Jul
18
2009

Something’s Gotta Go

by Gary Sanderson

I enjoyed a brief visit Tuesday from reader Edward M. Wells, an ardent defender of wild brook trout and critic of the Connecticut River Atlantic salmon program who’s been once featured and occasionally mentioned in this space. The retired educator, enjoying tranquil retirement on a gentle Leyden hillside, brought me a reading assignment in the August edition of Smithsonian magazine, then cleared up a misunderstanding that led to inaccurate information published here.

First the correction.

I have in the past identified Mr. Well as a Buckland native who’s familiar with native brookie streams in our western Franklin hills. Well, it turns out he is not a Buckland native. He grew up in suburban Boston and often visited his Buckland grandparents’ farm. It was during those visits that he learned to love his ancestral landscape.

“I do know the country from those years at Grandma Wells’ farm,” he said, “but I thought you should know I did not grow up there.”

Glad we cleared that up.

The article he wanted me to read, titled “Fish Story,” is about new ways of thinking about trout conservation, particularly in the West, where in many places restoration efforts favor habitat improvement over hatchery stocking.

Western restoration officials have found that they can bring back self-sustaining native trout streams by keeping livestock off the banks and manicuring streamside landscapes composed of lush vegetation and large shade trees which keep the waters cool in the heat of summer. The emphasis is on what the biologists call the “four C’s approach,” that is the creation of clear, cold, clean and connected waters that stimulate native trout reproduction. In areas where this approach was taken and pockets of catch-and-release areas were established, stocking has been stopped and fishing has improved.

The reason Mr. Wells thought of me when reading the Smithsonian piece was that it opens by describing the devastating effect stocking of nonnative species can have on the indigenous fish of streams they’re placed in. This controversy started in the late 19th century when German brown trout were stocked into North American waters, then raged onward with the introduction of Western rainbows in the East and Eastern brook trout in the West. The critics claimed that these foreign invaders threatened the very survival of indigenous species by competing for the same foods and prime lairs in their aquatic ecosystem.

Now Wells and others complain that the hatchery-raised, Connecticut River-strain Atlantic salmon progeny stocked into our hilltown streams are major contributors to the publicized Eastern brook trout decline. It’s not the first time our brookie population has been seriously threatened. The cold-water species faced big problems when 75 to 80 percent of our wooded hillsides were denuded, warming the cool, shaded mountain streams while bringing in herds of cattle that trampled and polluted the banks. Twentieth-century reforestation solved some of those issues, but now we’re dealing with global warming, acid rain and a stubborn salmon-restoration effort on life-support.

Something’s gotta go.

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Jul
18
2009

Walking the Dogs

by Gary Sanderson

As you look southeast over a sea of tall green grass funneling down to a stately hardwood frame, the Mt. Toby range protrudes from afar with distinction, like a giant molar dwarfing lesser teeth on the lower gum of a worn mouth.

Between Toby and me is downtown Greenfield, then the Pocumtuck Range, which rises in east Deerfield, climbs to the communication towers overlooking the Eaglebrook School ski slopes and descends slowly south, dipping twice to introduce the two Sugarloafs, once my childhood playground. In Native American lore, I’d be looking at the giant beaver from the tail forward.

Behind Toby stands the Holyoke Mountain Range and proud Mount Holyoke itself, the summit of which has for parts of three centuries drawn artists, most notably Thomas Cole, whose 1836 masterpiece canvas titled “View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow)” resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Had Cole known of this bucolic East Colrain location, he surely would have set up his easel on a promontory point during foliage peak-week; and perhaps he or someone else did compose this pastoral scene, although I have seen no such canvas.

As I stand there admiring this splendid view that never gets old, I hear panting and see flashes of white bounding over and slicing through the knee-high cover crop of rye and clover — two energetic English springer spaniels, one old, the other young, thoroughly enjoying the scent of cottontail rabbits, wild turkeys, deer, bear, squirrels, and other upland creatures on a cool damp morning. A springer’s energy is boundless, its enthusiasm infectious when scouring the field as though faced with a tight deadline.

Little Lily, a mere 14 weeks old, can’t keep up with here surrogate father, Ringo, an old pro by now, but she gives it her best shot, trailing him as far as she dares before losing ground, not to mention stamina, and sprinting back to me. It gets worse for the little lady when we reach the more-challenging high cover of golden rod made denser by a thick clover underbody, no walk in the park of any dog, especially a puppy. But Lily does her best, following the path Ringo cuts, stopping to sit and monitor his movement with her ears and bounding to try and cut him off before sprinting back to me. When she busts through the cover onto the cart path where I’m standing, she comes to greet me, wagging her tail joyfully, then sits and listens for Ringo, waits for him to get close, and scoots after him, repeating this playful ritual until we depart.

The only break the dogs take on such a walk occurs when Ringo finds a brook or mud-puddle to lay in and drink until you’d think he’d burst, as Lily stands nearby, front feet half-submerged, nibbling at the water’s surface. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be lying in the water next to him, not to mention blowing by him in the field, but it won’t be this year. Uh-uh. Not with 7-year-old Ringo in his prime.

You can’t beat the month of August for walking the dogs; it prepares your legs and theirs for the coming bird season while absorbing the sights and sounds of the habitat. You can assess the mast crop, hard and soft, read the deer and bear sign, flush turkeys and partridge, and work on dog commands in a non-threatening way while filling your lungs with invigorating country air. If the animals find something foul or rancid to roll in, no problem, just gives you an excuse to sample the refreshing water of a secluded Green River pool where, in a pinch, clothes have always been optional.

