By Special to the Sun Journal
Published: Mar 07, 2004 12:00 am
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Some readers may remember when a full pound of coffee - not the ludicrous 12 or 13 ounces we get today - sold for 69 cents. You may also remember the stories that reached our ears, supposedly from the mountains of South and Central America, concerning protracted freezes and droughts and various other maladies that befell the poor coffee growers.
Well maybe they did and maybe they didn't.
Fact is, coffee prices shot to over $5 per pound before settling to somewhere near where they are today, and that was before anyone heard of "gourmet coffee."
Much the same thing happened in the beef industry in the 1960s. Beef prices rose so fast that many households found it necessary to develop a taste for horse meat.
Today, even lovers of chocolate are not immune. The groundwork for a future rapid increase in chocolate prices is being laid as I write. Raymond Schnell, a geneticist who presented his research on cocoa in two conferences in the United States in the week before Valentine's Day, believes it is only a matter of time before diseases like witches' broom and black pot rot endanger the global cocoa supply.
Do you see where this is leading?
When skullduggery, manipulation and globalization are used to bring market forces to bear on a commodity, prices shoot up faster than dandelions in August. Is this the American way?
As this nation's economic situation again becomes threatening, as select prices begin to get out of hand, as coffee farmers starve or switch to more profitable crops and as beef prices again soar, we may do well to recall past experiences.
As an aid to our joint effort at remembering, I would like to bring you two not-so-far-fetched tales of the American Way.
The death of Juan Valdez
On the day he was to die, Juan lifted his eyes to the mountains, which surrounded his village in a soothing, protective embrace. Their steep, angular sides draped in a robe of soft green splattered here and there with thin, gray-white clouds.
For how many years had he and his burro climbed and wandered in that beautiful green? How many times had he laughed, cried, slept, bled and broken bread there? How many bent and sweat-filled hours had he spent in travail beneath those moist gray-white clouds, beneath the unblinking eyes of God?
Now the green, the life-giving green, was turning against him. The small red beans he picked day after day grew scarce as if in hiding. The men at the market paid him less and then still less for what he managed to pick, but they demanded more and then still more bags per day.
But Juan considered himself fortunate, fortunate to collect his $2 per day for the beans he picked. But in the market he heard of others less fortunate.
As world market prices dropped as low as 45 cents per pound, Latin American farmers were devastated, receiving as little as 15 cents to 25 cents per pound for their coffee on local markets; in Kenya and Guatemala, entire crops were left to rot on coffee bushes; in El Salvador 30,000 farm jobs were lost; in Nicaragua unemployed farm workers desperate for jobs set up shantytowns in cities; and in Mexico families were torn apart as members risked their lives at the border to find work in the United States.
Then the cold came. The damp in the thin, white clouds turned to ice. The soft green became a harsh brown. The red beans fell upon the ground or rotted upon the branch.
Still Juan worked. With numb and bleeding fingers, he worked. His weary burro fell on the ice and slid over a cliff. In a magnificently quiet instant, Juan found himself alone. With no burro to carry his bags down the mountain to market, Juan knew he was defeated.
At the market, they told him machines were coming - machines with no blood, machines with no burros, machines with no families. Machines would pick amidst the beautiful green, beneath the thin wet clouds, beneath the unblinking eyes of God.
They told him he was to die, must die. They told him there was no room on the mountain for his kind. There, at the market in the valley, they killed him.
They then went to the media and loudly complained. They complained about the harsh way fate was dealing with them. They complained about the cold, the ice and the rotting beans. They told everyone that they were sorry the price for a pound of the beans had risen from 69 cents to over $5, but it was not in their control. They rung their hands, wept and prayed for all to see.
What the killers-of-Juan did not say was although they were paying farmers roughly 24 cents per pound, they (four giants - Procter & Gamble Co., Philip Morris Cos.'s Kraft Foods Inc., Sara Lee Corp. and Nestle SA of Switzerland - control about 40 percent of the world's coffee) were selling those beans for an average of $3.60 a pound.
The bean-drinkers of the world grew very sad. They could not, would not, pay $5. The sad bean-drinkers became desperate. They began drinking tea leaves and roasted cereal.
Relief soon came to the sad bean-drinkers. They-who-killed-Juan invented new roasting techniques, which, they said, transformed 13 ounces of beans into the coffee making equivalent of a full pound. The bean-drinkers would buy less and get as much, they said. Full 13-ounce bags and cans of the special roast were put on sale for only $3.50 each.
