Surprise!

Our family refers to it as “the Talent,” and we should know. All of us have some manifestation of it or another. When I saw my nephew, as a toddler, start to cry when his sister, out of sight in a different part of a playground, fell, I knew we had yet another generation. This is hardly rare. Most people have a sixth sense of some sort and degree. Our family just acknowledges it, encourages it, and uses it.

My sister’s particular Talent is one I found exceptionally annoying as a child. She can touch a package or envelope and know what’s in it (and sometimes its history) with unerring accuracy. A natural morning person, she’d be up and downstairs on Christmas morning, handling every gift she had not already probed. Next, she’d be bouncing on my bed (her usual method of awakening her grumpy, night-person sibling) telling me, not just what Santa brought, but every item in every wrapped package. I can’t emphasize how much I hated this. I am no actor, but had to fool my parents into thinking I was surprised and delighted by every gift.

Since she moved to the West Coast forty years ago, some mystery has returned to my life and the holidays in particular; although I now embrace a Pagan path, and celebrate the Solstice rather than Christmas, with feasting, gifts, and  libations. This Solstice Eve, however, I found surprises are not always gifts. My housemate walked down for the mail, as is her custom. I was just beginning to think she’d been gone longer than usual when I heard the door open and the sound of labored breathing. I leapt from my chair.

“Take a look at this shoulder, will you?” she said, her voice strained. One glance and I knew it was dislocated. My particular Talent told me more: this was not an injury I wanted to touch, or subject to my driving over Potter County roads. I followed the ambulance to the emergency room, and a few hours later X-rays showed a break at the ball-joint. Surprise! A Solstice gift neither one of us will ever forget.

Over a week has passed, and she has had surgery to reinforce the bone and joint and put it back in place. This is hardly the end; It will be weeks until she can actually use the arm muscles to lift its own weight, months until she can get back to her usual activities. In the emergency room we both voiced the thought that we’d thought our roles would be reversed: me taking the fall, her being caregiver. But here I am, Rabbit the Caregiver.

This is not a natural role for me. I tend to be impatient with helplessness, and my maternal instincts are limited to kittens. However, Maggi really tries to be independent and does everything a one-handed woman (on pain meds, too) can do. The big challenge for me has been mental organization and memory. I’m the one that has to remember appointments, care instructions, medications, and so on. I’ve been taking care of the sick cat, too, and the other five kitties. In addition, it has fallen to me to do the lion’s share of communicating her progress to family and friends. From the first call to 911, to the most recent appointment with the orthopedist, I’ve had to supply her insurance information, personal information, and even what vitamins she takes and in what strengths. This has exercised my poor, Swiss-cheese memory, yielding results I’ve found impressive; and required mental organization and cognition outside the limits of my testing that qualified me for Disability. My long-dormant paramedic training has supplied knowledge and even technical terms, which astonished me. Best of all, my slippery-slope of deepening chronic depression has ended. Nothing like having to take care of someone else, exercising abilities long-unused, and proving equal to the challenge, to nurture self-esteem and derail the depression train.

It’s probably selfish of me to be happy about the benefits I’m gaining from this while my friend is in pain and frustrated by her own helplessness. Perhaps it’s just me being a control freak and gloating over my current (temporary!) domination of the household. But I prefer to think that there is nothing bad that happens that one cannot derive some good from. In this case, a lesson: I’m more capable, and have fewer limitations, than I thought. A surprise Solstice gift, indeed.

A Wee Nip o' Holiday Cheer

Sometimes it seems I have only two default moods:  “Grouchy” and “Serene.”  When I’m expected to be “Jolly” for the holidays it’s usually a difficult job.  Perhaps it’s a sign of aging that it grows harder to get in the holiday spirit every year.  Maybe I just expect too much of myself.  After all, eleven months of the year my two moods are adequate;  why change just because it’s December?

When the holidays approach, my mind is filled with a singular combination of anticipation and dread;  combined with the stress of cooking, cleaning, decorating, spending money I don’t really have on gifts, food, and cards, and the numerous social and family functions that are too often duty rather than fun.  What will the family find to quarrel about this time?  Which friend am I going to unwittingly insult and have to beg forgiveness from this year?  Who is going to send me a card out of the blue, that I just dropped from my card list?