In the two months since little Lily has joined the family, I’ve toured the upland meadows near my home twice a day, rain or shine, and have seen many interesting sights that reinforce previous lessons about deer. The most memorable day so far came while walking loudly through an overgrown pasture at midday and jumping a velvet 6-pointer from a narrow row of wild apple trees I’ve passed several times on the way back to my vehicle during, gun in hand, deer season? Had it not been for an inquisitive Lily, that buck would have let us pass right by it, some 30 feet away, while I was whistling and calling Ringo off a rabbit chase. But Lily caught my attention because of the way she was standing still, semi-cowering with her nose high and pointed toward the row of apples and thick, thorny underbrush. Having seen her react similarly to cows and horses on previous walks, I was curious, so I walked toward her and spooked the buck into springing from its bed, bounding gracefully across the pasture and disappeared into the pines.

Another day in a nearby overgrown pasture bordering a lush mowing, I arrived at a high spot with Lily and was searching the golden-rod across the way for Ringo when I noticed a flash of white, then another. I first believed I had located the dog but the motion wasn’t right. Then I realized I was watching at deer, head down, trying to conceal itself as it left the premises. But when it understood that I had seen it, it picked its head up erect and bounded through the field, over a barbed-wire fence, across the mowing and into the dense vegetation of a power line — a beautiful sight to behold, a doe, perhaps 110 pounds.

After the deer disappeared, I got to thinking that if its primary goal was to elude me without being detected, it wouldn’t have been flagging furtively in the brush. The flicking of the tail had to be a signal to her fawns, which were presumably nearby. So I called, Ringo, vacated the area with my two pets and returned home.

After dinner, I convinced my wife to return to the site and walk the dogs. As we approached the farm road into the mowing, I spotted the doe feeding at the edge of the power line, some 400 yards away, and pointed it out to my wife. I told her I couldn’t understand why she was alone, that a healthy doe like her should have had at least one fawn with her. Perhaps they were victims of the first haying, I surmised out loud. But judging from the behavior of the animal when I had kicked it out of the golden rod earlier in the day, I was still convinced it hadn’t been alone.

As we retraced my steps from earlier in the day, Ringo and Lily romped through an unmowed wedge of high, wet, brown cover we were following toward the overgrown pasture that was my destination. Talking with my wife while focusing my attention across the mowing to where the doe was feeding, I paid little attention to the dogs until reaching a break in the rusted barbed-wire fence, by which time Lily had rejoined us. The three of us crossed the fence and walked to the high spot from which I had seen the doe earlier. The feeding doe would have been visible from that spot had she not ducked into the power line to conceal herself. But as I scanned the edge of the woods for her, I caught a flash in my left peripheral, then spotted a small deer that had exited the wet wedge of high cover we had just passed and was bounding across the rich green mowing. Ringo stood alert and statuesque at the side of the wedge, joining us in our admiration of the fleeing fawn, which quickly vanished into the power line.

The four of us circled the field’s perimeter back to the truck and left for home, wondering what tomorrow would bring, walking the uplands.

posted in Columns, The Dogs | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Building Bridges

by Gary Sanderson

Colrain historian Muriel Russell put a bug in my ear this week about a subject she knows I’m fond of, that being my third great-grandfather, Asaph Willis Snow, a carriage-maker who farmed some 350 acres surrounding the old Fort Lucas site of French & Indian War fame.

Russell, a phone pal with whom I share many local interests, knows of my fascination with Snow/Miller ancestors who lived and worked the acreage between the East Colrain burial grounds at the Brick School and Chandler Hill. So she shared her latest discovery of old A.W.’s connection to the Willis Bridge, spanning the North River in a location aptly named Willis Place.

So what, you ask, does this have to do with fish or wildlife? Well, let’s just say there are trout in the rapid stream below, and wildlife is never far in Colrain. Case closed.

Back to Russell, though, she’s now researching, among other things, enterprising Daniel Willis, who emigrated from Sudbury to Colrain in 1794 to establish a woolen mill. A generation later, the man built a charming Federal mansion house of brick, one that came to be known in townie lingo as ”Willis’ Folly,” suggesting he overspent. The stately building, a circa 1820 statement to Willis’ prosperity, still stands on the North’s southern bank, just downstream from the millpond and dam that once powered his primitive machinery. Right beside the Asher Benjamin dwelling is a river-crossing that’s existed for centuries in different forms, the pinnacle of which was a covered bridge likely built during the third quarter of the 19th century. All that remains today of that West County landmark are sepia-toned photos, reminders of the Willis Covered Bridge built by skilled local hands.

According to 1859-60 Colrain documents Russell recently uncovered, titled ”Rebuilding the Willis Bridge,” A.W. Snow was the chief laborer, earning $58.55 of the total $182.11 expenditure. That 32 percent share of the outlay was paid for labor ($55.50) and materials ($3.05 for paint, oil and nails). Iron worker Luther Graves earned the next largest portion, receiving $35.88 for his services, while Snow’s brother-in-law neighbor Hugh Bolton Miller was paid $12.10 for timbers. Two years later, 1861-62 town records reveal that Snow was paid $20 for additional bridge work. Because the records do not itemize specific chores, Russell is unsure whether the site’s first covered bridge was being built or if it was an open plank-bridge that was later covered. Historically, it could have been either.

It is unclear what covered bridge was America’s first, but it is known the first one appeared around 1805. Timothy Palmer (1751-1821), a New Englander from Newburyport, had a hand in most of the early covered bridges in the Northeast. I have seen him described as a millwright, master carpenter, architect and engineer, so call him what you choose but he was definitely our top bridge-builder of the day and is generally credited with designing the template for America’s first covered bridges. Palmer’s open-timber truss bridge in Amesbury was built in 1792 and “weather-boarded” in 1810 to become Massachusetts’ first covered bridge.

Although covered bridges appeared in western Massachusetts a generation before 1860, Russell has found that most of Colrain’s bridges were covered between 1870-1890, lending credence to a later date at Willis Place. But when you consider that a skilled laborer brought home less than $10 a week in 1860, the expenditure for the Willis Bridge suggests it could have been covered at that time. Subsequent research may soon prove a later date, but it’s not out of the question that A.W. Snow built Colrain’s first covered bridge around 1860 at Willis Place.

