like that exploding beaver dam, and the innocent little boy will be shoehorned into a hard wooden chair, behind cold brick walls, under stark, white, humming lights, those sorry sunlight substitutes. Yes, this precious grandson of mine and many like him cannot avoid institutional learning, lessons some of the best and brightest learn to loathe; confining, restrictive and tedious to a creative, free spirit.

It makes you wonder. Isn’t there a better way to teach and learn? Is rote learning and A-B-C-D or All-of-the-Above options really the way to go?

It works for some.

Not me.

posted in Grandkids | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

How Many’s Too Many?

by Gary Sanderson

For pure pleasure and optimal efficiency, you can’t beat one flush-and-retrieve bird dog between two hunters combing a dense, wet, thorny covert.

When the dog’s working between the two of you and under control, a flush is usually a kill. But when the gun dog “makes game” and trails a running bird left or right of center, the hunter on whatever side the animal is trailing must follow it and stay within range of a potential flush. Such a routine typically circles you back to the spot where the chase began a couple of times, then off in a different direction before the bird flushes, often but not always near a rosebush, alder row or ditch.

If both hunters are familiar with the game, work well together, and can accurately read the dog and shoot, it’s a highly effective and thoroughly enjoyable method of wing-shooting. By aggressively protecting your half of the dog’s quarter, covering both sides of high, slim, tree rows or brooks, and constantly communicating, your chances of “getting burned” by a screened or wild flush decrease significantly. But it’s rarely a walk in the park. Following a flushing dog that’s pursuing a hot running scent through big, deep cover takes spirit and a certain level of fitness, but mostly spirit.

This whole formula changes dramatically when you throw a second dog into the mix, because it’s never easy to focus on two dogs’ simultaneously, particularly when one’s an old pro, the other a well-bred juvenile with everything going for it but experience. You have confidence in the proven dog and tend to focus more on it than the puppy, but this is a recipe for failure once the puppy learns what it’s looking for and discovers how to use the wind to its advantage.

In short, hunting over one good bird dog is a gentlemanly activity, but throw in the other dog and it can quickly become chaotic, producing wild, unexpected flushes and longer, more challenging shots. For the past five weeks, now that I’ve thrown 7-month-young Tiger Lily into the mix with 7-year-old Ringo, let’s just say I’m becoming more comfortable with the latter, chaotic scenario — one that I surely could have handled much easier before my half-century-old body started deteriorating. But that’s where the willpower comes in: If you have it, you never cease to amaze yourself; and you’d be surprised what high, tightly laced boots, briar-busting pants, a light side-by-side, and 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen can do for an old guy who loves to hunt.

It’s true that a guy could save himself some trouble by refusing to hunt over two dogs and alternating between them from covert to covert. But if you love your animals, it’s difficult to leave one home with wanting eyes and wagging tail, and it’s impossible to leave one in the Porta-Kennel at each covert, then listen to its loud, vocal objection each step of the way. If you’ve never heard it, believe me, it isn’t pleasing.

Personally, I can’t understand why anyone would load a dog that earns its keep into a crate and leave it there at a covert so you can hunt another. It just doesn’t make sense to me. That’s why I refuse to do it, no matter how difficult a hunt over two dogs can turn.

Of course, if you really want to torture yourself, experience the epitome of masochism, hunt alone with two dogs, sacrificing the ability to give your partner a heads-up when the animal you aren’t following is hot and headed in the opposite direction of the other dog. Yep, you’re on your own when hunting alone over two dogs frantically trailing a bird that’s looping and stopping and sprinting down the outside of a hedgerow to escape its pursuer. And it never fails that you’re watching one animal that’s sure the bird’s a foot in front of it and — bingo! — the other dog flushes it behind you, on the other side of tall alders. All you can do is listen to it fly away, ankle-deep in black, unforgiving swamp muck.

So, you ask, why would anyone put himself in such a vulnerable position when he could avoid it? Well, the way I look at it, you buy a dog to hunt, it gets six weeks a year to do so, and I just can’t justify leaving one behind for my own selfish reasons. I was the one who decided to own two, so the problems created should be mine, not the dogs’.

Truth be told, I wish I could find a couple more “problems” like that.

posted in The Dogs | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Cy’s Cellar

by Gary Sanderson

People often ask why I write about locations I’m unwilling to pinpoint. The answer is simple: Maps draw crowds that compromise special places, which soon lose their sacred status, be they fishing holes, deer stands, strut zones or historic sites buried under a forest canopy.

