THE FIELD

"From the rise he looks out over his place. This is it. This is all there is in the world--it contains everything there is to know or possess--yet everywhere people are knocking their brains out trying to find something different, something better. His kids all scattered, looking for it. Everyone always wants a way out of something like this, but what he has here is the main thing there is--just the way things grow and die, the way the sun comes up and goes down every day. These are the facts of life. They are so simple they are almost impossible to grasp.” Bobbie Ann Mason in “Spence and Lila.”

Jolie sent me this writing with a note that said, “Pa, this passage reminded me of you.” For years now, it’s been taped above my work station to remind me of the important things. Things like family, sense-of-place, connections. Longevity.

The back field on the hillside is grown high with wildflowers and hay. This morning the dew has me soaked to the hips as I hike to the top of our line where the old growth oaks describe the border. Deer have laid in the tall grass. I crawl onto one of the matted areas and feel the warmth of the ground. There’s the aroma of hay. It’s not dewy here so I assume this bed has not long been abandoned. There are three more beds; a family group, denizens of these acres recently grazing this meadow in the moonlight free from the heat of day and the deerflies.

I’m reminded of the Andrew Wyeth painting “Distant Thunder”: His wife Betsy lies asleep in a field after picking berries. Nearby lies the family dog, alert to a far-off storm. The fields of summer, ripe with strawberries, daisies and wispy tall grasses are, for me as well, a comforting place to be.

I’ve known these hilly meadows for half a century plus a few years. Before then they were farm fields planted with crops--late nineteenth to early twentieth century horse-tilled land, treeless except for the hedgerows along the drainages. The tack from those horses still hang in the barn we use now as our residence. I’ve seen the alders and the aspens and the white pines, along with the hardwoods, reclaim parts of these fields through the years, and have been witness to how the earth regenerates itself. It’s taken fifty years; the change in the landscape has been transformative, reverting back to a semblance of the way it must have looked before the settlers arrived and began clearing the trees.

I’ve hiked, hunted, skied, and bush-hogged these fields. I first waded through their tall grasses as an adolescent. Later on, with my young son and daughter and later still with seven grandkids. These grasses have known the stomping of familiar feet for quite a while. And I wonder: What is it about a piece of turf that makes it so special? What is it that inspires a man to literally hug the earth as I found myself doing this morning?

My father called this “God’s country.” This, coming from a man who shunned church-going; preferring, I suppose, to find his religion where he could be witness to the Divine in Nature right there at his feet, free from the interpretations and scolding of men in cloth. Bobby, my Dad, would deny any kind of affiliation with the formality of organized religion, although he was baptized as a Lutheran and celebrated Communion as a young man. The land---nature---was his religion and his church. Accompanying him countless times throughout my life, I was aware of the happiness he felt and the lightness of his step when hiking these fields. Like many a twentieth century man, he was not always happy and often carried a heavy load. Here was a place of respite, quietude, wildlife, earthiness, open skies and the vista of rolling hills unobstructed by and free from the litter of new-age contraptions. Here, one could easily become a believer in the awesomeness of the sublime if there was ever any doubt.

The soil of these fields once nurtured potatoes and grain. Belgian horses pulled the plow and the hay rake. As they worked, they contributed to the fertilization of the soil. Now it’s the deer and the bears and the countless furbearers, including seven dogs I have known, that wander through fertilizing, if you will, as they go. The crops are gone, but the hay and the wildflowers and the trees continue to flourish. There is fertilization and pollination taking place multi-fold; the nurturing of all things floral and faunal. And one could say, a nurturing of one’s spirit as well.

I stand in the middle of the meadow and listen to the drone of the insects; the bees, crickets and myriad others. The deer flies have found me and buzz around my head. I follow the  tractor path I made the other day when collecting some firewood. The tractor, a fifty six year old Ford Workmaster, has been called “Henry” since the day I bought it fifteen years ago; a term of endearment popular with the grandkids and used in addressing it (him) as if he were a longstanding family pet.

It seems not that long ago but it was, in fact, eleven years ago that Emma and I rode Henry about this field one November afternoon. I recall that it proceeded one of those bump-in-the-road experiences of life which left me somewhat drained spiritually. Emma, our first grandchild, was five and visiting us for a weekend. She decided it would be a good idea to take Henry “back in the field for a picnic.” Never mind that it was blustery and cold. Yet, the sun was shining, at least part of the time, so I grabbed a blanket and we started out with a picnic bag of essentials: cookies and Ovaltine. Emma said, “We can eat cookies just as good with mittens on, right ‘Bompa’?”

We drove slowly down the hill, across the brook and up through the woods trail to the open meadow, Emma chattering the whole way. We meandered around the field where I let Emma steer at will, up to the hilltop where we could look across at the house with the smoke wafting from the chimney, then downhill to the grove of pines. We stopped close to them in the tall grass and spread the blanket atop the matted indentations where three deer had bedded the night before. Sheltered from the wind, we broke out the peanut butter cookies and the Ovaltine and, while we picnicked, Emma used the binoculars to closely inspect the scudding clouds.

With Emma snug against me, resting her head upon my chest, teaching me the finer points of cloud observation and explaining to me how the field mice will come along to eat the crumbs after we leave, I was filled with the pleasure of the moment and moved by the beauty of her laughing face. I secretly wished that we could stay the way we were and not change, that she would always think of me as she does now. Then she said something goofy about the deer droppings nearby and I reacted with an exaggerated look of disgust. She laughed so hard that she spat some cookie crumbs into my face and of course, that was even more hilarious. The moment reminded me of times when another little girl, my daughter, had laid her head against my chest and when that little guy, my son, had wrestled with me in the meadow, laughing out loud.

We finished the cookies and Emma announced, “We better get Henry back to the barn and wash the mud from the tires.” She jumped up and put the lunch bag into the trailer while I shook the crumbs from the blanket. She paused to watch a flock of geese pass overhead and I could see the wonder in her eyes as she followed their flight. The November sun lit her face and cast long shadows across the field. Then she turned and ran to me, smiling. She hugged me hard and said, “I love you Bompa. C’mon, let’s go for a tractor ride!” It goes without saying that this was the balm I needed for what ailed me. So it is with this place: It’s all there is in the world. It contains everything there is to know or possess.