It is written that Snow followed his father, Colonel David Snow of Heath, into the carpentry trade, and there is no reason to doubt it. His father was a prolific builder in Heath and Charlemont during the first three decades of the 19th century, with the Heath Congregational Church (1833) and Community Hall (1834) among his major accomplishments. He apprenticed under John Ames, builder of the Ashfield Congregational Church, and probably introduced son Asaph to his trade at a young age. Russell’s recent discovery makes it clear that, despite specializing as a carriage-maker/wheelwright beginning in the late 1820s in Colrain Center, A.W. Snow never forgot his father’s tutelage in structural design. This revelation begs the question of how many dwellings, barns and sheds he helped construct during 50-plus years residing on three contiguous East Colrain farms he at one time or another owned, not to mention abutting properties owned by in-laws. And you have to wonder how often his dad assisted? Better still, how many chests of drawers, tables and stands scattered about this county were made by the two Snow joiners? It’s anyone’s guess, but there must be some. Didn’t all rural carpenters of that period dabble in ”country” furniture?

There are, of course, several peripheral mysteries borne of Russell’s recent findings: questions about the woolen industry, the relationship between fullers and carders and clothiers, the woolen-industry genesis in New England and Colrain. And how about Daniel Willis? What pulled him to our western hills, North River and the woolen industry? How did he meet wife Martha Snow, Asaph’s aunt, David’s sister? Was it through brother-in-law clothier Jacob Snow of Heath, Col. David’s older brother? Had the two clothiers crossed paths before moving here? If so, how, considering one came from Sudbury, the other Wilton, N.H.? Fascinating stuff, fertile ground for succulent historical fruit.

Enough! … But, please, before I go, a little tease.

Suppose I were to suggest that David Snow, a virtual stranger to me upon moving to Greenfield in 1997, built the second-story, spring-floor ballroom that spans the wing of my historic Greenfield tavern. Being one of less than a handful of local joiners capable of building such a hall in the 1830s, it’s eminently possible. But there’s more. The man who paid for this ”grand improvement” to an existing structure was from Charlemont and clearly would have, at the very least, known of Snow’s expertise as a builder. Not only that but he purchased from the Charlemont quarry enough flagstone flooring for simultaneous porch construction. If willing to transport cumbersome stone by oxcart from the place he was leaving, isn’t it likely he’d also employ familiar builders? It makes sense.

So, the deeper I dig, the more probable it becomes that the spirit of my fourth-great-grandfather permeates the place I call home. Tell me, please: if true, could it be coincidence? Happenstance? A fluke? Personally, I find that hard to believe.

I sense it’s more profound, which is as spiritual as I get. But that’s enough for now; perhaps even a step too far. Chalk it up as playful pondering — tavern fare, a little out of the ordinary.

I too build bridges.

posted in Genealogy, Local history | Comments (2)

Jul
18
2009

Spring Chapel

by Gary Sanderson

What drew my attention was the salient, bright red head bobbing through the faint putty-green April pasture, a mature tom, beard dangling like a pendulum, as he approached a thin brush line skirting a spring-fed pond. Ahead of him were five or six drab hens, walking alertly, heads high, some dropping to feed.

Early spring on the hillside.

I wouldn’t have noticed the small midmorning flock had I not let my eyes wander momentarily off the left side of the road to that pasture where I often see stuff. In fact, having seen my first turkey, a solitary hen, walking through an oak stand the previous day, perhaps a quarter-mile up the road, I was looking for turkeys, but wasn’t ruling out deer, a moose, maybe even a cougar if I was lucky, all of which have been seen there by my or others’ eyes in recent years. Never hurts to know what’s lurking in the neighborhood.

At the base of the hill I pulled into my garage, exited the truck, walked my dogs to the kennel and headed for the house. Upon walking through the parlor door, I went immediately to the phone sitting on a mahogany Pembroke table, picked up the receiver and dialed my hunting buddy. Had to report the sighting to the man who had just asked me what I was seeing for turkeys. “Nothing” I had told him then. But that was a few days earlier. The times they were a changin’.

“Isn’t it funny how their pattern changes with the seasons,” he said after I told what I had seen. “You don’t see a turkey up there all winter and, bingo! there they are come spring.”

More curious to me was the timing. What I had seen was more indicative of later spring, when mature gobblers have assembled and are guarding their mating harems. Seemed a little early for that to me. But if you think of it from a gobbler’s perspective, I suppose it’s never too early. He isn’t breeding them yet, just tailing them, staying in touch till the time is right. Then he and other dominant toms will stake out their territory, hoard their harems and scare off all competing suitors with ferocious gobbles and slashing spurs.

Be it known there’s never a better time to wake with the woods than during the gobbling season, when mature toms shake the budding, skeletal hardwoods with their throaty roars, then fly down to strut zones where they entertain their ladies with a robust mating dance.

Nature’s springtime chapel.

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Jul
18
2009

Family Ties

by Gary Sanderson

I spent a nice evening last week with about 25 members of the Whately Historical Society, people who share my interest in old homes, old barns, old taverns and old relics from a kinder day.

Among my guests was the new owner of a home where my displaced ancestors once lived briefly after a July 1882 fire leveled the original East Whately Sanderson farmstead, and another who owned a colonial where I spent many special days and nights smitten with puppy love in an edifice infected with kindred spirits. Back then, I had no idea Asa Sanderson had called the place home after serving in the Revolution, and knew nothing of his big brother, my fifth great-grandfather Deacon Thomas, who likely taught Asa his tanner/cordwainer trade. But those were the years of my wayward teens, when I knew not who I was or why I lived here. I guess you’d call it oblivious, maybe oblivion itself, but all that has changed now, and so has my perspective.