It seems the only thing that gets me through those social occasions where I’m expected to be “Jolly” is alcohol.  Normally a single glass of wine once or twice a month satisfies my taste buds, but not during the holidays.

It doesn’t do to be “Grouchy” at parties, one must appear to be having fun.  This requires at least one, usually two glasses of wine.  Unfortunately the quality of this wine is so variable that it occasionally kicks my Mood-O-Meter back to “Grouchy” and I’m forced to have another glass to numb my taste buds enough to restore my party mood.

Wine is often also served with the fancy dinners so common this time of year.  I normally prefer water with meals, but if wine is offered I feel obliged to pretend I’m cultured and accept a glass.  Not to mention, these feasts are social occasions and my usual silent surliness at meals is not appropriate.  I’m going to be expected to make pleasant, polite conversation.  Pour that wine, and quick!

There are occasions for toasts, such as the obligatory bubbly on New Year’s Eve.  For me, it had better be a good champagne and not sickening-sweet sparkling wines or (heaven forbid) non-alcoholic substitutes.

Cold evenings after a day of visiting or shopping (and shredded nerves from same) require a sleep-aid and restorative in the form of a nice liqueur such as Bailey’s or Amaretto.  Come to think of it, fortifying myself before such activities with a cup of coffee with either of these additions or a shot of Jameson’s added is needed to generate some holiday spirit and motivate me to actually visit or shop with a smile on my face.

What can I say about eggnog?  That it is necessary for the true holiday experience?  That this is the only time of year one can get it, so enjoy it while it’s here?  That it is not worth the calories unless enhanced by a large dollop of Kahlua or Amaretto?  Then it’s ambrosia… and the only thing that gets me through Christmas Eve and Day without committing homicide or suicide.

For those who accuse me of alcoholism, let me just ask this:  Would you rather have me drinking or “Grouchy?”  Please answer, the former.  I’m running out of places to hide the bodies.

The First Snow

Last night I looked at the weather radar last thing before going to sleep and the blue smudge of a snow storm was right over the house. I did not, as my Inner Child demanded, spring out of bed into my slippers and rush outdoors. There's plenty of time to see snow this year. I may be sick and tired of snow before winter ends. But probably not.

I didn't expect the little blue smudge to amount to anything, but when I got up this morning and looked out the window, there was snow on the ground in patches and big wet flakes falling! Any thought a mature adult from Pennsylvania would have had was totally absent from my head. It was the first snow of the year! As usual, I rushed from window to window wearing an uncharacteristic smile. The first snow! How lovely! And it only happens once a year. (Never mind that it's happened to me sixty times before.)

I love the first snowfall. I love almost ALL snowfalls. You think it's because I'm retired and have nowhere pressing to drive? Wrong. Even when I was working and my employer accepted no excuse (not even roads closed by the police) for lateness or absence, I loved snow. Back then, living within feet of a busy highway, the silence at night would wake me up. Winter. No trucks passing. A long, long silence. It could only mean one thing. I'd get up, pad in sock-feet to the front window, and look out across three lanes of unmarked white. I'd rejoice. I knew that, in the morning, I'd be shovelling, then scraping off the windshield and leaving an hour early for a white-knuckle commute. But I'd rejoice anyway, in the silence and the beauty.

The first snow, or any snow. It elevates my spirit, delights my Inner Child, draws me outside to experience it with all my senses. I snow-shoe in it, catch flakes on my tongue, and make the very occasional snow angel. I even enjoy shovelling, as long as some vehicle has not packed it down into a sheet of ice. I could live in a clime without snow, but I wouldn't want to. An important bit of magic would be missing from my life.

Especially that once-a-year miracle of transformation:  The first snow!