I found such a site just this week, one I had been trying to locate for weeks and would rather not share with grave-robbers. I guess how it came to me is most interesting, an example of how a persistent sleuth finds things once he puts his mind to it, reading, writing, ”asking around.” I call it discovery, a process that’s fascinated me since a boy, although, for some reason, I never found it in the classroom. Maybe that was my fault. But when you think of it, once you have the basics — the innate curiosity, the perseverance — who needs advanced classroom instruction and professorial scrutiny? Like the wise old man of a Dartmouth/Harvard pedigree once told me to conclude a short discussion about the philosophies of education: ”If all you learn in school is how to find information, that’s all you need.” That comment from an accomplished gent of a classical education hit me like a 10-pound sledgehammer to the kisser, a bull’s-eye. So, take heed class clowns: there is hope for all, with or without fancy academic degrees that are all too often earned by bootlicking and a, b, c, d, or all-of-the-above testing. I have met many with impressive credentials who couldn’t find their way home without a compass, eggheads who can dazzle you with facts, figures and Shakespearean verse but have no clue, no peripheral vision, no needle to meld their knowledge into something meaningful.

My latest local-history discovery occurred in Conway, along the so-called Seven-Mile Line, in woods I first explored before puberty, fishing, then in my teens, hunting partridge and deer, then horsing around in my friend’s 1972 Toyota Landcruiser, dubbed the ”Toyotski,” then shortened to ”Yotski,” a vehicle that produced incredible off-road adventure. Give us that Yotski, a come-along, 40 feet of heavy chain, and a chain saw, and we were unstoppable … believe me. But let’s not digress. I feel like I’m looking out the window on a bright spring day during expository-writing class.

The fact is that I had often danced around the periphery of the historical landmark I discovered this week. I probably even passed right through it but had no clue the cellar hole of Conway’s first settler was there. Cyrus Rice, a Barre man, built his home there in 1762 or ’63, on a western elevation looking back toward Old Deerfield, in the so-called South East District of Deerfield, overlooking Sawmill Plain and Mill River, both part of the Long Hill Division West, if any of that makes sense. It does to me, and I suppose that’s all that matters. But it can be confusing, especially to an outsider reading Sheldon or other local 19th century historians for the first time. Even I — a native who’s explored the local woods for nearly two generations — had difficulty deciphering the location of this site from written description. In fact, had it not been for an impromptu stop at Hatfield’s Bradstreet Cemetery, Memorial Day, on an asparagus run, looking for the grave of a relative, I’d probably still be trying to figure it out. My sense from what I had read was that the Rice site was situated on the south side of Hoosac Road, overlooking Stillwater. I was wrong. It’s south of there, that’s all I’m saying. Sorry, fellas.

But back to Bradstreet, the cemetery, my wife relaxing in the car, me searching for the grave of Martha (Almira Sanderson) Field, sister of my great-grandfather, Willis Chapman Sanderson. I vaguely remember Ant Mattie as old, Hatfield’s oldest citizen, holder of its golden cane, still taking care of herself after passing the century mark on May 27, 1976, a rare bird. I probably would have found her grave had I not bumped into three cyclists stopped for a break at the graveyard, but I got gabbing and didn’t want to leave my wife in the car too long.

I recognized the pretty blonde lady in the group. She was from Conway and we had met somewhere. I couldn’t remember where. We spoke. She refreshed my memory. At a friend of mine’s memorial service. Of course. How nice to see her again, happenstance on a gorgeous spring afternoon. A man and woman, presumably spouses, accompanied her, they too from Conway. They happened to live along a road I’d been traveling recently while researching its earliest residents. I knew who they were once they introduced themselves, both behind me at Frontier Regional School, but I knew their older siblings. The three friends knew each other from their days as neighbors along my road of interest. They were familiar with the old trails from hiking and biking, horseback, snowmobile and dirt-bike riding. No, I couldn’t have found three better resources had I been searching. So I picked their brains about the discontinued roads I’d been studying on old maps when the man chimed in about the site of the early Rice farmstead. Bingo! I had what I’d been searching for without even asking. Not where I expected it, either. A wooden sign on a tree, to boot. I would find it. Sooner the better

The next day on the phone I delivered the good news to a friend who’s recently been exploring Conway with me. He also had some new information to chase down in my 4-wheel-drive truck, and the day was ideal for him. Me, too. So off I went, three dogs porta-kenneled on the truck’s bed, all of us eager for a little safari.