I have written before about my spiritual attachment to the Whately woods. The aristocratic hardwoods, dark hemlock bogs, cellar holes, stonewalls, and streamside mill sites reach back to a different day in our landscape’s evolution. Such elements are not unique to Whately. You can find them throughout the Franklin hills. I’m just more familiar with Whately’s hills and dales than those in neighboring towns. That’s all.

I suppose if I chose to take the shallow exploratory route, I’d attribute my Whately enchantment to simple coincidence — the fact that Babe Manson had taught me to trout-fish there as a young boy, then meeting classmates and teammates whose yards bordered the swift, clean mountain stream. But I know my attachment goes much deeper; right to the core of my soul, the pulse in my wrist, to my pedigree. It’s no revelation. I understood it long ago. No churchgoer, it’s as spiritual as I get, but it’s real; more genuine than anything you can find below the austere white steeple; more powerful; impossible to articulate in a brief sitting.

My latest discovery came the day after our historical gathering, when, on the phone, Fred Bardwell pulled me deeper into my Whately genealogical morass; with each step forward, the blacker the mud, the stronger the suction. It can consume you like whirlpool, this family muck; no, not the Great Swamp, but no less unforgiving.

It was in the process of thanking Fred for the tote bag his club had given me that I digressed, started talking about the Whately woods, its abandoned roads, Chibby’s Pasture, the old mill site by the brook, the hidden well below the broad, forgotten hilltop orchard.

Did he remember Sanderson’s pasture before the woods consumed it?

Of course, he used to milk cows up there as a boy; it was where they pastured them in the summer.

How about Turkey Hill? Did he know it?

No, only Turkey Hill in Williamsburg.

So I described my perception of where Turkey Hill was, based on what little information I have uncovered, and he knew the area but no hill by that name, which doesn’t mean I’m wrong. In describing the location, I mentioned a road and a couple of cellar holes, which he knew as the old Sanderson farm, right there before the top of the hill.

Sanderson farm? What Sanderson farm?

It would have been Neal and Alan’s grandfather’s.

How about them, would they remember it?

No, burned down before that. But that’s where their grandfather lived. The woods opened up as you reached the top of that first rise. The pasture started there.

Did he remember the sugar shack, the one with the potbelly stove, where we used to party before Vietnam draft-dodgers took residence, overheated the stove and burned the shack to the ground?

He didn’t. Neal would.

When I called Neal Sanderson, wife Julie, family historian, answered and we got to talking. Did she know about the Sanderson farm up by Turkey Hill?

Turkey Hill?

She didn’t know it by that name, either. Apparently few do anymore. But she knew the road and cellar holes because her son used to hunt there. She confirmed it had been Neal’s grandfather’s farm, adding that a close relative lived nearby, a milkman. His house also burned to the ground, him in it. Julie said that sometimes when she rides the Whately roads with Neal he points to a woodlot and marvels how difficult it is for even him to imagine he once harvested hay there.

After hanging up, I had to talk to somebody. I called my hunting buddy, the one who had been to Turkey Hill this past spring during, you guessed it, turkey season. I told him what I had just learned, that the cellar holes and the party shack I’d pointed out so many times had gained new personal significance. No wonder those woods are special to me. Kindred spirits. I knew they were there, could feel them.

His reaction was nearly as powerful as mine. He said if he was me he’d put the old-timers in his truck and take them for a ride. Get a feel for the way it used to be before the forest returned. Write it down. Record it.

Sounds like a marvelous idea; essential, in fact, because when memories evaporate they leave no stone-clad craters for posterity, just blithe spirits in a cold, blustery wind.

I know. They whisper in my ear.

posted in Genealogy, Local history | Comments (1)

Jul
18
2009

Where are we Headed?

by Gary Sanderson

Sugar snow snakes through the forested highland crevices like frothy white streams flowing toward their summer delta as sugar shacks exhale plumes of steam dotting the horizon from damp pockets. Below, remnants of winter can be seen along the stream’s bank and the house’s northern perimeter; also where the plow has left the most impure mounds. When they vanish, curled clumps of ugly sodden turf will remain, peeled from the lawn like skin from a potato. Spring has sprung on the Berkshire base.

As I sat in my truck in an upland hayfield, freezing rain drumming softly on the roof, dogs romping uninhibited toward a spring hole covered with punky floating ice, I was thinking about the sweet sap of the sugar bush surrounding me. Would it still run sweet for my grandson’s grandson? Or would fertile sugar maples follow the path of the Atlantic salmon out of southern New England north to more suitable climes? It’s a question worth asking; one the corporations and the politicians protecting them don’t want asked, but still worth asking, and asking, and asking again until their ears ring like a  target-range grunt’s.

And what of our native, speckled brook trout, most vulnerable to the airborne waste of Midwestern smokestacks, the same waste contributing to the warming issue along with our gas-guzzling belches? Where will our brookies flee when the local streams are too acidic to support them? Ever think of that?

Just a couple of random thoughts on a cold, rainy spring morn; subversive thoughts at that; spring-spawned food for thought.

Is it wise to ignore the rape of our environment in the name of prosperity and Wall Street greed? That’s the question I was asking before exiting my truck, whistling the dogs back and heading home.

And here I sit, still pondering.

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Jul
18
2009

Sixties Rant

by Gary Sanderson

”Will you still bleed me, will you still mislead me,

When I’m sixty-four?”

Paul McCartney

(lyrics slightly altered to fit theme)

What do Sgt. Pepper and hippie freaks, neocons and fundamentalist Christian nutbags have to do with declining Atlantic salmon numbers? Just you wait and see. There is a connection.

Trust me.

As for salmon, well, it seems like the more you read, the bleaker the restoration picture becomes. A fact, sad but true. And we’re not talking about the Connecticut River here, or even the Northeast for that matter. No, we’re focusing on the realistic possibility of Atlantic salmon extinction on planet Earth. In fact, the trend toward extinction could already be irreversible, thanks to human interference that began with dams and log drives, moved to industrialization and advanced commercial marine fishing methods, and has now introduced a death-knell known as aquaculture, or high-seas fish farming. Any of the above factors alone could have spelled eventual doom for salmon and other coldwater fish that seek pristine freshwater streams; lumped together they’re insurmountable, probably imminent.