I hike uphill and feel the strain of leg muscles working to propel me forward. I think of the power of the Belgian work horses that used to work this field. I wonder about the farmer manning the plow, ordering the horses, cajoling them, praising or cussing them. I wonder if he even had the time to give a thought to things sublime or everlasting? I know we shared the same first name and we both lived a good portion of our lives atop this hill. But I can never know if he pondered anything beyond crop cycles and gettin’ things done. Artifacts he left behind speak of his craftsmanship and I like to believe he had an artistic bent, if only utilitarian. I can suppose he appreciated, as well as any one of us, the special awareness of sense-of-place. Perhaps, at the end of the day, he had some abstract thoughts along the lines of those I am recalling now in the more eloquent words of Robert Duncan:

Often I am permitted to return to a meadow

as if it were a scene made-up by the mind,

That is not mine, but a made place,

That is mine, it is so near to the heart,

An eternal pasture folded in all thought

So that there is a hall therein

That is a made place, created by light

Wherefrom the shadows that are forms fall.

The sun-heated dew is lifting from the meadow and the fog is blurring the trees at its border. Within the fog, at a distance removed, a deer rises from the grass and stands still as a statue. It watches me as I stay my position. A minute goes by. Then with a flick of its tail it leaps into the tree line, there where the wood chunks from the fallen oak are stacked. Against the stack leans the splitting maul left behind from the previous day. There’s some work left to be done. For a moment though, I let my mind wander as I stare into the mist. There are forms taking shape within the shifting fog, vague shadowy figures assuming a familiarity of posture and bearing. I welcome the visitations and give license to imagination and illusion.

　

　

ELYSIAN SLOUGH

It’s been a while since you’ve come here to fish. Back then¾a forever ago¾it was easier going. You’ve assembled your nine foot fly rod and from a high point on the sloping meadow you study the stream where it meanders through the slough, and see a trout rising. Between you and it, at the bottom of the meadow and before the water, stands a hedgerow of multiflora rose and spiny hawthorn. You don’t remember it being there. You have memories of approaching the river on warm evenings during springtime when, back then, the field was bordered by wild phlox and flowering dogwood. You look for a detour but there is no easy way. You walk through the meadow to the hedgerow and look for an opening. There’s a game trail that offers an opportunity for access if you’re willing to assume the posture of a quadruped. You break down your fly rod and proceed to bust brush, like you did years ago along other streams. It added an adventurous tone to your forays and was the modus operandi to reach the most secluded portions of a river and therefore, the least fished. Halfway in you determine that the hedge is a wider swath than you thought. You look at the bloodied tops of your hands and then at the new tear in your patched waders and feel the burn of a scratch on your cheek and begin to doubt your sanity. You remind yourself that as an elder you should be sitting streamside in a camp chair casually fishing with bait and a bobber. You rationalize that since you’ve already taken down the four piece rod and navigated the thicket this far, it would be a wasted effort to back down now.

You peer through the barbed tangles looking for an opening and curse yourself for not carrying the brush clippers in your pack. There’s an illuminated clearing ahead, so you continue, grasping the most threatening stalks between the thorns and bending them away. The unseen ones seem to have a life of their own when they grab hold of you out of nowhere and won’t let go, like unfortunate events that arise suddenly and stop you cold. You move gingerly and plan every step, bending and twisting here, duck walking there, assuming positions among the thorns unkind to one with limited flexibility. You deduce with a certain amount of logic that it’s probable there haven’t been fishermen here before you. That alone holds promise and you regain the feel-good feeling you had¾ was it just last night?¾ when you were sedated, semi-comatose and dreaming of this, your once favorite trout run. You persevere and sacrifice a few more inches of exposed flesh to the thorns. The river beckons.

At last you make the swampy clearing and do your best to stay on top of the grassy hillocks or else sink into the muck. You trudge closer to the stream bank where you disturb a pair of geese; they voice their concern rather vociferously and slip into the water. They bark back and forth and paddle into the current which carries them downstream and into the glow of an otherworldly sunset. At the same time, a muskrat appears at the opposite bank swimming upstream and when it sees you, dives for cover with a splash. Surely all the commotion will have put down the trout. You edge forward at a crouch, eyes on the water and looking for anything to indicate a rise. From beneath your feet a bull frog springs into the water and you flinch.

You stand upright and begin to reassemble your rod, the need for stealth diminished by all the activity. You’re confident now that the riser you had first seen from the meadow has taken the hint and withdrawn to safety. To seal the deal, a kingfisher flies over the stream with a fish gripped in its beak. You thread the line and leader through the tiptop and tuck the rod under your arm as you fiddle with the fly box and gaze at the water. With purpose, you select a newly tied, diminutive, white-winged dry fly and hold it before you. You tie it onto the tippet and head for more solid ground.

You’re drawn to the slough because the water¾close to its headwaters¾will harbor a population of native trout, and what seems like a lifetime ago now, you’ve experienced here some fine fishing moments. You recall those times as being in the company of a young man, an unburdened, vigorous and happy-go-lucky sort with good intentions and high hopes. You wonder, oftentimes, what ever became of him. If you could say anything to him now, it would be to berate him for squandering his acute senses and physicality on foolish temptations and bad decisions. You’d tell him not to waste time. You know that the young man would scoff at you and call you an old codger and tease you about your waning abilities as a fisherman. You’d tell him you had more experience and could fish circles around him and you were going to show him how it’s done. “You’ll see. Just watch,” you say aloud as you point the tip of the rod at the water.

It’s a long run of slow moving water, barely a riffle to be seen, with a silt-covered bottom unlike the rockiness of the bigger river farther downstream. You’re limited to casting from the bank. To wade would mean becoming mired up to your knees or more. You emit a groan when you recall how you found that out one evening when, fighting a trout, you were forced to jump off the bank into the water where you sank to your hips in mud. You remember how you struggled to free yourself before darkness set-in. It was a struggle repeated throughout your careless years, when jumping without thinking and suffering the consequences of trespass or temptation. Never mind you say. What’s done is done. You remind yourself that angst is for the suffering of younger men. You’ve come here to redeem a few chits earned from atonement, so you turn your attention to the river and those things about it that please you.