My Date with Mr. Brown

       October weather is frequently raw and wet.  For a week I’d been expecting the rain to change to snow overnight, or whenever the cold front driving it pushed through.  The forecasters were, no doubt, tearing their hair out in frustration at trying to predict the whims of the season.  Me, I wanted to fish.  I knew the brook trout were out there, spawning, ready to attack any gaudy dry fly that dared to invade their territories.  At last, an afternoon lull occurred between one cold front and the next.  No rain.  More than a little windy, cold and cloudy, but good enough for a Rabbit in the terminal stages of cabin fever.

As I drove, I noticed the autumn colors had been muted.  Most of the leaves had been stripped from the trees by the storms, and the mountains showed a subtle shading of gold-bronze, with occasional accents of dark green, bright orange, or red.  The birch thickets I passed showed signs of rebellion:  Within thirty yards, there would be trees with gold leaves, trees still green, and trees stripped bare.  Birches are the rugged individualists of the forest.

My original plan had been to take my annual pilgrimage to Young Woman’s Creek, but the briefness of my good-weather window convinced me that fishing closer to home would be wiser.  Kettle Creek had been fishing well three weeks earlier, so I headed there.  I was decked out in my “autumn camouflage,” an orange technical shirt, which was also a wise choice in an area bow-hunters frequent.  My choice of weapon?  My split-bamboo Ron Bennett “Pine Creek Special.”  As I was gearing up, I was annoyed by a swarm of those Korean Ladybugs.  They landed on me, tried crawling into my waders, and generally made themselves a nuisance, which is what they do best.  I found myself wondering if even the fish would eat the musk-reeking, disgusting things.  But I tied on my usual attractor dry fly and hiked in.

The water was almost a foot higher than it was three weeks earlier, and running faster, but was clear.  Once in awhile the sun would break through the wrack of fast-moving clouds, and the breeze was a bit stronger than I like for accurate, delicate casting.  I got quite a few bumps from small fish down in the deep cut below the big hole, but got distracted by a…  I can only describe it as a “flushing” sound under the drooping branch over the deep hole.

       “Holy cow!”  I exclaimed.  “Either something heavy fell out of that tree, or there’s a BIG fish in there!”  I wondered which as I worked my way up the seam, wading with the slow silence needed to approach wild trout.  What could possibly have fallen out of that tree and made that sound?  Or was it a fist-sized meteor I’d failed to spot?  When my fly finally landed in the “money slot,” another fish came up and nosed it, but this was not a small one.  This bump had been slow, a lot of water bulging in advance of the fish’s snout.  I cautiously waded closer to get a better float, and this time I saw the inspection-and-refusal.  “Holy cow” had been a fairly accurate description.  What I saw was at least fifteen inches, at a conservative guess.

Inspection-and-refusal.  Hmm.  Best tactics, change to an imitator.  I went for the reliable X-Caddis, although upon reflection I should have used a dark pattern rather than a light one.  A dozen casts with this drew no interest.  Then I thought about those Ladybugs.  I chose a Foam Beetle with peacock-colored tinsel chenille belly.  No interest from the big guy, but an unexpected rise in the current below the hole resulted in a six-inch wild brown who jumped and fought nicely for his size.  I was pleased;  A wild brown of any size makes me happy.

I looked up at the hole and considered my options.  I was “dueling,” concentrating on one fish rather than “looking for the stupid ones.”  There was a lot more very good water to cover, and it seemed to me the clouds had thickened overhead.  I could drop a Copper John or Green Weenie off a bushy dry fly for this big fellow, or weight a Wooly Bugger, and probably hook him.  Not land him, as I don’t carry a net when fishing the local brook-trout waters, and know well my ineptitude landing large trout by hand.  I could move on.  Or I could try one last dry fly:  The reliable Yellow Humpy had gotten his attention, perhaps the Royal Wulff, another attractor, might do better.  This is the fly Donna Trexler describes as “the hot fudge sundae of dry flies,” as it looks nothing like a trout meal, but oh, my, it looks luscious!  With great care, I made sure the knot was perfect, and served the delectable dessert fly right in the big trout’s alley.  Nothing.  A few more fruitless floats with this fly and the wind grabbed it on the back-cast, tangling it in a tall shrub.