Of course, you’ll never hear such a pessimistic assessment from the shepherds of restoration projects like the one on the Connecticut River, nor should you expect to, despite an 80 percent North American salmon decline since 1970. Their mission is to reverse the extinction process, and it’s a noble plight at that, one for which they should be saluted. But, unfortunately, conservation has little chance of succeeding in a culture of greed that dismisses global warming and acid rain as schemes of the pointy-headed, Eastern, tree-hugging, liberal elite in one breath, and attempts to legislate a ban on public-school evolution curriculum in the next. Some call it progress, others lunacy. Count me among the latter, even though I admit I’m ”out of touch” following two elections that placed rapists and plunderers in charge of the environment and Wall Street in charge of the Pentagon. Who from the Sgt. Pepper generation would have thunk it in their wildest dreams?

Horrifying!

We all know the threadbare excuse that goes back to the Magna Carta, when the world was still flat. It goes something like this: ”OK, son, I readily admit the president is a world-class embarrassment, but you should see how our General Dynamics stock has soared.”

Yeah, right! I guess that’s one way of justifying the nightmare called Bush 43. The old money and the new prophets are in a state of euphoria; them and the khaki College Republicans, every hair in place, spewing their self-righteous noise 24/7 on the tube and in the airwaves. Remember that old graffiti proclaiming ”God is Dead!” on bridge abutments and urban walls? Forget about it. He’s been resurrected with a vengeance and a Southern accent better than Hillary could ever feign. But me, I’m off on another tangent at this moment, having just returned from a trip to the sound system behind me.

You see, having mentioned Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the classic Beatles album that recently celebrated its 40th birthday, I decided to give it a spin on my sound system. Of course it’s loud! Absolutely! Is there any other way to listen to Sarge? If you don’t like it, leave! That’s my position, because everything was loud back then, in 1967, nothing more so than the defiant shouts in the streets for racial equality, Flower Power and an end to the Vietnam War.

Predictably, the Windsor-knot Spartans won that battle. Don’t they always win? And now here we sit, teetering upon the WWIII ledge, mired in a flashback foreign fiasco by a petulant preppy brat who cheered the troops during the Yale demonstrations he witnessed, drank and drugged himself silly after earning his Ivy MBA, loafed from one crony Lone Star job to the next, purchased an American League team with idle income, and became Texas governor. It gets better. After allegedly being elected president, Dubya had the audacity to bring along a vindictive retinue from the disgraced Nixon Administration for a gluttonous joyride in capitalist greed and corruption.

Talk about payback. Who could have ever imagined it? Could it be worse? We’re being governed by an intellectually inferior Nixon clone who rose to power on updrafts from Evangelical gasbags and the highest court in the land. If you thought it only happened in movies, or long ago in Italy, Germany and Spain, think again. So it’s high time to put down Tim LaHaye and start rereading Hemingway and Silone before we are all truly ”left behind.”

Back in the idealistic Sgt. Pepper era there were many who believed hippies flipping out to Jerry, Jimi, Janis and Gracie at Golden Gate Park were a threat to our national security. Imagine that: ”peaceniks” advocating conservation, communal living, free-love, natural foods, and human dignity; protesters swarming the streets to halt racism and shake the military-industrial complex off its monorail to nuclear destruction … a threat to Western Civilization? I don’t think so, no matter what Bill O’Reilly and other Fox Noise bullies shout over opponents. Now we call it news, fair and balanced no less; years ago it was Pravda.

Today, those ”deranged, longhair commies” of the Sixties remain among us, hurting no one, content to stake their claims in the hills. They make pottery, blow glass, cultivate salubrious fruits and vegetables, read Thoreau and Nearing, Zinn and Chomsky by the woodstove — maybe even Hunter S. Thompson with a shot of Jack in the back parlor — shaking their heads in dismay at the suicidal path we chose after the racist Dixiecrats and chauvinistic, pro-hardline-Israel liberals switched sides in ’68.

Since that political line of demarcation was excavated into the political landscape by the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention, the Chicago 7 horror show, Dr. Spock, and the Six-Day War in the Middle East, our dramatic Atlantic salmon decline is a symbol of the selfish nation we’ve become. So let’s hope the Petulant Preppy Brat represents the historical apex of this dreadful, Sixties-borne, ”Silent Majority” experiment — a sharp, reactionary right turn away from ”Flower Children,” whose altruistic attempt to shake us from our destructive, imperialistic insanity ricocheted in the opposite direction.

If we don’t soon bang a tight U-ie, salmon haven’t a prayer.

posted in Politics | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

Hunting Buddies Never Die

by Gary Sanderson

I wish I had known, been able to reach out. But now he’s gone, too late to say goodbye.

I remember the last time we spoke. It was brief, on my way into the Green River Festival a couple of years ago. His welcoming smile and warm brown eyes, same mischievous glint, were unchanged since our pheasant-hunting days. Back then, he’d pull into my South Deerfield yard in his blue Honda Accord at 8:30 sharp each Wednesday morning. He’d step inside to briefly greet my wife, readying for work, before we’d depart for a wetland romp somewhere along the Hopewell basin, or maybe Fuller’s Swamp or the Bashin, sometimes all three for a robust four- or five-hour hunt behind Sara, my Lab, then Pepper, my first Springer. His enthusiasm was contagious, blatant joie de vivre, always eager. I’d choose the coverts and handle the dog, pursuing flushes while vocally positioning my buddy for shots along the edges. To his benefit, he was often in a better place than I. Great fun and teamwork, like Flatt & Scruggs, Garcia & Grisman, harmonious swamp-busting to the tune of lively banter — men’s talk, sometimes raunchy, flavoring our thorny, mud-splattered maneuvers. He was all man, with a feminine kindness; all doctor with a nurse’s compassion. Not my doctor. A friend.