You’ve seen the surface rife with the rings of rising trout on warm evenings when swarms of mayflies brought them out to feed, as well as the bats and swallows. You didn’t know then, if your cast fly would even reach the water lest it be snatched out of the air by bird or flying mammal. Although then you preferred quicker waters where you could wade among the rocks and hear the purling sound, the slough had it’s special charm. You became enchanted with it’s voice born among the peepers and frogs, the birds and insects; the musky scent of swamp, sprouting reeds, skunk cabbage and fiddle back ferns; the alluring perfumes of flowering shrubs. All this never failed to stir you. Now it’s more of a comforting feeling than the stirring of the testosterone concoction within that it used to be. You find yourself conversing with that young man and reminding him to appreciate important things like beauty and serenity.

You cross another game trail that leads to the water from the hedgerow, with fresh tracks of deer imprinted in the mud. You hope this may be a better route to follow on the way out. From where you stand the hedge seems fortress-like, separating the fields of the hillside from the marsh along the river. With some trepidation, you wonder how far up and down the stream it continues. You’re not enamored with the prospect of having to fight your way through those entanglements with evening coming on. The suggestion comes to you suddenly, as if a whisper carried upon the breeze, that you ought to not worry, that this is where you need to be.

Then a fish rises close to the opposite bank. You’ve heard it first and when you turn to look, you notice the spreading ripples on the surface. A change overcomes you, a metamorphic oddity when your older self is invigorated by the spirit of the young man emerging from beneath the surface of your skin. He frees you from the bonds of certain infirmities. You forget who you are and how you came to be this way. You forget about doubt and regret. Forgetfulness is an asset assumed when you have a fly rod in hand and there are trout rising within the range of your cast.

So you pull a good length of line from the reel and false cast for distance, timed so that when you see the next rise you can offer the fly in that direction, keeping the faith that it will alight just so and float just so to entice a strike. You’ve not forgotten the way it is when a trout takes a high floating fly and begins to fight. You and who you were find common ground in the everlasting moment. Twilight inspires the residents of the marsh to sing more sweetly than ever. Mayflies have begun their angelic flight. Another trout rises and inhales the dry fly¾the last one you tied and named, for reasons obscure to you now, “Angel of Mercy.” You strike and the rod bends and from an elevated plane above the stream you hear the reverberations of your own voice. “I told you so!” it intones, “I told you so!”

 

STARDUST AND WATER FAERIES

 An essay from April of last year:

There’s a dog barking in the hollow and the crescent moon is low on the western horizon. The air is still, save for intermittent breaths of current redolent of earthy musk. The sweetness of an enchanting April evening scented with greening grass and sprouting buds, a spattering of stars; like a coy girl newly bloomed, freckle-faced and fresh from her bath, the fragrance of her shampooed hair enhancing her special aura and causing the young suitor on the porch swing beside her to suffer palpitations and loss of coherent speech.

I sit on the patio chair looking skyward and count five airliners coursing the jet-ways west and east. It’s a busy highway up there. The strobe lights in the sky mimic those of the various tall structures upon the hilltops. The scintillating stars, in my mind, are better suited to the romance of nighttime.

Earlier I had been at the river casting for trout; there came a blizzard of mayflies above the run, insect-faeries performing flights of fancy in the air. Their lightness of being was enhanced by the glow of dusk. In a random shifting of direction they would appear to be twinkling. The chaotic nature of the gathering belied the choreography of entomological romance. There’s a dance happening then, as graceful as any ballet: courting pairs describing intricate patterns in their rising and falling. An angler attempting to follow the paths of their flight with the tip of his or her fly rod would appear to be conducting a symphony orchestra. Yet, except for the sound of water, there is nothing to be heard. Thousands of fluttering wings, amid such frenzied activity; you’d think the stir would create at least a whisper. I’d be curious to find out if an enhanced microphone would prove otherwise and pick-up on any kind of background music.

So it is, I can only imagine, in the stardust. The dance of the spheres. The light-speed events, the whirly-gig formations of gaseous nebulae, explosions and implosions and eruptions. All that happening and it’s lucky that the most I hear this night are spring peepers and a mongrel‘s song. You forget about this in the daylight. Until, that is, you’re on the river fishing for trout amid throngs of insects and you’re oddly reminded of stardust. Later on you’re on the hilltop in the dark gazing at the sky and contemplating water faeries. The comparison isn’t too much of a stretch when you consider that, from a distant perspective, a swarm of mayflies in the twilight isn’t unlike the gauzy image of a far away galaxy.

Bugs and stars; an improbable link, I’ll admit. But in the dark of a sensuous spring evening, romanticism seems more logical than realism in the processing of stimuli from time spent on the river. It is a dreamy night, after all. I’m at liberty to mull over the romance of trout streams and starlight and evenings of long ago when starry-eyed in puppy love. Unabashed, I remember being enamored with faeries of literature and having romantic notions¾ seven or eight years old at the time¾ regarding exotic women, well, girls, and wondering how a guy went about planting a kiss on one of them. And later, as an adolescent James Dean wannabe, the tongue-tied awkwardness of being confronted with just such a possibility on an evening similar to this. When realism stared you straight in the face¾ she wasn’t Tinker Bell but an elfin beauty, nevertheless¾ and there came that heart stopping, Juicy Fruit gum tasting, soft first kiss that perpetuated the promise of romance on starry nights.


On the other hand, there are varieties of faeries you want to avoid. I’m thinking now of the water faerie Glaistig from Irish folklore, who would lure the hapless victim to dance; an insinuation of carnal knowledge her bait; the sight of her emergence from the river or swamp provoking lust; the tryst preceding a forced drowning. The provocative water nixie from the Brothers Grimm who lured the huntsman near the river for an embrace, only to drag him under the surface. There are marsh-like sections of the river, secluded runs that twist and curve through the slough, with a silt bottom where you can sink up to your knees in river mud when you feel the need to wade. There are carp and muskrats that will brush against your leg at times. But the trout are there too. And prolific hatches of mayflies with the ensuing eventide mating ceremonies that cause the trout to surface feed. The river appears smooth even though there is a sustained current flow; the glassiness mirrors the image of hills and sunset sky; eerie sounds permeate the stillness of the marsh. You stand in the reeds ready to cast to the nearest feeding trout, waiting for the telltale rise rings to form. A bright star has appeared over the ridgeline and the water faeries are rising and falling in an all-out orgy. Bats swoop and vie for the feast as the trout begin to gorge on the spent and fallen mayflies.

