Irony and the DEP

Life is strung with beads of irony, for us to adorn ourselves like so many embellishments.  Some of the beads are shiny, glossy, and replete with a positive glow.  Some appear dull, unpolished, misshapen, not pleasing, with their uncanny ability to be undecipherable. Ergo, some we will display and share, some we will bury or ignore.

I would call my encounter yesterday with the DEP policeman a fine example of irony.  After I was issued the summons for trespassing, and a date when I would have to appear in court, I called the encounter maddening, irritating, insulting, and downright stupid.  And oh yeah, why must DEP cops wear dark glasses?  Is it intimidation?  Arrogance?  It’s not about the glare of the sun on a bright day, I can tell  you that.   

I was full of Sunday morning sunshine and good intent as I drove over to the reservoir, just six miles from my home.  Driving slowly across the weir, reduced to one lane for several months, I enjoyed the sparkle of the reservoir’s water, the blurred surround of mountains that loomed soft and hazy.  Seeing the water so low, and the exposed bluestone and flat concrete pieces here and there reminded me of the NY Times article Watery Graves NY Times 2002 I’d just read, when the reservoir was so low, one could view stone building foundations and drinking wells.  All belonging to the “dozen bucolic hamlets” that were submerged there in 1913.  Hundreds of houses, thousands of people, plus stores, schools, post offices, churches, cemeteries and bodies displaced.

Recently I’ve delved heavily into the history of the reservoir; specifically, the displaced people who had built their homes there, raised families and farmed there, and then were forced to leave their homelands so that New York City could improve their water supply.  As an offshoot of genealogy research into my partner’s family, I’d unearthed more and more details, read through more and more tales of that time in Ulster County.  I found myself poring over census records until 1am, dragging myself to work the next day. Last year it was my own family history that I researched until the early morning  hours.  It is etched in my being, this needing to know, this curiosity about past lives and ancestors, and the footsteps taken in so many lives that led us to be where we are today.  Some say don’t live in the past.  I don’t think I live there, but I sure like to visit.  And I like fitting the puzzle pieces together.  But my ancestors, Irish immigrants, were easier to trace in a way; they landed in Manhattan and mostly stayed there, some branching to Brooklyn or Queens at some point.  And the streets in Manhattan had names long before streets or roads existed, per se, in Ulster County. I found addresses like “back road”, or “the corners”.  But the majority enumerated" didn’t even have that.

JR’s family, as it turns out, has lived in Ulster County for several generations.  They farmed, they quarried, they lived off the land.  I became addicted to the discovery – where did they come from, and how had they ended up in West Hurley?  Glenford?   It didn’t take long to realize that they had all been among the families that were displaced when the Ashokan Reservoir, the “last of the homemade dams”, was constructed.Which leads me back to the Ashokan Reservoir yesterday morning.  There is a certain Great Great Grandfather and his wife Sarah that I can find no death record for; also, one of their sons, Phillip.  It became a matter of principle that I find Phillip especially, for more than one reason.  I’d parked in the circular drive that is provided for folks who generally do their exercise thing across the reservoir on the macadam walkway.  In warmer weather, you can be inundated with fellow walkers and joggers, cyclists, roller bladers, and gaggles of angry geese, on occasion.  But no dogs allowed.  The walk is marked every ¼ mile as you go.  The view is spectacular, but it’s boring just walking along between two fences, in my opinion.  I like the woods.

Anyway, I walked down through the woods where I like to go, passing the No Trespassing signs and notices about how they are protecting the environment as I went. I was just going to get some better shots of the res from where the old boats are laying, chained up to trees for the winter.  Maybe score some driftwood, just enjoy the quiet.  My camera crapped out on me, as I lined up the perfect shot (to replace one I’d taken from the same spot last month that had been blurry).  I sat down on an overturned row boat and decided to channel Abram and Sarah and maybe Phillip; maybe they would tell me where to find their graves? 

The water has slight movement in a reservoir, did you now that?  From where I sat, across the ground littered with bluestone chunks and smooth rocks, I watched the tiny wave ripples gently moving back and forth.  I stared at the mountains and the houses high up on the hills over in Shokan.  They would not have been there in the late 1800’s.  I spoke to Sarah, believing in some sort of Mana y Mana...where are you?  How can I find you?  Where is Phillip? 