Unfortunately, our paths had parted in recent years, since my move to Greenfield. When my wife bumped into him, she always remarked how friendly and genuine he was, a good man to the core. We didn’t know he’d been sick since October, were unaware of the treatments aimed at his evil foe. A private man, he probably didn’t want people to know, hoped to be spared the indignity of shallow coffee-shop gossip. Mercifully, it didn’t last long. Bruce Van Boeckel, a first-class internist who helped build the local hospice center to assure dignified death for others, passed away Friday peacefully, his way, at he and wife Terry’s wooded Leverett home. Always a picture of health, Bruce loved life and his work, was vigorous, brilliant and handsome, full of life and charm. Had everything going for him, and didn’t see 57. It isn’t fair. Too young. Too much to offer. Why Bruce?

Couldn’t his aggressive cancer have attacked someone who wanted out, had little to live for, suicidal demons tugging at his strings; someone cold, hungry and hopeless? But that’s me talking, not Bruce. He likely accepted it as a bad hand dealt, with no choice but to play it out. No stranger to mortality, he had often seen the sinister smirk of terminal illness, then was consumed by it. No escape, no chance, a cruel irony. He knew the signs and symptoms, the idiosyncrasies, and it still took him. What chance for you or me? None. A frightening reality. Terrifying.

We met back in the ’80s, a few years after he settled here. I was at work. The phone rang. It was Bruce. A New York City native, he read my column and hoped I would introduce him to the bird-hunting game. He had sharpened his wing-shooting skills at a sportsmen’s club and a hunting preserve, was ready for the real thing. I asked when he was available. Wednesday was his day off. An odd couple had been forged, he high-achieving and credentialed — Yale and Harvard no less — I from the school of hard knocks, independent, a rebel. Our friendship blossomed fragrantly and bore succulent fruit that amiably withered after a decade. We even traipsed off to Sodus Point for Lake Ontario fishing trips, to the Rangeley Lakes for a New England Outdoor Writers Association safari, bass-boat I helped him select in tow. Hauling that boat, four men and their luggage up the long hill to Springfield, Vt., my Cherokee’s thermostat went kaput, requiring a hot, steamy pit stop. We got through it, though, and fished western Maine for an uneventful, three-day, May weekend. No problem, just hit it wrong. Everyone struggled. But that didn’t stop Bruce from trying. Patience was one of his many virtues, that and diligence, along with his ability to communicate, meet people, pick their brains. Determined to catch landlocked salmon and trout that weekend, he chewed ears, absorbed many tips and tried most, all for naught. He used to fanaticize back then that he’d retire at 50, buy a charter boat and take others fishing. It never happened. Perhaps it would have in time. We’ll never know. His time ran out. Tragedy in its purest form. He would have been a good captain, or anything else he put his mind to. Believe it.

A rare find, Bruce was for me a unique hunting companion I won’t forget. We were the same age, grew up during the Sixties and connected on many philosophical issues. The man was a scientist, a researcher, and his Ivy League education trained him how to find information. I was a component of that exercise, helping to satisfy his hunger for local history, his fertile mind rich as the bottomland soil we trudged. He was always fascinated with stories about the roads or trails we traveled, a swamp or upland meadow we were hunting; loved the folklore, the vernacular, the quaint upland graveyards, their tidy stonewalls. His curiosity, intellect and zeal for discovery was infectious. You could feel it in his kind brown eyes, deep as an oily sinkhole. He wanted to learn the turf, and I was a teacher. The payback was friendship and occasional medical guidance. The few times I asked for advice, he was there for me, happy to help. He even once examined me, gratis, at his Connecticut River Internists office. I was concerned about something, a false alarm. He told me to come in before lunch, he’d take a look. It tells you a lot about the man.

It hurt a little when Bruce called me before bird-hunting season more than decade ago to disclose that he was a fisherman, not a hunter. Although he loved the physical trials and camaraderie of bird hunting, he had lost his stomach for killing. I understood, respected his candor. A philosophical dilemma had swung him. The doctor committed to saving people was having trouble justifying the kill. He didn’t need the meat, and preferred fishing, which allowed him to release what he caught. He asked why I had stopped fishing, said he would like to rekindle my interest. We could fish together, continue our sporting bond and devilish banter. I told him my schedule had changed, that if I couldn’t be on the stream before the birds sang, I wasn’t interested. The only suitable alternative was dusk, which my job also precluded. I’d rather clean my kennel than fish at midday. He understood. It was too bad. Maybe someday we would reconnect.

As it turned out, that day never came. It wasn’t meant to be. But does it matter? Hardly. Friendship survives until you’re both gone. Now I’m the sole perpetuator. I will never forget Bruce, the way he dropped into my life, gave me laughs and companionship. He’ll always have sanctuary in my soul. And while I don’t believe we’ll ever meet again in some heavenly kingdom, I’m grateful for the time we had here, however brief.

Still, I do regret that the word never reached me, that I missed my chance to meet eyes, embrace, laugh about the good times, shake farewell? I guess in my own way I’ve done that now. I can feel his presence. I pray he’s listening. He was good at it.

Better than I.

posted in Columns | Comments (1)

Jul
18
2009

Solitary Contentment

by Gary Sanderson

Published: Thursday, January 01, 2009

It’s all coming back to me as I sit at my desk, space heater purring behind me, dog sleeping between it and me, noble, 9-point buck mounted above, between the windows. A steady rain splatters off the stone terrace outside as mellow gray light from the dense foggy air filters through sheers. Dry-docked, I’m thinking back, trying to make sense of a deer hunt on the first Saturday. It typified a fruitless season. Why do men hunt? That’s the question I’m pondering. Better still, why do I?