You’re aware of muskrat holes along the bank and cast a glance towards the rotted and moss-laden tree trunk laying half submerged at the bend, the gnarled deformations of its limbs reaching out of the water as if waiting to become animate on cue and grasp a careless fisherman. Burls on the trunk look disturbingly like the water spirit Jenny Greenteeth, a river-inhabiting hag with flowing hair and green teeth who drags her victims to a watery grave. You experience a brief chill along your backbone when you think of what may lurk in such lairs.

A rise ring appears. You false-cast to gauge the length of your line, cast again and watch the loop straighten to deliver the fly. When the violent strike occurs and the set is made and line begins to peel off the reel, you have to wonder what’s really at the end of the line. All around you is procreation and predation; things being eaten alive. If something were to brush against your leg about now, the scream you hear might not be from a swamp creature but the sound of your own voice.

One star becomes a dozen; below them, amid them, the faeries do their dance. The swirls on the water resemble planetary rings.

　

　

　

HOOKED BY A LAZY LOON

I was sorting through the old lures in my Dad’s tackle box when some memories came flooding in, inspiring the essay written here. It’s quite a collection of mostly wooden, painted lures and plugs. At one time, Dad was a well-equipped lake fisherman. I recalled the vacations our family spent in Canada when out fishing in the boat and utilizing that very tackle box. Good memories; the kinds that dull the worse of times most of us endure on occasion. I’ve examined the good and the not so good in writing about one particular day out on the lake. It was fifty eight years ago, therefore it was necessary to take artistic license with dialogue, narration, and sequence of events. The essence of the tale is true.

　

The Lazy Loon (bottom), the Weezel, the Crazy Crawler and others.

Dad was literally hooked by  Mom in Chippewa, Quebec, Canada on the lake at White Pine Lodge circa 1953. Her errant rod handling with a “Lazy Loon” multi-barbed lure snagged him in the face through his eyebrow. (In those days, Dad still had his eyebrows. It was a few years later that he lost them trying to ignite a faulty gas oven. The ensuing mini explosion singed them off and they never grew back). We were in our small boat and anchored in a cove at the edge of some lily pads, Dad, Mom and me. My two older sisters had elected to stay at camp with some cousins and flirt with the French-Canadian guides down by the docks. That‘s to say, if whatever it is that pre-teen girls do to grab some attention could be called serious flirting.

I remember that it was a warm, still morning and I was reclined on the wooden seat with my back against the bulwark, feet propped on the starboard gunwale, pole in hand and watching my line rigged with a bobber. Actually I was dividing my attention between the bobber and the damselflies darting over the pads. One had settled near my feet onto the gunnel. I became interested in its coloration and the intricacy of its form. Ever the well-rounded sportsman, I began wishing for my BB gun, thinking that it would be fun to have at hand during the boring, slow times of fishing, that I could plink at the lilies and possibly do some “wing shooting” at the damselflies as they flitted about. The sun shine was comforting after an early wake-up and a cold, foggy boat ride across the lake at dawn. The warmth plus the gentle movements of the boat at anchor, and the quiet, happy talk between my often argumentative parents enhanced my contented feeling. In those days, theirs was an often stormy relationship, the cause of which I didn’t fully understand. Times of calm waters were to be savored.

At one point, a feeling of euphoria welled-up inside me and I needed to let it out. But I simply said, “Ah, this is the life.” What I was insinuating I didn’t know how to put into words, being but eight years old and inarticulate. I meant to say that it was great to be on the water on a beautiful day in surroundings such as the far Canadian wilderness, enjoying the company of my parents, as they enjoyed themselves for a change; proud of our little wooden boat with the ten horsepower Martin outboard which Dad had painstakingly restored for what was to become annual vacation trips to the Canadian wilds; happy for the lack of drama and feeling carefree.

Seated mid boat, Mom smiled at me and more than likely knew, as mothers are apt to know all things about their offspring, what I was trying to say. She looked over her shoulder at Dad, sitting astern, fiddling with his tackle, and they exchanged knowing smiles. Mom reached back with her free hand and patted Dad’s knee. I felt so good, I knew that at any moment, the red and white bobber on my line would become animated with a huge bass or monster pike taking the bait. I focused my attention on it wholeheartedly while Mom reeled-in and shifted her position on the seat to present her lure to new water. Suddenly Dad uttered “Umph,” followed by Mom crying, “Oh, Bob!” and me excitedly, “Did ya get one?” The boat was now rocking violently side to side as Mom quickly swung around to face Dad. I grabbed hold as the other side of the boat lifted high and I was suddenly looking up at the toes of my sneakers. Lake water lapped at the back of my neck. I hadn’t yet processed the visual clues as to what had happened and as I stole a glance to see what the fuss was about, I reasoned that in a moment of inspiration, Mom had made an amorous advance onto Dad’s lap and they were embracing in a rare state of unbridled affection. A shocking turn of events for sure.

In the meantime Dad had yanked at the lure piercing his forehead and blood was running down his face. Mom had steadied herself and was kneeling in front of Dad and dabbing at the embedded lure with an oily rag. I recall thinking how strange Dad looked with that lure attached to his face and hanging over his eye. I surmised that the fishing was, in all likelihood, done for the day so I began to gather in my line. Dad said to me, “Buddy, get the pliers from the tackle box under your seat.” I handed them over and Mom said “Don’t rock the boat now, son.” Mom held the pliers in place while Dad, with his strong hand and vice-like grip, clipped off the protruding barb, enabling her to back-out the hook. The Lazy Loon was not a diminutive lure; the situation could have been much worse. The first aid kit was opened, iodine and a bandage applied, and my worries assuaged by Dad’s calm demeanor. Afterwards we simply resumed fishing.

Dad was never one to worry about a wound. He liked to say that pain was a figment of the imagination. There were plenty of times I witnessed him shrug-off an injury and refuse to be doted upon. On the other hand, he took a certain amount of pleasure in exposing old scars and relating the incidents that caused them. He exhibited particular pride in showing-off his skiing injury, the long, wide scar across his kneecap and telling the story of climbing out of the gully after his fall against a sharp rock. Perhaps he had become apathetic to pain, having suffered more than his share of hooks and barbs in his lifetime. He had lost his younger sister--his best friend--when she was but sixteen and fatally stricken with meningitis. His birth father died before Dad could get to know him. He struggled during the Great Depression. Then there came a near fatal head injury, an extended coma and a difficult recovery fraught with haphazard episodes of epileptic seizures--an affliction he had to cope with for the rest of his life, and probably his greatest fear. That alone, was drama enough to reconcile. But he was a blue-collar guy who enjoyed his brew which didn’t mix well with his prescription nor his relationship with Mom.