I picked up my friend and took a ride, circling a couple of hills, stopping to examine the outflow of a few abandoned roads, their paths back into the woods, and even found the gate to a road we’ve wanted to explore open, inviting us in. We drove all the way to a dead-end snowmobile bridge crossing a bog. We got out, both of us, three dogs, crossed the bridge, followed the road a short distance to a fork, got acclimated and turned back. Then off to a driveway the cyclists told me about, one that will bring you to the Rice homestead. We drove in but weren’t certain it was cool, so I decided to turn around and travel farther down the road to see if the male cyclist was home. He wasn’t. His son was. Said his dad was having lunch, would be right back. Soon Dad appeared, told us the easiest route to the marker, through private property. Said the landowner wouldn’t mind historical-research trespassers. Off we went to give it a shot.

We arrived at the driveway to the landowner’s home and drove in, perhaps a quarter-mile to a dwelling I had no clue was there, on that road I traveled many years ago. I got out and knocked, yellow labs barking, no answer from inside. We continued up the narrow road and came upon a bearded man wearing head gear and earphones, mowing grass down the side of the road toward us. I got out of the truck, explained our reason for being there, and he was friendly, accommodating, leading us right to the site a short distance up the gradual hill. The small wooden sign was there, head-high, behind it a small L-shaped cellar hole. According to Conway historian Rev. Charles B. Rice, the marked site was a later Rice home, the original stood 25 rods southeast. When my friend broke the news to our guide, he said there was another ancient cellar hole down the hill a bit. We went to it and, after a brief hunt, found a small, stone-clad depression, about 30 feet long, maybe 12 feet wide, sitting on a gentle elevation, sheltered in a hollow, spring brook nearby, loam black and fertile; a peaceful upland alcove in which to build an early home.

And to think it all began on a whim, a spontaneous graveyard visit.

Spooky, huh?

Next time, I’ll find Ant Mattie.

Promise.

posted in Local history | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Peter’s Grief

by Gary Sanderson

There was nothing unusual at the start of our telephone conversation last week, me at my Recorder desk, he his New Salem home, after dark. Pretty typical for my rambling chats over the years with Peter Mallett, brainchild/promoter in chief of the Miller River Fishermen’s Association.

An affable sort, he’s always been upbeat and enthusiastic when we talk about his passion for fishing the Millers River, not to mention the hidden-jewel wetlands in its basin, places where native squaretails lurk and few know it. He knows where the aristocrats of New England waters reside, and he keeps it quiet, thank you; something that ain’t changin’ anytime soon.

Anyway, for the first time in my five-or-so-year telephone relationship with the man who I have not yet met eyes with, I felt another sort of passion emanating from his soul, one wreaking of grief and pain and devastating loss, so profound that I myself could feel it deep within; poignant times 10, no, maybe 100. For the first time he was sharing with me the loss of his only child, a son and fishing companion who left this world at the tender age of 19 in an automobile accident, 1993, 15 short years ago. To him, it seems like hours, maybe minutes, that agonizing.

“I miss him terrible, and think of him every day,” he admitted, voice crackling at the thought of a precious child ripped suddenly from his life. “That’s why I do what I do on the Millers River and the other places I stock. I do it for my son. He loved fishing, lived for it. When I catch a nice fish now I always look to the sky and say, ‘Thank you, Shon, I love you.”

Powerful stuff from this, a man I had previously known only through sporadic, light, playful banter and whimsical chit-chat. Overpowering, in fact. The kind of human emotion that rips at your guts, moistens your eye sockets, brings a hollow lightness to your throat, your upper torso. Grief like that is tough to take, even when it’s someone else’s, and that’s what I was experiencing, palpable grief, transference of the worst kind of emotional pain and suffering; spontaneous, unexpected, gut-wrenching. I ached for him.

This year Mallett has already stocked a four-pound rainbow trout wearing a tag worth $100 in memory of Shon Michael Mallett into the Millers River, another for the late Skott McKenzie, an early MRFA supporter who worked in the L.S. Starrett paint department before cancer took him a few years ago. “Skott was the first person to put a dollar into one of my donation cans, my most loyal supporter early-on, and the best fisherman I’ve ever been around,” Mallett said. “I wanted to do something special for him and for my son and inspiration.”

The two $100 trout are swimming in the river now, and the only person who knows where they were released is Mallett himself, who isn’t giving any clues. “People’ve been asking me where I put ’em, but I won’t tell anyone,” he said. “I’m the only one who knows and that’s how it’s gonna stay.”

Anyhow, when I reached Mallet Monday on his cell phone at midday, he had just arrived home to hundreds of beautiful brook and rainbow trout ticketed for stocking this week. “Big brookies, 12 to 14 inches,” he said, “and some really big rainbows. I think everyone will love these fish.” Fish he has to travel to southeast Massachusetts for now that Sunderland’s Mohawk Hatchery is closed.