Posted high on a Colrain ridge behind an apple orchard that morning, I can still in my mind’s eye see that faint orange sunrise peeking over the eastern horizon, one that eventually cast a warm glow through openings in the cold, silent December forest. A hospitable hue, it bled through the mixed woods, a glint illuminating a tiny spot on a half-inch stick partially buried in brittle, bronze oak leaves two paces from my right boot. At first I believed it was a surveyor’s mark but couldn’t imagine it had escaped me the previous day. So I studied the brilliant orange patch, all eyes, careful not to move my head, and was convinced it was, indeed, the remnant of an old survey. Then the sun slid south and it vanished like frost from Guilford slate. Amazing, I remember thinking, the intensity a sliver of first light delivers. Then right back on task, sitting solitary and still, senses fine-tuned, awaiting a crack at salubrious winter venison.

I was nestled comfortably into a dip along a high, sturdy stonewall built by my ancestors, a realization that always brings a sense of comfort I’m grateful to comprehend in the quiet solitude of special places where my blood flows from spring holes. Makes you feel welcome. The location was selected based on many factors observed over the first five days of the shotgun season, the salient one being the nearby orchard, pungent with fermenting fruit in tree and turf. Equally significant, it was the first place where I had found scarce acorns and fresh signs of deer digging for them. Everywhere else they had been cleaned up by the many creatures that eat them. Combine the available feed with knowledge that hunters had surrounded the place when I was elsewhere on opening day, and that I had seen a buck and doe run off during noontime reconnaissance the previous day, and I liked my chances of seeing deer either feeding back to their beds or pushed by hunters.

I figured I’d get in there early and see what happened, liking my chances better than anywhere else I had hunted, but aware that deer hunting is always a long shot. I can deal with that. Being an old hardball player, I long ago learned to accept defeat without succumbing to it. It is said that a baseball hitter must learn to quickly forget failure, that even Hall of Famers are unsuccessful 70 percent of the time. More disheartening is the ratio of swings to solid contact, clearly quantifying what you’re up against. Then when you realize that the odds of taking a good Franklin County buck are steeper, it all comes into bittersweet perspective steeped in pessimism … but worth the effort. Even the finest deer hunters, which I do not count myself among, would salivate at a one-in-10 shot. Even so, it never hurts to arrive at your stand with confidence, which I was oozing with that frosty morning.

I had parked my truck along the woods at the outflow of a snowmobile trail in a frozen, brush-hogged field, packed lightly, loaded my weapon and slowly walked 150 yards up the trail, bearing left where it bore right and angling uphill toward the stonewall I knew would soon be visible in scanty light. I intended to first find the wall, then the large twin oak rooted at its base and reaching in a V to the heavens from near my intended stand, situated some 100 yards behind the orchard. I had taken the same route the previous day when the two whitetails had slipped by out of range, and I knew, with the leaves underfoot in their noisiest, frozen state, that I would not get a pop walking in. The plan was to get there as quickly as possible and settle in before deer left the orchard. When I didn’t kick one out on the way in, step one of my mission was successful. Step two would be the tedious waiting game that’s all too seldom rewarded.

As I sat to greet the new day in warm, camo wool, Mossy Oak mask hiding my face, I was enchanted by the breathless dawn, not a sound anywhere, certain I could hear a mouse within 75 yards. My attention was focused south toward the orchard, carefully scanning for movement through spaces between trees and behind deadfalls, fully aware that even when you’re convinced you’ll hear deer, you often see them first. Still, my ears and eyes were equal partners as I entered into that otherworldly state of melting into the habitat, alert as its wild critters, hoping to be in the right place at the right time. I remember thinking then how sad it is that most people in our modern culture, my own boys included, don’t understand the joy of deer hunting’s silent, motionless observation. Hunting isn’t about power and blood lust to me. It’s about the game, matching wits with an elusive beast of superior senses on its turf. That’s what draws me to the cold, gray solitude; not killing, even though I know it may come to that.

Although it’s not always easy to drag yourself from a warm bed to the dark, chilling woods, once there it’s fulfilling, the air and anticipation, sights and sounds creating a stimulating natural symphony worthy of an urban chamber. Reduced to a cripple by a bum left knee from a competitive past, the woods, the fields and the bogs have become my last, perhaps best, playing field. There is none better. Nature and challenge the attractions; seared venison medallions the occasional reward.

There were no deer sightings that morning, just a few squirrels, red and gray, crashing through the leaves to pique my interest. I have learned to tolerate those pesky little critters, never totally ignoring their audible teases even when certain it’s not a deer. A presumed squirrel sometimes becomes a deer, so you learn to investigate and forgive. But more disturbing than the squirrelly racket that morning was the total absence of a gunshot anywhere, unimaginable a generation ago when men gravitated to the woods on days off. But with much of Colrain and parts of Shelburne, Leyden, Greenfield, Deerfield and maybe even Heath within earshot from my lofty perch that calm morning, not even a distant blast, no orange-clad hunters passing. Not what I expected.

Returning midmorning-inquisitive to my truck for the ride home, I decided to circle the area. Not a hunter anywhere. I was surprised even though it only reinforced what I already knew. A local tradition is dying. Gone are the days I recall waiting as a boy before and after school for hunters to pull into the downtown checking station. They’d cozy their trucks up to a scale dangling from a grotesque frame and the attendant would hook and hoist the dead animal off the ground by rope and pulley as observers tried to guess the weight. This occurred right in the town square, butted up against the busiest eatery in town, and no one found it distasteful enough to make a public clamor. Some undoubtedly pitied the deer, opposed the public display and disagreed with hunting itself, but they contained their venom, accepting hunting as the way it was, the way it always had been, the way it always would be. How mistaken they were. Those tolerant times have disappeared along with an innate understanding of the subsistence farms owned by friends, relatives and neighbors. Back then, we all understood where our meat, milk and eggs, our boots, gloves and winter woolens came from. Most of us even knew the thump and flapping at the henhouse chopping-block. Not today. No, a troubling disconnect is now prevalent and directly related to the shrill anti-hunting outcry, not to mention the suburban affliction referred to by fancy-pants therapists as ”nature-deficiency disorder” — a catchy phrase indeed; sad, too, because it’s an American epidemic.