Left photo: Mark & catch. Right photo: sister Sue & Mark at the dock.


They laughed about the fishing incident and joked about it with my Aunts and Uncles back at camp. “I was the best thing she caught all day,” Dad teased. These were halcyon days, when I was able to witness my parents free from the pains of events beyond their control, when their passionate enjoyment found in life’s simple pleasures and happenstance superseded their passionate conflicts and bouts of unreasonableness. They seemed to be always happy and free from care when roughing it in the outdoors; it was an infectious state-of-being which influenced me in a profound way.

Some months ago I impaled a hook deep into the tip of my finger while fly fishing. Dad’s philosophy regarding pain reverberated in my mind while I attempted to push through the barbed tip so to enable me to clip it off and then pull it out. But it took a doctor and an injection of local anesthetic to finally remove it, without much pain. Later on a guide at the lodge told me, “A couple shots of rye and a pliers would’a done it!” More than likely, that’s what Dad would have done, but without the whiskey. He liked his beer and ale but never drank whiskey. I understand how it is to get hooked, this wasn’t the first time in my fishing career that it happened, albeit the others were merely pricks of the point and easily removed. It’s the deeply imbedded barbs, literally and figuratively, that hurt the most; the wounds within, that are the most difficult to understand.



 Far from Quebec.

Our little fishing boat came to spend its last days in “dry dock” up in the barn. The final trip to Canada took place fifty five years ago, and now what’s left of the boat rests in the field, a haven for mice and rabbits. A decade later Dad and I took her out one last time while he was still alive and when she was still somewhat sea worthy. We launched onto nearby Loon Lake and motored about, never mind the leaky keel. In the middle of the lake, we slowed to trolling speed and Dad reminisced about the loons on the Canadian lakes and the good fishing times we had. “It’s a funny thing,” he said, “here we are on Loon Lake, far from Chippewa. I’ve got loons on my brain.” He became quiet as he mulled over a thought. He twisted the throttle and the outboard came to life, lifting the prow as we gained speed. In a raised voice he shouted, “Remember that Looney lure or whatever it was called, that your mother caught me with?” With the sound of the old Martin outboard, the familiar wake trailing behind the boat and the way Dad looked as he sat at the stern, grinning with his face into the wind, we could have been on that very lake in Quebec. I remembered it well.

FOLLOWING OLD TRAILS

After an overnight snow you’re out on the skis early before the freshness of the morning diminishes and before the new powder is disturbed by the afternoon winds. Dawn and the sun rising over an unmarked landscape veiled in snow. A renewal of sorts which is yet deceitful in that you’re led to believe that Mother Earth hasn’t eroded in any way since yesterday. Yourself included. If old man winter has a stratagem, it is founded in subterfuge and realized in his ability to mask old facades and blemishes with fresh applications of powder. The Bearded Ice Man as the Mary Kay cosmetics guy.

The old ski trail is covered yet you’re able to follow it with ease and stay in its track. Heading down hill with little resistance is a good way to start the day. A quiet, weightless acceleration that will lessen your tenuous hold onto terra firma if only momentarily. You’re propelled quickly with little effort from point A to point B as if on adolescent legs. You welcome the illusion but you‘re familiar with the scam and know what lies ahead on the uphill when those adolescent legs are replaced by the ones no longer under warranty. You begin to wish for longer downhill runs and blinding speeds knowing what you do about Einstein’s theories. If you can go fast enough long enough the less you’ll age.

In following old trails you’re susceptible to knowing that the last time you were here you owned more of your corporeal cells. You take a look at your back trail and postulate, There went a younger man. This is an affliction recently acquired but you rationalize with the assumption that some of your contemporaries may also be looking over their shoulders more often than they used to.

You enter the narrow lane through the thickets where the tracks of fox, grouse, deer and other animals crisscross. This is the same route you skied after an autumn snowfall. You had stopped to eat a trail bar and used your kerchief as a napkin. You dropped it there by mistake and found it days later, surrounded by bear tracks, ripped and chewed on, mouthed into an irregular shape frozen solid with the bear’s saliva. The indentation where the bear had laid in the snow was clearly visible. You wonder how soon after sampling the snack’s residue had the bear gone into hibernation and if it had denned-up nearby. It’s a late date in February. In a few weeks, come a warming trend, this bear and others, perhaps with new cubs, will be out looking for more snacks.

Weeks later you skied over the hill onto the old tree farm and followed paths through matured plots of blue spruce and scotch pine. You noticed multiple sets of coyote tracks leading to a small clearing and followed them there. You came upon a rough circle of trodden and compacted snow stained with blood. Centered within its perimeter were the remains of a large whitetail buck partially consumed by the hungry canines. Nearby is where your friend, Ray, the tree grower, had his deer stand. An antlered buck such as this would have caused his heart to skip a beat if he were on the lookout. It may have supplied him with a cache of food and another rack to hang above his reading chair. You ski farther on and stop below the tree stand, half fallen now and overgrown with brush. On any other day, while he was still alive, you would have skied all the way to the bottom of this hill to Ray’s and his late wife Pat’s house by the creek, put up your skis and knocked on their door. There’d be a fire in the stove, homemade cookies and either tea or a glass of Ray’s homemade wine to fuel-up on before you skied home.

Following old trails you’re aware of hazards including falls, sudden animal encounters or frostbite. Or, if you will, the bite of old memories frozen in time. A danger exists of becoming overcome with nostalgia if your direction leads you past too many sites where the heaviness of history outweighs the lightness of being you’ve set out to assume. With this in mind (although you do allow yourself small pangs of reminiscence) you mainly focus on the trail ahead and on making new tracks, perhaps down through the woods or across the way to the open meadow.

You take a circuitous route that follows the creek gully. Near the creek you examine the impression in the snow where a grouse has landed with its tracks leading into the brush. You’ve seen many such tracks this winter which gives you hope for a healthy population to carry through to spring and new broods. Another time you had startled a red tail hawk with its kill of a grouse and watched it take flight with some remnants in its talons. You collected a few of the remaining feathers of that grouse to add to your fly tying supplies.

