My orchid is six or seven years old and always blooms right before Thanksgiving. This year, in a much larger pot and with our current rain forest environment, it bloomed two weeks early.

My orchid is six or seven years old and always blooms right before Thanksgiving. This year, in a much larger pot and with our current rain forest environment, it bloomed two weeks early.

As we pulled the canoe back to the truck, someone turned on the wind switch. It was like a wind monster had come suddenly striding across the ridgelines and gotten into a beef with the pond. Roaring, swirling, portentous winds made our timing impeccable — it sounded like it meant lengthy, nasty business. Glad to be on solid ground and not out on the water, we tied down the canoe and headed back for camp. Where the wind monster’s even more badass father was hard at work giving Misery its namesake mojo.

The previous night’s “wind” had reversed course 180 degrees and was now coming in across the waters unimpeded. Our crisply tethered tarp snapped and popped in the gale-force wind tunnel of our site like a panicked goat staked in the path of a Tyrannosaurus, several of its tension poles missing. Our oh-so-tall tent had been pushed into the bushes of the tiny clearing into which it had barely fit (sufficient level ground being a notable criterion for deploying such an abode). But surprisingly, nothing had been sent down the driveway and across the road by the single-minded howl. After trying in vain to resecure the tarp, we yielded to sanity and took it down in the horizontal pellet-gun salvo of intermittent rain. Mark took to the passenger seat to listen to weather reports to see if this was a passing fancy or a long day’s night, while Mike and I spent a bracing hour or so cleaning up and securing things as if we were ceding the territory — though we had no place to which to retreat nor lasting desire to do so. In the end, the sheer practicality offered by The Road gave us our only sensible option. Had we in fact achieved Enchanted’s shores, we’d’ve had no choice but to improvise, though I’m glad not to have found out how I’d have served dinner that night. As it was, we threw what we could into the truck, placed goodly rocks atop our coolers, staked down our mainsail of a tent (including a rope across the top secured to massive trees), and headed off down Capitol.

Yes … Though we blush to disclose this detail, roads that size have names – the current “landowners” have put up perfectly familiar suburban road signs with reflective white letters on green rectangles sticking up out of the bushes — as incongruous a sight as I can remember. Capitol. At the end of which is pavement. Down which can be found a loose cluster of 7 or 8 buildings meriting the name West Forks on a map. Food and shelter.

And so three dirty, soaked and bedraggled – and slightly sheepish – erstwhile campers ascended the timber stairs of The Emptiest Restaurant We’ve Ever Eaten In and made the acquaintance of Blonde #1, our waitress. We had our choice of booths and slid into one with a good view of the bar and the massive chainsaw art – actually pretty impressive – and gazed about the true log-cabin architecture at more knotty pine than seemed plausible. Her Blonde Coolness brought menus, recited the draft list, and we tried to keep the dry jeans we all clutched out of sight, lest the commonality be misconstrued somehow. One by one we surreptitiously made use of the facilities to change and tidy up a bit. A second blonde waitress somehow also kept herself busy, though we three hardly taxed Blonde # 1, and # 3 could be spied behind the bar, making some sort of list and trading out Dave Matthews for what turned out to be Sol Jibe. After awhile one of them noticed the chill (anything short of Misery’s antithesis of a blowdryer was heaven to us), and they turned on the heat. Michael would’ve been last to change, but the warm air blowing under the table eventually dried out his soggy pant legs, and he was able to save his lone change of clean clothing for the ride back to Massachusetts several days later. We made our peace with the weirdness and ordered.

The Guinness was great, Mike’s pulled pork sandwich unspeakable, other stuff unremarkable but good, and most all got gratefully eaten — the dessert was sinfully worthwhile. We lingered, then further procrastinated by playing a little pool in the third floor “lounge” — there was more losing than winning going on, though some fabulous shots were sunk. Yet a fourth blonde showed up, a twenty-something we’d noticed at the gas station while filling up just before arriving here, possibly a daughter of one of The Three Blondes, as she loitered about with a relative’s familiarity, heedless of our shabby selves. Though it was getting late, two other tablefulls had finally arrived. Out on the Kennebeck some moonlight could be spied. Ultimately we shuffled off into the now-gentler night and drove the dark roads (with one extinguishing of the headlights in a nod to Dan Akroyd and Albert Brooks in the opening scenes of “The Twilight Zone” feature film) back to camp.