You wonder where it will all lead. Then again, who cares? It seems that those who know the least shriek the loudest, gathering frothy support along the way. So what can hunters, vastly misunderstood and outnumbered, possibly do other than turn a deaf ear and carry on? Sadly, that’s what it’s come to, even in our own quaint, muddy hilltowns, long ago yuppified.

The rooted few just can’t give in. We know swimming against the current only makes us stronger.

Wiser, too.

posted in Musings | No Comments

Jul
18
2009

The Painter

by Gary Sanderson

The sad news was fresh, the morning gray. I was backed up to a bluff overlooking the Green River, sitting on my tailgate, sipping coffee, watching my dogs romp up and down the bank, swimming after mallards, flushing them, returning to the plateau, shaking off, bounding through the shin-high hayfield … pure joy. My imagination soared with their enthusiasm, evaporating to another realm, surreal.

It was cool, audible north wind blustery, cherry tree bowed, leaning toward the river, bobbing like the stroke of a careful painter. Yes, exactly, a painter, ”John the Painter,” at least that’s how he always identified himself to me on the phone. His name was John McAulay, a gentle, honest man who became part of my family for five summers, van parked out front, paint-splattered portable radio, coat-hanger antenna, tuned to oldies as he applied paint, three coats, to every inch of my dwelling and outbuildings, 76 shutters — a daunting task for a crew, never mind one man, even overwhelming if you let it consume you. But John never got discouraged, just kept a steady pace, watched the weather reports and kept at it, avoiding rain and humidity like the swine flu.

Five years later, he stood back and admired his work, done the right way, his way: conscientious to a fault, ethical to the core, a rare bird in the world of painting. John was a transient who just tried to blend in, be it in your backyard or at the local coffee shop, a quiet, even dignified presence, almost Native American in disposition; pensive, reserved. And now the man, a dying breed, is dead. His heart gave out at a Greenfield laundromat; evening, took him by surprise, quick, the way he would have scripted it.

The news arrived by phone, his cell, around 9 a.m. last Thursday. On my way out the door to run the dogs, my phone rang, caller ID reading ”Greenfield 775-2385.” The number looked familiar so I picked it up. It was John’s nephew, hesitation in his voice, delivering the news that John had passed to a member of his thin speed-dial directory. We spoke for 10 or 15 minutes, me offering my sympathies, telling him how much I liked John, reminiscing, but I guess it really didn’t hit me until I released my dogs in that spring-green hayfield and sat on the tailgate, right-wing WEEI garbage on the radio, peaceful, bucolic setting, precisely how John liked it. In fact, he often ”camped” a few miles upstream.

Maybe it was his spirit, traveling with the wind, the water, but it all started coming to me: his voice, his little gray mustache, his diffident, unassuming manner, healthy distrust of the government, society, religion. I never shared this with anyone, but I have fantasized that if ever I write a novel he would be a character, sort of an itinerant hired hand, akin to an 18th-century cabin boy who returns to the mainland and drifts from town to town, farm to farm, picking up odd jobs along the way, curling up in a hayloft for the night, saying little about his past or present, mysterious; more profound than expected once he opens the window into his past, shares his perspectives on life, the world.

There was a lot more to John than met the eye. I know. He trusted me, I him. I recommended him as a painter many times, always saying that I knew if I left $100 in change on my table and took off for the week, giving him free reign of my home, not a nickel would disappear. He had no religion, just country morals, Vermont ethics, a lonely piece of existential flotsam in the turbulent sea of life, floating, content.

Over the years, nearly 56 of them, many interesting characters have dropped in and out of my life. John the Painter was one. I often described him as an old-fashioned Vermont painter, hand-scraper and brush, a Springfield boy, good way about him. Married, two kids and a home, working the General Motors assembly line in Framingham into the 1970s, he decided it wasn’t for him and withdrew, selling out, settling-up with his wife, buying a full-sized van, and making it his mobile home, interior styled as a sea captain’s quarters. From that point on, he was the captain, did his own thing, totally; no one to tell him where to go or what to do; traveling the countryside, picking up odd jobs along the way, just enough to get by, didn’t need much to keep him happy. He called the day he sold his home and bought the van the best of his life, brought peace and freedom to his conflicted soul, broke the heavy chains trying to moor him to the mainstream. I guess it took him a while, but he finally figured out that he’d rather flee the Joneses than keep up with them. And escape he did, free as the Baltimore Oriole serenading from the river’s edge, aimless, a drifter, no itinerary, no maps, no directions, no time card or punch clock; blissful autonomy. Maybe he had it all figured out, a better way; just got sick of playing the game and softly threw his cards on the table. You have to respect a man for that; at least I do.

I will miss John’s visits, his calm manner, his wry wit, sly grin, a peculiar paranoia that the government was about to reel him into a place of no return. It was he who introduced me to rabble-rouser Alex Jones, the Illuminati and other demons from the conspiratorial fringe. I enjoyed listening to his rap, molded in Scott Nearing’s ’60s, Upton Sinclair’s ’20s. He was plenty different, counter-culture, bohemian, some would say crazy. But John was not insane, just eccentric. He was genuine as the Skitchewaug Mt. bedrock he once trudged with his Vermont-bear-hunting dad — a loner, non-conformist, always well-kempt, a speck of paint here and there; dumb like a fox, a gray fox.

I will not forget John, an interesting character who dropped out, stopped in and touched me like few others have.

He taught me something.

posted in Musings, Tavern Tidbits | No Comments

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