Ever the carnival barker, Mallett wanted to remind everyone that donations are always appreciated. “People have been great to us,” he said, and the river is the beneficiary. His goal is to make the Millers River the state’s premier trout stream, and he’s well on his way, if not already there.

posted in Columns | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

River Ramble

by Gary Sanderson

Yes, the brook’s roaring, the songbirds’re singing, the snowbanks’re shrinking, and my last load of cordwood’s drying ever so slowly, stacked under the eaves of the sunny carriage sheds. No, it isn’t time for stream-fishing here in the northern tier of Franklin County. Too much snow, way too much, in fact; even worse, annoying mud to follow.

Yee-uck!

But still, before you know it, stocking trucks will be rolling on our roadways. Trust me. And what a welcome sight they’ll be for everyone, especially anglers, who in better days could, in print, be called fishermen. There is a difference between fishermen and anglers, you know, but I guess your DOB would have to fall before 1980 to understand it. Sad but true. That from an understander, sorta like a decider, if you know what I mean.

The stocking has already started south of here, where the snow disappeared weeks ago, as unimaginable as that may seem to snowbound hilltowners. But it’s fact. Travel the valley Interstate and you’ll find the snowline following the Whately/Hatfield line. South of there it’s gone, very April like. But not here, where winter is lingering like a slobbering drunkard at an open-bar bash. You know the type. The longer they stay, the louder they get. That’s what this winter reminds me of, the barroom bore spitting praise of that great American hero, Grampy McCain, who’ll beat that b-word Hillary and n-word Barack like he himself was beaten at the Hanoi Hilton. Just you wait and see. God bless America. Praise the lord. Slaughter the anti-Christ terrorists. … Haven’t we been through this drill before?

But let’s not digress. What I’m trying to say is that if you haven’t already done so, it’s time to rescue your fishing equipment from the dusty shed for its annual once-over. Cleaning and oiling and replacing line are perfect chores to perform with March Madness dominating your inner sanctum, color analysts, themselves former players and coaches, extolling the virtues of sport, how it builds character, makes America a better place. As they preach, believe me, the chores won’t interfere with your brackets one iota.

Brackets? Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Doesn’t everyone have at least one? Well, not everyone, I guess. In fact, I must admit I don’t. Must be the malaise brought on by male menopause. Yeah, that’s it, male menopause, middle-age lethargy. I’m sure I can find a doctor, maybe a therapist, to support my layman’s diagnosis. And there’s definitely a pill to cure it, maybe a handful three times a day if you’re willing to bury your face in a Reader’s Digest for an hour before spilling your guts to a total stranger in a stifling, antiseptic space. Praise the world of office visits and pharmaceutical solutions: gulp … ah! … your troubles behind you.

Myself, well, I guess I’ll just deal with such maladies the old-fashioned way; keep plugging, a day at a time, steady she goes, don’t even glance in the rearview. Yup, that’s the route I’m gonna take, even though it does absolutely nothing for the economy or hungry Pfizer shareholders.

Enough! There I go again, getting distracted by current events and modern solutions to ancient issues. What I really wanted to say is that trout-stocking has begun. Those trucks with insignias on their doors, purring, aerated tanks on their spines, will soon be depositing nets full of shiny trout into sparkling waters near you. Thankfully, waters like that still exist here in the impoverished valley and its glorious hills. But don’t take them for granted, these hills and dales, rivers, streams and bogs. Neglected, they’ll be devoured by glutinous big-box development, wiped from the face of the earth for a buck and a quick, unimaginative fix.

Why can’t we all just get along and look like Arkansas or Texas or Tuscaloosa, places where you wouldn’t stick your little toe into a river, never mind eat something from it? Why can’t we all buy cheap toys made in some Chinese sweatshop, and poisoned food for our pets and selves? Everyone else is doing it. Why not us?

Whew! Glad I finally spit-up that hairball. But if that’s where this bus is headed, count me out. I have another destination in mind. Me, I’ll be the deranged loner, a little rough around the edges, unshaven, wetting my worm in the whitewater froth below the damp, shaded gristmill ruins. It’s a better place. Far better.

If y’all don’t believe me, then order yourself a fat Cheezdawg to-go and take a little nature walk. But please, I beg, don’t leave the wrapper at the water’s edge. It’s toxic.

posted in Columns | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Rebel Retreat

by Gary Sanderson

An undisturbed snowplow ridge told the story: It had been months since a four-wheeled vehicle had driven the aboriginal trail that became a Colonial path, then a well-used thoroughfare from Williamsburg to Conway until discontinued around 1950.