Carefully I waded back and freed it, knowing that my attempts for this big fellow were over, at least for today.  I walked quietly up the bank and got a good clear look at him, not spooked but obviously not feeding anymore, unconcerned in the bottom of the hole.  A brown trout, undoubtedly wild, at least as big as my first estimate.  

       “You have defeated me,”  I told him formally, saluting him with my rod as a fencer would with a saber.  I’d be back, probably not until spring, with a net and my best flies.  But meanwhile, I wished him health, luck, and many progeny.

Be there in May, Mr. Brown.  It’s a date.

The Golden Month

October is the golden month. Not just in terms of the leaves’ colors; It is the season of abundance. Farm stands bulge with pumpkins, apples, and squash. Harvesting machines clatter across fields of bronze or tan. Squirrels race around industriously stashing their winter supplies, as do human beings. The wild animals I see are fat from enjoying the bounteous season. Some use this bounty for energetic pursuits such as migrating to warmer climes. Summer birds are gone, and raptors and waterfowl are leaving. The former make solitary flights, finding energy-saving updrafts to glide their way south. The latter travel in noisy V’s, pointing the way to the equator, which the sun’s path crossed just a short time ago.

For many, the energy reserves of the season of abundance are used for mating. Deer lose their native caution as their hormones rise, boldly and blindly stepping onto roadways… or into range of a bow-hunter. Trout, flaunting autumn’s leaf colors, compete for spawning opportunities. Even the largest and wariest will attack a gaudy fly that invades his territory.

Orange-yellow school busses signify another sort of competition and growth. Other colors blossom as school sports teams vie with a passion adults rarely match. Yet which of us can forget shouting and waving pennons or pom-poms, our cheeks rosy with cold, watching our high school Homecoming Game?

But, under it all, October is the last great work of a dying year. The changing leaves remind me of the changes I see when I look in the mirror. Soon my hair will whiten, like the ground when snow falls. It’s somehow fitting that October ends with Halloween, a holiday of celebration and defiance of endings; of Death itself. What better way to face our fear of mortality than to laugh, to tape up paper skeletons and display cardboard coffins as a symbol of both facing that fear and transcending it? Children come in disguise, begging the bounty that we have stashed against the hungry, cold season; and we freely give it, knowing even beneath the often-scary masks these beggars are our progeny, our future.

“Winter is coming.” But it’s not here yet. Sink your teeth into a fresh Cortland apple, perfectly complimented with cheddar cheese and ginger snaps. Giggle your way through a corn maze, or a “haunted house.” Watch an aggressive brook trout smack your dry fly, then admire it’s muscular, colorful beauty before releasing it. Or just drive some country roads and be awed by each new autumn vista. It’s October, my favorite month of the year!

Thoughts on Marcellus Development

August in Potter County is fair and festival month.  I often grumble about this, as multiple events are scheduled for the same weekends, then I must choose between them and miss one;  Yet there are so many weekends in May, June, September, and July that could have events scheduled to draw in the tourists.  The thinking is,  “If tourists are around to go to the County Fair (for instance), our event will have more people available in the area already to attend it.”  As sensible as this sounds on the surface, I can’t help but question the soundness of the logic.

Of all the weekend festivals I’ve been to this year, only Galeton’s famous Independence Day fireworks drew a good crowd.  Three music festivals of exceptional quality drew no more people for the dynamite closing acts than one would see in a popular night club Downstate.  Coudersport’s Maple Festival and the Herb Festival were lightly attended, and Galeton’s Fall Fest and Kettle Creek Valley Outdoor Show have gotten smaller each year, to the break-even point.  All these are (or were) popular events offering exceptional value for little or no entrance fee, but, despite all efforts to publicize them widely and in a more modern format, are just not drawing the attention they deserve.