Where all was well. We stayed up a little, made a half-hearted fire, and with the wind monsters somewhat settled (but still huffing nearby) and the rain elsewhere, Mike went back to his vigil, Mark and I to our ripstop townhouse, all hoping the optimistic weather report – which was actually for elsewhere – boded well for our corner of the north woods. Many times I coasted awake to the sound of a resurgence of winds and thought of Mike, out in the open. His night was pretty sleepless, he tells us, the buffeting more the cause than the cold. Though that, too.

Turns out Bingham, south of us, had tornados. Much of the region endured the same sudden severity, which was nowhere forecast before we left. We spoke around the fire of what we’d’ve done had we had to do something, had we been across a pond without the option of The Road, but we’d made our peace with taking the easy way out, a notable change in individual characters and group dynamics. No regrets dogged our heels as we set off the next morning up the talus slopes below the ridge that overhangs Misery, out of the lingering winds and into embracing sun in the shelter of the ridge’s lee, a new quest calling us out of another late-breakfast-become-lunch and off to find whatever it is we come out there to find. Change. Nature. Vistas to photograph, and before which to sip good wine. A bit of breathlessness. A new appreciation granted by comfort with real contrast.

Adam

Blonde # 1 stood to one side, aloof as ever, as Blonde # 3 gave a fan’s impassioned intro to Sol Jibe, whose Arabic-tinged and clarinet-embellished piece called “Rhumba” we’d just enjoyed. Which sounded to me like a riff on Ferron’s “Shadows on a Dime”, hence the query to # 1, passed on to # 3 – the bartendress – who handled all CD’s. Except that neither blonde knew Ferron, and nor, apparently, did Sol Jibe. But anyway … The fresh rapport with # 3 finally helped warm # 1 to us somewhat – how could she not come around?  We were the only ones in the place – and she even made an effort to cajole us into dessert. Twist our arm.

But wait. Multiple blondes? Ordering food? Oh yeah …

Rewind.

After we blew Day One trying (and failing) to find access to this-year’s destination of the persuasively-named Enchanted Pond – access convenient enough for our twenty-Sherpa truckload, that is – we headed back up the many miles of gravel to an arguable counterpart, Misery Pond, chosen both for its end-of-a-long-day ease of access, and the name. But there’s easy, and then there’s easy. Misery lies only a little past the first bend in about 10 miles of vertically-rolling but otherwise arrow-straight, two-opposing-logging-trucks-and one-howling-with-fright-pickup-truck-between-them-wide gravel road. The “driveway” is only about 20’ long. That’s it, and you’re there. We were so aghast at its proximity to this north Maine superhighway (and lack of a picnic bench) that we investigated access to a site purportedly somewhere out across Cold Stream Pond a few short miles away, but we couldn’t be sure we knew where it was out there once we made Cold Stream’s shores, and dusk had made its intentions clear, so we returned to Misery, at least for the night — rights to the option to relocate on the morrow retained.

A fine first night, with a fine first dinner, finally out in the woods and out of the truck. Okay, some cons — without Q’s magic, all our firewood seemed to have been treated with some sort of noxious retardant, smoking abundantly without sustaining flame; and the makeshift table I cobbled out of the bones of someone’s campchairs and lids to Mike’s Rubbermaid tubs lashed to a tree for support offered all of 5 square feet of highly compromised semi-horizontal surface that was nowhere convenient to the fire pit. But we’re not whiners. Not sitting in our camp chairs, Dark-n-Stormies in our mitts, and many go-with-its heaped onto steaming bowls of Schreib’s most excellent vegetarian chili. Mike had his nest feathered out on the point overlooking the lovely waters of Misery Pond, and Schreib and I looked forward to a night on our princess-and-the-pea rigs inside our new tent, which afforded the novel experience of standing up full height in its capacious and invigoratingly-colored interior. Life was good. We lingered long, nursing our uncooperative “fire” and chatting.

The next day began with the ubiquitous gloomy grey weather we know all too well, and we rigged a handsome tarp to keep the anticipated rain off our fire pit and firewood. After a leisurely breakfast eaten quite late – we’d stayed up past 11:30 and had slept in well beyond our abilities at home – we pondered our options. The morning’s logging trucks had rumbled by what inside the tent sounded like mere inches from our heads, and the lack of a picnic table was additionally annoying. Even if just for the doing of something, we decided to go investigate Cold Stream Pond in more detail, see if we wanted to relocate. We retied the canoe onto the roof rack (Mike and Mark had used it to gather firewood on the shores), gathered a few supplies (most of which were still in the bed of the truck) and some snacks (the first lunch already blown off), and set out. As it started to rain.