I got cold and turned to head back which is when I spotted the DEP SUV cruising by.  I ditched my smooth driftwood (no sense adding theft to trespassing I thought, chuckling) behind a tree and kept on walking back up through the woods.  The blond, crew-cutted, sun-glassed, polite officer (who looked like a sixteen year old) got out of his car and walked over to greet me.  “Afternoon Ma’am, nice day for a walk”, was the way it started.  I found it amusing that a geezer like me could possibly be in trouble for something as innocent as walking in the woods on a sunny day.  I even told him I was taking a photo of the place where my partner’s ancestors had once lived.  He was unimpressed.  “Do you have a recreational permit?”  I do not.  The conversation escalated to seeing my driver’s license and being told to wait while he went into his car to write out a summons.  I do believe the idling of his vehicle for 10 or 15 minutes was far more damaging to the environment than my walk in the woods.  I have a court date in March.  I have an option of applying online for a recreational permit.

So my latest bead of irony entails being forbidden to walk on the very grounds that were called home to the ancestors I’m looking for.  And so far, no luck in finding Phillip. 

Ashokan Reservoir December

Big Joe

Big Joe used to hoard office supplies.  He was a retired cop and had never worked in an office, but he had an affinity for office supplies; mostly paper, but pens and markers too, though to a lesser degree.  He hoarded in secret, putting the supplies, still in their Staples bags with the receipts, down in the basement of his three bedroom ranch.  There could be found several bags bulging with: reams of copy paper, packages of loose leaf paper, steno pads, legal pads, yellow lined and white lined; packages of Sharpies, Bic pens and highlighters.  These items seemed to be the repeat purchases; he wasn’t too big on binder clips, staples or tape. 

I know because my sister, his wife, started referring to the basement as the office supply store.  When I visited she would ask if I needed ‘anything’, with a sideways motion of her head and her mouth stretched in that direction, towards the basement door.  Never one to pass up some paper, I’d say sure and we’d go down after Big Joe had gone to bed, and I’d “shop”.  Her grown kids did the same, always surreptitiously, occasionally calling ahead to ask her to check the inventory. The goods were always removed when Big Joe wasn’t around or they were hidden in other bags upon leaving.  Diaper bags were roomy receptacles for office supplies. 

Big Joe never commented on the decreasing piles.  In fact he never once concurred that he had even put the bags down there.  Prior to the basement stash, he had been putting the bags in the small spare room that had belonged to his older son.  That was when my sister, his wife, seeing that a buildup wash happening, began to give the stuff away.  He never asked where the bags of supplies were going, but had changed course and started depositing them in the basement.  It was never discussed, never pointed out.  It was all very secret and covert.  

There were other bags that he left here and there – the plastic type of grocery bags.  They would have receipts or some other odds and ends of paper – just stuff he never went through to throw out, but would accumulate.  My sister, the opposite of an accumulator, has the reputation of throwing the current day’s newspaper out before the end of the day if she knows she won’t have time to read it.  So she had taken to throwing the plastic bags of paper scraps out when Big Joe wasn’t around to see. Sometimes brown paper bags too. 

It was that one time that she noticed him in and out of Young Joe’s old bedroom, up and down the basement stairs; each several times. It was not his personality to wander.  Mostly, he drifted from bed to table to car, completing his errands, then back to couch, table, bed.  My sister finally asked him what he was looking for?  “Oh, just a bag” Big Joe said.  Humph, she thought, just a bag?  Days passed and the hunt continued.  Big Joe seemed to be getting pretty worked up.  My sister began to worry about the bags she’d been throwing out (which of course she would never, could never, tell him, or admit to doing).  Some days later Big Joe asked her if she’d thrown out a certain brown bag in recent weeks.  Of course not was her answer.  It was then that he sheepishly admitted that he’d been saving some money in a paper bag, just throwing bills in with the intention of counting it up and banking it when he had the time.  “How much was in there?” my sister asked tentatively.  About two thousand, Big Joe replied. 

In later years, Big Joe began hoarding Vodka, in addition to the office supplies.  This was a true mystery, as Big Joe was a Bourbon drinker all the way, though in fact he drank less and less as the years went on.  My sister started showing up with a bottle of Vodka when she visited, or slipping a bottle of Vodka in with the paper supplies when I was in the basement choosing my papers.  No one asked Big Joe why. 

When he died, he wasn’t remembered for his office supply hoarding; that remained his secret.   I remember him for his sudden outbursts of laughter, which brightened and illuminated his face.  He wasn’t known for being a talker, but he sure loved a good laugh.