The international charity Oxfam said that coffee-reliant economies in Latin America and Africa are on the brink of collapse, due to low prices, and now farmers are supplementing them by growing drugs.
But the sad bean-drinkers are now happy. They-who-killed-Juan are very happy.
Juan was soon forgotten. The burro's body was never found. Juan's children starved.
A cowboy's lament
In the heat of the Texas sun, the cowboys drove the cattle. Over hills, across rivers, through Bad Lands where only rocks grow, they drove them. Through dust and rain, they drove them. The fat, four-legged beef factories grew thinner as the going got tougher. The cowboys wept to see their profits wasting on the hoof. The beef would be lean and tough. The price per pound would fall.
At the railhead, they-who-killed-Juan looked over the thin cattle, shook their heads and offered to buy them anyway, but at a much-reduced price. The cowboys took what was offered then, defeated and downcast, rode off and ate their beans in silence.
The Juan-killers fed the cattle rich corn feed, antibiotics and chemicals. The cattle fattened, grew content and ambled through the chute to their demise. The killers-of-Juan grew rich, but not rich enough. The good, nutritious corn, the antibiotics and the chemicals had cost them much. There must be a better way.
Again, the killers went to the media. Again, they told terrible stories: of drought on the plains, of foreign diseases, of dying cattle. They cried, wrung their hands and prayed. The price of beef was raised.
At Lunardi's market in San Jose's Evergreen neighborhood, prices on all cuts of beef went up. Some customers gave up steaks for hamburger and ribs. Regular ground beef shot from $1.89 a pound to $2.59 a pound. Filet mignon rose from $14.99 a pound to $22.95 a pound.
But retailers had little choice. Cattle prices reached a record $1.20 per 100 pounds of live weight, about 50 percent more than in October. The wholesale price of beef in September was $2.43 a pound, compared with $1.75 the previous year.
Still the price of beef increased. It doubled, rose threefold then fourfold. Beef eaters began looking elsewhere for meat. The beef eaters ate the cowboy's horses.
The killers then made their move. A better way was at hand. They would make "fat" a bad word, something to be avoided?
Scientific studies commenced. Animal fat was found full of cholesterol - a leading cause of heart disease.
They-who-killed-Juan lobbied Washington until round men in vests passed new laws to protect the sad beef eaters of America from the dangerous fat. Henceforth and forever, prime beef - that tender, juicy steak marbled with white fat - would be a thing of the unenlightened past.
Choice beef - a lesser grade containing far less of the dreaded fat - would be moved into the spot formerly held by prime. Fine restaurants would serve the new lean, dry, healthy, prime grade. Common beef eaters would buy a still leaner, dryer, more healthy, less tasteful, choice grade (formerly classified as fit for canning only) in their supermarkets.
They-who-killed-Juan lowered beef prices slightly. The beef eaters sighed their thanks, bellied up to butcher blocks and ordered their steaks and roasts at three times the price they had been a year ago, but less than they were a month ago. New Age dieters, following the teachings of a deceased guru, further increased the demand for beef, which is very low in carbohydrates.
They-who-killed-Juan charged more for less. They were very happy. The cowboys tore their shirts, burned their chaps and sent up a terrible wail for their digested horses. The killers, hearing the cowboy's cry, quickly sold them pickup trucks, blue jeans, baseball caps, Reeboks and Budweiser.
The cowboys stopped their lament, placed a large, dry, tasteless steak on the campfire and opened their beers.
"It just doesn't get any better than this," said Slim.
Out on the plains, in the grasslands and lush valleys, all was quiet. No cattle were being fattened or driven to market.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Blessings
December 18, 2010
Dear Family and Friends,
Guy and I are thinking of you, and wishing that we could share the holidays with you in person, here by our Christmas tree standing in the windows overlooking the fields and forest of our beautiful winter world. The last months have held many challenges for us, as they have for some of you, so it is with special sense of blessing and appreciation that we send our greetings this year.
Fortunately, we have only good news to share. The forced retirement that happened for Guy in 2009 has become an opportunity for both of us to appreciate the other, to have a fuller, richer, more enjoyable life together. My father’s health crisis, which led to our family’s moving our parents from their home to an apartment at the same assisted living complex, with hours of care available and a more supportive and sunny environment, has resulted in his complete recovery. He is immobilized by a much worn-out knee, but he enjoys his days with his beloved Dorothy at his side. He will be ninety- one in July! Dad and Dorothy no longer spend time at their house in Jonesport, but Guy and I love the special place, the sea and the community so much, we go as often as possible.