By the time we got to that other shore, sprinkles had become steady drizzle, but returning to sit around under the tarp was hardly appealing, so we skipped a few stones, put on our raingear, clambered into the canoe, and set off across the pond. We were headed into the wind, which was swirly and pushed us about some, but no real whitecaps were forming, so crossing was just a matter of effort. Despite the diminished visibility we could see across the extent of the water, and behind us the hulls of boats parked at the put-in made a clearly discernible target for the return trip. Paddling, even in the rain, was comforting familiarity, the activity and new places to explore welcome. We had a site to scout, maybe islands to explore.

But each likely landmark proved just another tree or rock, not the beachhead of a site, each possible passage a blind cove, pushing us back out to round what were all peninsulas, never islands. The site should’ve been roughly midway, from our memory of the map (which we’d left back at camp given the rain), but we got to the far end of Cold Stream with no hint of a site. Good thing we hadn’t sought out this purported option the night before …

And what an end it was. Dead snags on the shores bespoke a sort of wasteland, and though the vistas might have been compelling on a blue-sky day, the grey skies came down to the surrounding shores and seemed to confine this pond to miserable solitude. Even were there a viable site somewhere around here, we weren’t relocating. So we drifted a bit in the rain with the winds at our backs, and then headed back along the shores just to see if we’d missed anything.

All the way back into the first cove, well past where the site was likely to be, we spied some orange ribbon blazes and tied off. Just inside the woods in deep moss was a piece of rebar sticking just out of the ground with a bright orange plastic cap such as are used at jobsites to prevent impalements. What could possibly be marked here by ribbons and an iron stake driven into the ground … ? Mike noticed something even odder – a clear line of sight through several hundred yards of woods. Feeling a bit like Hansel and Gretel following breadcrumbs laid by another whose intentions were unknown, we set off.

Into a clearcut. Not exactly the payoff or deep mystery for which we’d hoped. As it turned out, from later examinations of our map, the line-of-sight likely marked a township division, kept clear by surveyors. The undisturbed moss made it unlikely any loggers used this passage for access to the pond. Nothing before us compelled us to forward progress, so we tossed candied-ginger shortbread cookies to each others’ gaping mouths, sipped at a flask of Scotch, generally lollygagged awhile, and headed back, having even forgotten to scavenge firewood, our trip essentially merely time killed. No treasures or discoveries, barely any exercise. Just a protracted way to get wet.

Turns out the adventure was back at camp all along – we just needed to get away while it put on its party dress.

Even if you don’t like the song or the group, please wait for the bathtubs to appear. What were they thinking?

Michael,

Nothing exciting happened yesterday at the rakkity-young’uns rematch. Patrick arrived late, due to meetings that he couldn’t quit from early. I had just about given up on his and his sister’s arrival, and was heading upstairs to the treadmills and ellipticals, when they both arrived, carrying 3 racquets and beaming broadly. Down at the court, we agreed on the rules–I’d play only to the sidewalls and ceiling, P. would play left-handed, and KT would play normally. 

The first game went to Mr. P. 15-8-6. (The old man got the 6.) The magnetic attraction of the front wall was just too powerful. But the magnetic force in the front wall weakened in the 2nd game, and the old man came back handily, 15-4-5. Admittedly, that was due mainly to the fact that P. was playing on the right side, where he had to field wall-grazer serves with a back-handed left hand, and KT had to return left wall grazers with her backhand. 

The last game was only to 5 due to time shortages, so it doesn’t really count in the greater scheme of things. (OK, since you insist, Patrick won that one, 5-2-2.)

What about collisions, wall smashups, broken bones, and all that good stuff? Aside from a few errant balls that hit me in the ribs, butt, and face, there were no real painful incidents. And I only hit the wall once really hard, but no shoulders were involved. Sorry, bloggers, but sometimes reality isn’t so interesting.

But what may be interesting is this:

Hi Dominic,

Possibly tomorrow evening (Thurs) or Saturday?

Ed

On Sun, 2006-11-05 at 12:56 -0500, Dominic Zarro wrote:
Hi Ed,

Are you interested in a few games before you hit the road?

Dominic

–rakkity

(click)

*******

Thanks to Jen.

Prom Dreams

The editing-to-content ratio here is preposterous — we can only hope enough meaningful content is actually perceived and enjoyed to even begin justifying the time spent. References and inferences abound, from what was chosen and the sequencing, to of course, the music selections — but good luck with any of that …

A first-time “director”, I had a ball with this, both shooting and editing. Props to Michael for the infinite patience summoned in bringing to the screen this attempt to capture some of what I see as the essence of that fabulous summer day, when this tribe of bright and beautiful young people celebrated this coda to their middle youth and the setting off to whatever’s next.