Then comes spring, the trout are rising and you’re at the river one morning standing in the current with a hand made fly at the end of the line. You’ve recycled that grouse whose feather will be airborne once again when the fly line is looped behind you and then forward to settle, with a modicum of grace, upon the water. The grouse had enticed the hawk, although involuntarily. In its new job description, part of its remains will eventually entice a trout.

You stand still for a while taking stock of what’s around you. You feel the water flowing past and the subtle throb of its currents; the pulse of the upstream waters rushing to replenish whatever lies downstream. You wonder if a fisherman may be replenished similarly since you feel a revival of sorts whenever you’re here, whatever the significance of time and the river flowing. Moreover, you’re surrounded by the fecundity of springtime in bloom. Renewal is undeniable. You’re invigorated. When you make the cast and the line settles to float upon the water it assumes a serpentine form, and you think of the similarities between the curvaceous lines of fishing and ski tracks carved in the snow. But there are no old trails here, only the course of the river.

　

　

MAYFLIES ON GLASS

Nursing a cold and battling the shack nasties, I was couch-bound and reading a book about fly fishing in the northwest. It stirred up a concoction of memories of my trip to British Columbia last spring and fly fishing in its mountains. As good an elixir to lessen the ague of a head cold as any I had taken. Outside there were snow devils whirling across the yard; fresh powder of the overnight snowfall spiraling upward to reveal the glitter of ice crystals embedded upon the hard crust. The wind chill was calculated at negative fifteen degrees Fahrenheit; another frigid day in a long spell of arctic conditions preceded by a cycle of rain, sleet and ice. I was beginning to seriously ponder the onset of spring.

Broken clouds raced across the sky, sporadically revealing its blueness and letting the sun pour through the window where I sat propped to catch the warmth on my shoulders. It felt as good as that high mountain sun in the Canadian Rockies felt after fishing in the rain, when the roiling clouds and thunder had left in their wake an impossibly brilliant rainbow arching across the full extent of the blue sky. Author Thomas McGuane once wrote, “For such things are we placed upon this careening mudball.” Starved of sunshine here in the northeast for much of the winter, even a little dose of it through the panes can make you almost giddy.

Winter in its extremes can be an impediment to giddiness unless it’s maintained artificially by food or strong drink. I find my equilibrium by staying as active as I can in the outdoors, hiking and cross country skiing. I’ll avoid being trite by not recounting the ways in which winter ski trails can lead to euphoria. This day though, I’m stuck indoors with a good book and day dreaming: of mountains in bloom, clear lakes and rivers, wild trout rising to mayflies, a fly rod rigged and in hand as the morning sun cracks the dawn over the water and…well, there you go, it’s been said before. In a few weeks will come the vernal equinox and the winged harbingers of spring: the geese and the robins and the red-winged blackbirds, many of which will nest along familiar watercourses. There the trout will begin to shake off their sluggishness as the waters warm and the mayflies will begin their flights of fancy. Still, as one with a case of the doldrums, it seems like a long ways off.

And then as if I had wished for them out loud, there they were, not literally in front of my nose, but waiting to be discovered behind my back, etched upon the window pane by Jack Frost himself: a flight of mayflies as if recently hatched from the surface of the stream. No less exquisite made of ice crystals as they are organically and animated in spring time, and no less instilling in me that elated feeling when it’s time to cast that first fly. I wonder, What if I had been thinking of something other than fly fishing? Would the haphazard appearance of those frosted designs have resembled something else? Certainly philosophers and mathematicians have pondered theories of parallels and counterparts and random happenstance, submitting explanations for things such as “getting what you wish for.” Not to mention the psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach (my test being not ink blots but frost formations). No matter. I felt better for a while in seeing them, never mind the science.

　

　

　

　

THE ROCK AND A CHRISTMAS TREE

It’s nineteen degrees, the wind is gusting, and the blowing snow has covered the ski tracks I made yesterday. Christmas is just around the corner; the time has come to head over to the local tree farm and harvest one for our living room.

The route to Pleasant Valley Tree Farm could well have been an inspiration for a Currier and Ives print, and as I drive I’ll probably be in a Holiday frame of mind. Especially if Jingle Bells or Sleigh Ride is playing on the radio. But then the trout stream will come into view, darkly winding through the glen below the road and I’ll forget about Yuletide and remember instead eventful days during the season of the trout and fishing this stream and others, when Christmas and winter were nowhere in my thoughts. Like that warm April morning at Mill Creek in a light drizzle, busting brush along the bottom of the steep bank, approaching The Rock. Cold water and a strong current but feeling good about the onset of spring with no more snow on the ground; hearing the rushing water and seeing the beginning of buds on the trees and the poking up of the skunk cabbage. Feeling good to be fly fishing again after a long winter.

There was that short cast to the pocket water at the base of The Rock, the aggressive pull of the trout and the ensuing tug of war which denoted new beginnings as certainly as the other signs of life sprouting along the stream bank. That brown trout, speckled in red and black along its yellow flanks, a survivor of winter, surfacing from the drab water in a display of color, becoming a special harbinger of Spring. There was that feeling of elation found not so much in the physical act of catching a fish, although that is always part of it, but more so because of being witness to the simple miracle of the trout and the reaffirmation of nature’s cyclical continuity.

As the snow flies and accumulates on the banks of the streams, and as ice forms at the edges of shallow pools, I will think of The Rock as a symbolic sentinel standing mid stream guarding against winter’s pessimism, otherwise known as cabin fever or the shack nasties or the winter doldrums. Come springtime, trout will inevitably return to the pocket of still water at its base and to lies in other pockets and pools along the rocky stream. I’ll be reminded of that, whenever I pass it by this winter. Then again, winter is what you make of it. For starters, an outing to cut a Christmas fir or spruce tree is reason to be glad. And then decorated and standing near the window as the flurries blow across the yard, the Yule tree will be as fitting a symbol as any of optimism and good cheer.

　

　

　

　

　

　

THE LOST VALLEY

BOOK TITLE:

FROM THE CLEAR WATERS

(Illustrated) 

by Mark Cudney

An excerpt from the story,

"The Lost Valley"

The rain finally stopped so Luke decided to forge ahead, trying his best to recapture some of the old magic. He thought maybe it was the weather or old wounds that dulled his spirits. 'But no,' he thought, 'things just aren't the same.'