My own health took a tumble this year, but my outrageous blood pressure has finally stabilized. I am feeling better, with a strong appreciation for the help and guidance of my brother, who provided advice and support. Just last week a wonderful nephrologist offered optimism and alternative medications, so next year, watch out world!
We have our wonderful family to be thankful for, and they are the joy and light of our lives. Guy’s daughter Sandi and her partner Doug live in St. Pete. They visited us in Maine in 2009 with their son Zachary, who is five. At the time our lovable yellow Lab, Jaden, was just a few weeks old. Boy and puppy frolicked through the fields, memories that Guy and I cherish. We hope Sandi and Doug return soon! Sandi and Doug have five children between them. Sandi’s daughter Christina had a beautiful baby boy this year, Aiden, so Guy has a Great Grandson! Her daughter Rachel lives nearby. Guy’s daughter Michelle, her husband Kambiz, and their daughter Shadee, who is four, live in Tampa, where Kambiz is a partner in a Martial Arts School, and Michelle is Chief Deputy Court Administrator for Pinellas County. Michelle’s older daughters, Kimberly and Annette are doing well with Kimberly now in high school and Annette starting Law School in September. Shadee and Zach as well as the older children all enjoy Guy’s frequent visits to Florida. One of the personal goals Guy and I set is to insure that he is able to see his family in Florida more often, now that the “open road” isn’t keeping him away from everyone.
Guy’s youngest daughter, Tracy, and her husband Tony live in Monroe, North Carolina. Tracy stayed there when we left, with her three young children. Her oldest son, Taylor, is now an adult, and lives in Asheville. Her son Alec spends time with Tracy, Tony and their daughter Alice, as do Tony’s two children, Kayla and Peter.
My daughter Pia and her husband David live in Liberty, just fifteen miles from my doorstep, thankfully. They are both artists, but during the past six years most of their creativity energy is lavished on their three beautiful daughters, my treasures, Ruby, Stella, and Ursula (five, three and one).David is a cabinetmaker, and a maker of fine musical instruments, violin, and guitar. You should see them!
As I write this, I wish I could insert pictures, but I am just not that computer savvy, still very much a Luddite! No Facebook for me, thank you. But you will find Guy there for sure!
When Guy spends time in Florida, you can often find him with his sisters, Priscilla and her husband, Kent, and Phyllis. His sister Rose and her husband Frank live in Connecticut, and stay a week at a camp in Maine. We enjoy seeing them when they are here! Guy loves time spent with nephews and nieces and their families, who also live in the St Pete area some of the year. They are all very close, and embrace each other in a big family way. Stephanie and her husband Vic came to visit us this summer, and we enjoyed showing them Maine’s beautiful midcoast, lobster and all, having a wonderful time together. They want us to visit them in Long Island, but it is very hard for us to both get away.
My sisters and brother and I also enjoy our forever special love for each other. David retired a few years ago. He and Sydney sail the Caribbean for much of the year. When they returned to Maine this year, they bought a new house, smaller than their big Victorian where they raised their children. David loves and continues to practice medicine, working at the hospital when he is in Maine. Their daughter Willow and her son Zeb live nearby; daughter Ariel lives in Colorado, and son Sky lives in New York City. My sister Meredy lives in Maine, she is a writer, and directs the University of New Hampshire creative writing program. Two of her sons, Zachary and Ron, live in San Francisco; son Morgan and his wife Elizabeth live in Austin with Meredy’s beloved grandson, John. My sister Carole and her husband Dan live in New Hampshire. Two of their sons, Emerson and Brackett, are in college; their daughter Brittany runs a music store. Their son Dylan married the love of his life, Kristy during a magical wedding in Rye Beach last summer.
I continue working at Maine State Housing Authority, a time well spent providing affordable housing to low income families in Maine--and there are many. January marks my tenth year there and it is no coincidence that I have been out of touch with many of you during that time. My days are full, between family, work, and the farm.
Yes, I still have four horses, and one sweet palomino pony. My beautiful bay Arabian stallion, Czar, will be twenty-seven in March. When she was twenty-six, our favorite mare, Chici, had a filly, Legacy. Legacy will be twenty three in March! Redhaven Kia and Redhaven Rebecca are daughters of Czar, both still teenagers. Lacey, the pony, is a pale blond girl of ten. Lacey loves my granddaughters, who enjoy their visits, feeding Lacey grass or hay. Caring for the horses and their place keeps me balanced, in touch with the rhythm of the natural world, focused on the present. Since he is retired, Guy provides much help with this, and it is a joy for me on those many days when he joins me in the barn, and smiles in the cold as he waters or tosses hay. He has even finally learned their names, and knows their personalities!