This is just the most visible sign of our deteriorating tourist industry.  Small businesses all over the region have closed their doors, “For Sale” signs sprouting like weeds.  Individual entrepreneurs (such as myself, as a fly fishing guide) have been forced out of business, sometimes even forced to seek a full-time job to make ends meet, usually putting an end to our ability to do our tourist-related trade.  Overhead for fishing guides is high (licensing requirements alone add up to over $1200 annually) and presumably the same is true for others.  If we don’t get a certain amount of business, even doing it for the love of it becomes impossible.

A lot of this can be chalked up to Marcellus Shale exploitation, which has done a lot to ruin the esthetics, community budgets, and environment of the region and created little in the way of jobs and/or income.  Environmentalists faced with this five years ago went into the dialogue with the energy companies and legislators prepared to compromise, but met with no similar attitude.  No extraction tax was proposed to supplement communities suddenly forced to provide more services, nor to fund the environmental watchdog agencies to assure the gas extraction was done where and in such a way as to damage critical environment as little as possible, and absolutely no funding for cleaning up the inevitable mess the drillers will (and are already) leaving was provided for.  The sustainable existing tourist industry was sacrificed for the profit of the few and (already) wealthy, at the expense of local residents dependant on it.  Negative publicity aimed at generating concern about the reckless exploitation served to keep tourists away, and those that did visit the area could not avoid seeing unsightly drill sites, staging areas, and pipeline construction, not to mention ‘sharing’ the roads with convoys of construction trucks and tankers driven by people with no concept of safety on narrow mountain roads, especially in winter.  Many long-time camp owners are selling out, too.

The history of the region shows this resource rape has occurred repeatedly:  Oil, lumber and coal were exploited, each time leaving the ecology of the area a bit more damaged, each time leaving a mess that taxpayers and volunteers have had to work on and pay for, decades of repair that is not over even now and will never get things back to their pristine state.  No one seems to learn this lesson.  At least, no one in a position to do anything to prevent its recurrence.  Sacrificing esthetic values on the altar of profit is the American Way.

It’s sad.  Blogging is about how one feels about things, and this has saddened, infuriated, discouraged, and frustrated me.  Seeing a disaster coming, writing and speaking and working to prevent it, then having the whole juggernaut roll over me, has flattened my soul.  This place I love, being ruined.  Other people that love it, forced to ‘sell out’ to the energy companies or starve.  This knowledge was hammered home by attending these wonderful tourist events and seeing how few people were there to appreciate them.  Come to the Pennsylvania Wilds soon, to enjoy the State’s last (marginally) unspoiled outdoor wonderland, while they still exist!

Close Encounters of the Rodent Kind

 Maggi went to New Jersey last week for her high school class reunion, and I received a cryptic e-mail hours after her latest projected arrival date: "Here safe. Tell you about the car later." Uh-oh. This was like the old joke about the Jewish mother's telegram home: "Start worrying. Second telegram follows." The explanation, in a second e-mail sent a day of fretting later, said she'd had to stop at an auto parts store and replace the air filter. The whole story came out nearly a week later.

The car had been gasping, sometimes stalling.  It turns out this was due to a clogged air filter, and that came about because of rodent occupation of the filter compartment. Among other things, the predictable dessicated nuts and nesting materials, there was an unexpected treasure in that air filter: the critter had discovered Maggi's stash of Hershey's kisses in the car, unwrapped them, and transferred them to its hiding place. Steal her chocolate? "This means war!" At least that explains why the air filter needed to be replaced, not just cleaned:  the chocolate had melted in the heat of the engine compartment, coating the filter. Car engines are not designed to run with chocolate-dipped air filters. This is why the engine was gasping: It was running on too rich an air mixture.

She was not the only one with rodent encounters. Three mornings ago I staggered out of the bedroom, and when I got to the part of my morning routine where I opened the pantry to get tea, a mouse which had been perched atop the pantry door was flung off, hitting me in the head, scrabbling for purchase on my face, then dropping to the floor and scampering under the breakfront. THAT woke me up, to be sure. And anyone else within a quarter-mile, who might have heard the scream. I am not the sort of female who shrieks at the sight of mice, but when one lays an aerial ambush before I am barely awake, I think I can be excused my quite audible reaction.

I have been lecturing the cats on their household responsibilities ever since.