At the boggy area with the tag alders Luke suddenly remembered Walt shooting at a rising woodcock with Heidi on point, right where he was standing now. It was their last hunt together, and they had been heading back to the truck after a long day. It was a scene to be captured in paint, and it was how Luke saw it now. Earlier he had found an old spent shell casing and had wondered if it could possibly be one of theirs from time gone by. 'Good old Walter,' he thought, 'gone all these years. MIA.'

He whistled to his pup and kneeled to scratch its ears. "You did good today, boy. I think it's time I gave you a real name. I think I'll call you Wally, if that's okay with you. He would have liked to be here today. He would have liked you."

Crossing the soft mud of the bog, Luke struggled for balance. He had to force each step forward out of the muck, which sucked at his boots. Once on firmer ground he stopped to unload his shotgun and clean his glasses. He called to his pup, dug in his pocket and fed him a handful of dry chow. There was a rustling noise behind him and he turned, expecting to see a squirrel or some other animal they had spooked. But all he saw were his boot prints becoming visible as they filled with water, as though a sylvan spirit was treading his very path. 

For more information about the book go to:  http://www.markcudney.com/

OSSWASSO IKE or The Story Behind the Painting, "From the Alders"

                 "From the Alders"  cropped from the original watercolor                         

OSSWASSO IKE was a whitetail buck. In the hollow below our barn, at the end of the two track lane, there’s an old homestead turned hunting camp. Prior to that it was inhabited by the hermit Mark Poore--ninety three years old when I came to know him-- and getting by without running water, electricity, phone or central heat.  When I was a kid, I’d visit and listen to his tales of the old days. But that’s a story to be told another time. When he was gone and the homestead sold to the hunters, I’d continue to visit when the men were there, listening to their tales. They had formed a hunting club called “Osswasso.” The tale that enthralled me most was of a trophy-class whitetail that inhabited the glen, showing itself at inopportune times prior to the opening of the big game season and becoming scarce thereafter. They called him Osswasso Ike and through the years his existence became more myth than fact until someone would stumble upon a huge buck in the hemlock swamp or in thick cover along the brook. It was always old Ike they saw and the encounters would fan the flame of his legend and feed the fire of their desire to “get a pop at him.”

Likewise my desire grew the more I sat among them and heard their stories. Thirteen and impressionable, I relished those visitations when I was “the kid” and welcome to come around and listen to the talk about hunting, firearms, politics, woods lore and more. There was no censorship from off-colored jokes nor was there a lack of advice for winning the ways of the fairer sex. I figured I was lucky to be a step ahead of my contemporaries in the knowledge I’d gleaned from this group of learned men, some of them old enough to be my grandfather. Only later did I learn of the importance of field research and hands-on experience--in all aspects of their teaching.

My close friend and grouse hunting buddy, Wayne, and I hoped to get a look at him whenever we were in the coverts. As young teenagers out small game hunting, we jumped a fair share of deer and once or twice caught a glimpse of large antlers. In that way we were able to perpetuate  the myth. And it was Ike we hunted for when we first entered the woods as deer hunters. It was my resolve to show those old codgers who the hunter was among them. I ignored the lesser bucks that came my way, always holding out for the big guy I was certain would show himself. College intervened and then the call to armed service came for Wayne and me, and we were yet to bring home the venison.

Things had changed within me after I returned years later after my military discharge; although the traditions of the season still inspired me, the desire had diminished. I continued to take a pass on any deer that came within range, more out of inner conflict than with a need to sustain an old quest to harvest a “wall hanger.” I told myself that progeny of Ike roamed these woods and that if I got the chance at one of them, I should take it.  All the while, deer seasons came and went; old hunting friends moved away or were taken away. It just wasn’t the same anymore.

Nevertheless I believe I came across Osswasso Ike or rather, the essence of what he was to the Osswasso gang--all gone now--one autumn day while grouse hunting. I was stalking the brook in the hollow, downstream and within sight of the neglected Osswasso house. A grouse flushed and dove into a patch of alders on the opposite stream bank, offering me no shot but a vivid image of a large antlered buck disturbed there from his bed. The scene was one of a lasting impression and inspired me to create the painting, “From the Alders,” a portion of which is shown to illustrate this story.

I like the fact that there was a big deer lying close to the old house that day, that I was near him when he rose from the bushes and fled. It’s consoling to be a witness to perpetuity, even as the house continues its slow but sure collapse upon itself and the likes of Ike and  the Osswasso gang  have  been confined to memory.

SOMEONE'S WATCHING

There was a time, not so long ago, when you could get out into the woods and experience an unself-conscious type of solitude, when losing your self in the forest “primeval” was the point in being there. To lose one’s self was to take a step back and forget for the time being that you’re a creature of the modern age, prone to the anxieties associated with all it entails. Until recent innovations, there was a feeling of freedom being in the deep woods. Freedom from intrusion, social protocol, freedom from urbanity. Not to worry about being unfashionable. There in the woods, to make a point, one could feel free to do as the animals do and relieve oneself, out in the open, if necessary. Nowadays, however, you want to look over your shoulder, up and down and all around before you even consider it.

Take for instance the invention of the Trail Camera. Popular with hunters and landowners to record the wanderings of elusive critters, they’re becoming as numerous in the woods, hills and fields as are annoying yard lights and motion detector systems scattered all across the countryside. As if there aren’t enough lights in the night sky already what with those that pinpoint cell towers, wind turbines, airliners, ad infinitum. But, I digress. To hike--where it’s permissible--in the woods or about the fields and streams now, you find yourself looking out for a box strapped to a tree, lest you become one of those critters caught and recorded perhaps in a less than complimentary moment. You find yourself in a shopping mall state of mind: “Someone may be watching!”

Then there’s the ever so popular portable tree stands used by hunters. Come the first of October they begin “springing-up” in the woods like toadstools overnight, in use throughout both the archery and regular big game hunting seasons. Out grouse hunting one fine October day, stalking slowly through some prime cover, I was startled by a voice from above. My state of mind being what it was, engrossed in nature and appreciating the spiritual essence of the wilds, I thought for a fleeting moment it was the voice of Mother Nature calling to me. But no, I had walked within a few yards of a bow hunter sitting his perch on high, camouflaged head to toe. He was all but invisible. It was disappointing to realize it was just a common man and unsettling to think about what might have happened had a grouse flushed in his direction. With the overlapping of bow season and ruffed grouse season, the grouse hunter needs to be thinking of what may be sitting vulnerable half way up the oak tree ahead. “It didn’t used to be that way,” an old timer friend once said. "You could be in the woods and not worry about monkeys in trees."