Because the mud season hadn’t yet arrived, I decided to give it a shot, convinced I’d stay atop the solid, crunchy corn snow, confident the come-along and chain in my pickup’s bed would rescue us if needed, always a comforting thought. But we got through our little journey fine, no issues, then poked around briefly in a quiet hardwood forest, once the farmstead of 18th century rebel Perez Bardwell, a Whately man of hardscrabble Yankee temperament. Unusual name for the time, too.

I had traveled this intentionally unnamed, unimproved road many times in worse conditions, deeper snow, muddier, with chains fastened around my back tires. So I was confident my all-terrain treads would take us the short distance required without calamity, which, at midday, work in the foreground, I wanted no part of. An experienced four-wheeler never lets his guard down at this time of year, the absolute worst if the mud is right. I know. Seems I learn most lessons the hard way, including mud-caked misadventures. Guess it’s just who I am. But it’s gotten me this far and I’m too old to change.

My passenger was a Pennsylvania native who touched down in Conway some four years ago and, having a history background, is enthralled with the town and its 18th century pioneers. Of particular interest to the man, working on a book, is a fiery Bardwell soul brother named Samuel Ely, a disrobed Congregational minister who came to Conway from Somers, Conn., in 1772 and called our western hilltown home for 10 turbulent years. It was during his final year there, in 1782, that he whipped a frenzied mob into open revolt against the Massachusetts government and Hampshire County Court. Coined Ely’s Insurrection, the clamor proved to be a precursor to Shays’ Rebellion (1786-87), which brought western Massachusetts notoriety before the Constitution was written or George Washington was elected our first president.

Back in the day, Ely knew well the country we traversed, the roads, too, connecting Conway, Whately, Burgy and beyond. In fact, a road we sampled would have been his route from Conway to the Hampshire County Courthouse he and his insurgents assaulted. That’s why I showed my newfound historian friend the layout, for perspective, not to mention invigorating chatter. Our interests intersect in many local-history spheres and, come to find out, politics as well … a subject to approach on tip-toes with someone new.

Always searching for an excuse to visit my favorite haunts before turkey season and after a tough winter on deer, I was more than willing to show my companion the lay of the land, and the place Bardwell called home before moving around 1790 to Phelps, Wayne County, N.Y., where he died in 1815. A proud veteran of French and Indian War expeditions to Crown Point and Canada, then a Revolutionary lieutenant, Bardwell was a member of the mob that freed Ely from jail in Springfield, then briefly was held hostage by Northampton authorities trying to recover Ely. I knew Bardwell’s cellar hole from research following many deer hunts there, and thought it would be of interest to my passenger.

We pulled up to the intersection of two wooded trails and parked, releasing two of my Springers, Lily and Bessie, from their porta-kennels before taking a short trek, maybe 100 yards, to the flat wooded site at the base of a ridge. The first visible remains were stones from a barn’s foundation, then 100 feet east, a stone-clad cellar hole some 40 by 25 feet, no indication of where the chimney had stood, probably centered. A short distance east of the homesite was a small, clear, free-flowing spring brook, then, some 75 feet upstream, a stone foundation that crossed it, likely a barn judging from the high western foundation butted up against a shallow hill; no small barn, either.

During hunts and hikes covering bits of five decades and two centuries, I have identified many similar sites in those woods, reconstructing a lost world in my memory’s bedrock. It’s a fascination that lures me to such places, often alone, gun in hand, so it’s always a bonus to meet someone to share them with, especially folks who’ll respect and leave them undisturbed, no metal detectors, please. My companion on that day fit the bill.

Our first field trip was brief; too short, in fact; but I was able to point out future exploration routes along the way, ones we’ll revisit when the snow’s gone and the turkeys are gobbling. Once the mud dries, we’ll return for further inspection along roads that appeared iffy this week. Why push it? The day will soon come when I’ll be able to show him Morton’s mill, Elihu Waite’s farm, and the small home of Isaac ”Cider Marsh,” known before the turn of the 19th century for the spirituous liquors he distilled and, apparently, liberally consumed. Legend has it that people in the neighborhood back then referred to 30-barrel tanks as ”Marsh’s tumblers,” obviously a tribute to a man who could ”hold his liquor.” Yes, sir, they say old Cider Marsh was quite the boy, a throwback from way back, a local legend whose spirit still lurks in the damp watershed air. My newfound Conway friend and I will return to pull this damp, wooded, Marshy spirit deep into our lungs. From it will come lively conversation, a brisk walk, an energetic romp for my pets. It’ll be mutually beneficial. Stimulating on many levels. Physical, mental, spiritual. Especially the latter.

I guess it’s all about knowing the woods in a way not generally associated with hunting.

Like chasing ghosts, kindred spirits.

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