Until Next Year

Mid October sees windows snap their mouths shut

against the chill air
Bird chatter is hushed in a churchlike whisper
Wind chimes, like an admonished child,
are seen but not heard
Socks urgently rush, duty bound, from drawers,
plates clatter with cold from the cabinets
the oatmeal box marches confidently to the forefront

Without struggle
the house adapts this quietude
then quickly switches to the clatter of logs
dropping to the basement floor
furnace rock and rumble
The dehumidifier nods to duty well done
Until next year

Woodstock Relaxation

Ah – if even part of every day could be as peaceful and relaxed as this morning.  Who would believe that a visit to the dentist could start out my mellow experience?  But, yes, even the smileScan or whatever the three dimensional rotating x-ray thingee is called that orbits around your head. One needs to remove all metal; off go the studs, the small hoops, the thin chain, the hair clippie.  Then one steps forward and is instructed to bite the stick, get positioned, swallow, put tongue to roof of mouth and then the gizmo pans around your head, whilst one is lucky enough to be staring out at a small pond at the edge of the wooded lot.  Very Woody Allen in Sleeper; I feel a taste of what it might be like to cavort through the woods in a space suit.

Dr Fred is the calmest man ever. He inspires meditation or whatever it is that gets him to that place.  He is slow, methodical, so, so patient.  He advises, explains, shows, helps to make decisions.   So, no crown work done today, but he elected to do two, not four crowns, and there was talk of pin-drop of my gums and one implant and drilling of the bone, (he says the bone structure looks pretty good, which is the only time in recent years that those two words could possibly have been applied to me in the dentist chair) and even the mention of drilling a titanium rod through my gum did not un-do me. 

Following that, I took a trip to the natural foods market where one is surrounded by glorious smells, including natural candles, fresh coffee, scones.  I purchased a New York Times to ground me, some yogurt and granola, bulk style, like the old days, a tiny tin of perfume crème – gardenia vanilla.  I drove to a parking lot, sat in the sunny car with coffee and scone and paper, then took my camera and walked, looking for photos. 

My foot felt good, the right hip protested sharply a few times then seemed to begrudgingly settle into the walk.  As I turned at the end of the winding road to walk back, a man with longish, thick white hair called over from a porch where he sat “where’s your dog?”  I knew him, but it took a few minutes for me  to realize he didn’t know or remember me, or maybe he did remember my dog who died ten years ago.  He did say short, and Jessie certainly was that.  

Something was not right and though we chatted across the grass for a short while, he was not the same dashing flirt I knew him as ten or fifteen years ago.  Something missing; our conversation had a slight electrical short or outage.  We’d become two elders of our town, seeing each other rarely, one perhaps remembering more than the other.  There is no catching up with what has transpired in those years.  We used to cross paths every day in the retail world.  He’d once introduced his mother to me when she was visiting.  He’d always called me “Hey Beautiful”.  None of this was part of his desultory conversation today.  His movements are slower, as are we all.  We said good-byes.  He said “call me when you get rich” as he turned to walk into this house.   

I walked on, a bit sad but grateful that I can still walk down such a lane and have that chat. As I crossed over to the main road, a car pulled up, seemed to be in a hurry.  The electric window whizzed halfway down, the man asked “Hey, can you tell us where the music concert was?”  “It was in Bethel, about an hour and a half southeast of here”, I replied, proud that I did not give in to a nasty habit that some of us locals, tired of the endless question in the summertime, were prone to do – make something up and send them driving around town.  “No, the woman next to him said – the rock concert.”  “The one forty years ago” the man almost snarled, as though my brain  were malfunctioning.  I didn’t correct him to say it was almost fifty years ago, but said “Yes, it took place in Bethel, and hour and a half from here.”  “Then why did they called it the Woodstock festival” he asked, completely cynical about my response.  “Well, it got that name because that’s how the promotion started...”  I didn’t get to finish.  He yelled “yeah thanks”, zipped up the window and sped off, apparently in search of more reliable information.  I should have made something up –it would have been much more rewarding.

Driving up over the mountain, Van Morrison came on the radio to sing “Going down to ole Woodstock”. 

Woodstock calms me.  Not on a weekend.  And especially not on a summer weekend.  But yes, on a Thursday morning in the afterglow of most August visitors.

August Light

Wave Hill, the Palisades, NJ

 

Pink evening pond

Monet Summer Pond

Monday Morning Shadows

Slipping Away

August slips away

Not slowly like a gentle morning mist

But rapidly

Too rapidly

Like a flock of birds startled by a car door slamming

 

I grasp for it

A desperate clinging spider

in panic

To protect its web

 

Mourning is just scant weeks away

I recoil at the sight of

Errant orange and red leaves

Displayed brilliantly on lush summer green grass

 

I listen attentively to crickets in the blackening night

Is their song getting fainter

Are their numbers dwindling?

 

The bull frogs wane in number

As the strategizing heron grows plump

Their deep throated honking

No longer cacophonic

Sporadic instead

 

Soon the nights will be stilled again

 

Mourning is just scant weeks away

August slips from my grasp