There was a pleasant day when in the woods and feeling quite alone, I suddenly felt like some one was watching. I was at the top of our property, near the path that leads to my friendly neighbor’s woods. In a familiar spot, I knew of no cameras or tree stands, but the feeling was strong, so I scanned the area. I was feeling miffed; another moment of reverie interrupted. ‘Too thick with overhead foliage to be under the scrutiny of a satellite,’ I thought, my paranoia resurfacing. Then there came a scuffling from the branches above and a throaty animal noise. A raccoon was watching, evidently annoyed at the intrusion of his space.

OCTOBER EVENING

I’ve stepped outside to do some moon gazing. The still air smells of fallen leaves and wood smoke. It’s mid October and many of the trees are bare-limbed and stark against the twilight sky. I’d prefer the foliage would hang on for a longer time in their Indian Summer dress, that autumn was not so short-lived. Once stimulated by the colors of fall, I become greedy for more.

Earlier in the day a grouse was drumming in the woods beyond the back door--the dominant one perched on his log letting the young guys from the springtime brood know who’s boss. This evening, from the pines nearby, an owl hoots and is answered by another farther up the hillside. It’s eerily quiet as I stand on the patio and listen to their conversation. They sit their perches, harbingers of the nighttime harvesting of prey. If I were a field mouse, I’d fear for my life. The silent stalkers are about the woods. One moonlit night hiking a snowy woods path through a stand of pines, a large owl passed over my head. I first noticed its fleeting shadow cross the snow and looked up to see outstretched wings, so close yet so silent gliding among the branches. Had I been a smaller mammal, it would have been over before I even saw the shadow. You appreciate the fact that in this neck of the woods, at least, you’re high atop the food chain.

The moon sits bright on a tree top and the scene encourages premature thoughts of the Yule season: the Christmas tree has been decorated and suddenly you feel the urge to sing a carol or two. Well, not quite. Halloween is yet to come. My thoughts progress to images of hideous witches in black capes and ghoulish beings that lurk in dark places; things that used to scare me as a kid with an all-too-vivid imagination. Maturity (old age) diminishes those silly fears, I think, only to have them replaced by real life ogres such as the tax man, zealots and the Grim Reaper. Yet I enjoy the heightened sense of the ominous this time of the year. It’s a childlike stimulation when the rewards gleaned are no longer in a trick-or-treat bag, but in the re-knowing of another season.

I step off the patio and round the corner of the barn. WHOOSH! A deer snorts from beneath the apple tree grown wild near the foundation, and the adrenaline rush I get is like a jolt of electricity. I see dark phantoms leaping in all directions and hear their hooves thudding upon the ground, their white tails defined by the moonlight. They retreat to the field across the way, blowing like a pod of surfacing whales. I wonder to myself, How much longer can this well-used heart go from beating normally one moment to full acceleration the next? I’m tempted to check my feet to be sure I haven’t jumped out of my shoes. I go over to the tree and pick up a fallen apple. It’s crisp and tart. An animal shrieks and there is the noise of leaves rustling in the woods.

THE RIVULET IN THE GLEN

In the glen below our barn a brook runs downhill to feed into the headwaters of Neil’s Creek. Farther downstream, before Neil’s Creek empties into the Cohocton River, it supports a healthy population of Brown trout. Salamanders and crayfish inhabit our shallow brook but not trout. Being an avid fly fisherman, I wish it did. It courses a narrow run through a gully and over sedimentary rock, falling in steps on its way to the creek and the river. It forms small pools at the base of its many miniature water falls where one could imagine a trout holding if it were bigger water. Falling water inspires contemplation. The sound of water over stone reminds me of other streams and creeks--trout water--and times there with a fly rod.

There are numerous rivulets throughout the hills and more than a few creeks and rivers in the region with waterfalls and running water more impressive than this one: Stoney Brook Falls, Reynold‘s Gully Falls, Wiscoy Falls at Mills Mills where it joins the Genesee River near Portageville. The Upper, Middle and Lower Falls of the Genesee itself in Letchworth Park. There, the thunder of the falls and the power of the river inspires awe. You tend to contemplate the ferocity of nature. Whereas in this gully, where the folds of the hills meet to form a narrow cleft with rocks and purling water, you sense a different power, one that inspires introspection of a more intimate nature.

There are grouse and deer, fox and raccoons inhabiting this section of biosphere; other forms of wildlife too numerous to mention. Once during a particularly challenging time, I sat above the brook and watched a winter wren flit about the exposed roots of an oak tree at the waters edge. It would disappear among the roots into the darkness of the undercut stream bank and reappear again. My troubles soon became small in comparison to the greater importance of this reclusive little bird plying for sustenance, hunting the tangled roots beneath the immensity of the trees and the all encompassing forest.

I like to hike along the brook in the spring and fall when there aren’t the distractions of mosquitoes and deer flies, turning stones now and then, examining fossils, looking for encased caddis fly pupae. I’ll often pause by a pool and listen to the water. Recently at one of those pools, as I kneeled close to examine some detritus beneath the surface, there appeared the face of my father. Even though I’ve been told I resemble him, and I can see it somewhat as I shave in front of the mirror, it came as a bit of a shock to see him there in the undulations of the water. We had explored this brook together many times beginning when I was as young as my eldest grandson. And it occurred to me then that I’ve done it with my kids and my grandkids too. With them, I’ve re-discovered some of those things I’d lost along the way. Dad stared me in the face, the reflection of me-as-him animated by the current, making it appear as if  I--or he--was nodding in agreement or approval.

Last June I camped and fished with friends in British Columbia amid spectacular scenery. There were raging rivers, not to mention numerous creeks and drainages. All beautiful in their own right. I was happy to be there but not as content as I am when re-exploring my little brook. I suppose it’s reassurance of a kind found in a place where water flows through familiar territory. Where in its reflections you can see where you’ve been, where you are and where you’re going.