Guy has resumed writing, and has a blog that many of you are familiar with, http://guybo-onemansview.blogspot.com/. His talent for both the inside and outside of the computer/technological world remains his primary fascination. His satisfaction sitting there for hours befuddles me, but it is wonderful that he is so proficient and enjoys it so much. Since he retired, Guy has become the primary cook and bottle washer, so that when I return from work at seven only to head out the back door to do evening chores in the barn, our meal is ready when I get up to the house.
Guy and Jaden are quite a team! Jaden keeps prodding Guy to go for walks or to play tug. It is a sight, watching Guy in his bathrobe, tugging on his pipe, walking down through a slightly snowy field with a pudgy yellow Lab placidly strolling beside him, accompanied by our two brother cats, Hobbes Folky and Loki. We are really very, very blessed.
Our old farm holds us gently, warmed by a new Hearthstone woodstove, looking out from a new deck my son-in-law built for us this summer; we both know how lucky we are. We hope that you, too, are enjoying your lives fully, healthfully, and lovingly. We are sending our wishes for all good for you and your loved ones this upcoming year. Stay in touch. We care about you.
Now, a note from “the man”:
I do not have much to add to what my partner-in-life has already said except that I feel very, very blessed. I owe a debt of gratitude to Prozac, which has allowed me to get off the worry-wagon and get on with life. Aside from the pharmaceuticals, I owe much, so very much, to Sandy, my wife. A word to all of you out there who trail me in years: Keep an eye for the white water, for beneath are the rocks. But above all, enjoy the voyage. There is no return trip.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!
Dear Family and Friends,
Guy and I are thinking of you, and wishing that we could share the holidays with you in person, here by our Christmas tree standing in the windows overlooking the fields and forest of our beautiful winter world. The last months have held many challenges for us, as they have for some of you, so it is with special sense of blessing and appreciation that we send our greetings this year.
Fortunately, we have only good news to share. The forced retirement that happened for Guy in 2009 has become an opportunity for both of us to appreciate the other, to have a fuller, richer, more enjoyable life together. My father’s health crisis, which led to our family’s moving our parents from their home to an apartment at the same assisted living complex, with hours of care available and a more supportive and sunny environment, has resulted in his complete recovery. He is immobilized by a much worn-out knee, but he enjoys his days with his beloved Dorothy at his side. He will be ninety- one in July! Dad and Dorothy no longer spend time at their house in Jonesport, but Guy and I love the special place, the sea and the community so much, we go as often as possible.
My own health took a tumble this year, but my outrageous blood pressure has finally stabilized. I am feeling better, with a strong appreciation for the help and guidance of my brother, who provided advice and support. Just last week a wonderful nephrologist offered optimism and alternative medications, so next year, watch out world!
We have our wonderful family to be thankful for, and they are the joy and light of our lives. Guy’s daughter Sandi and her partner Doug live in St. Pete. They visited us in Maine in 2009 with their son Zachary, who is five. At the time our lovable yellow Lab, Jaden, was just a few weeks old. Boy and puppy frolicked through the fields, memories that Guy and I cherish. We hope Sandi and Doug return soon! Sandi and Doug have five children between them. Sandi’s daughter Christina had a beautiful baby boy this year, Aiden, so Guy has a Great Grandson! Her daughter Rachel lives nearby. Guy’s daughter Michelle, her husband Kambiz, and their daughter Shadee, who is four, live in Tampa, where Kambiz is a partner in a Martial Arts School, and Michelle is Chief Deputy Court Administrator for Pinellas County. Michelle’s older daughters, Kimberly and Annette are doing well with Kimberly now in high school and Annette starting Law School in September. Shadee and Zach as well as the older children all enjoy Guy’s frequent visits to Florida. One of the personal goals Guy and I set is to insure that he is able to see his family in Florida more often, now that the “open road” isn’t keeping him away from everyone.
Guy’s youngest daughter, Tracy, and her husband Tony live in Monroe, North Carolina. Tracy stayed there when we left, with her three young children. Her oldest son, Taylor, is now an adult, and lives in Asheville. Her son Alec spends time with Tracy, Tony and their daughter Alice, as do Tony’s two children, Kayla and Peter.
My daughter Pia and her husband David live in Liberty, just fifteen miles from my doorstep, thankfully. They are both artists, but during the past six years most of their creativity energy is lavished on their three beautiful daughters, my treasures, Ruby, Stella, and Ursula (five, three and one).David is a cabinetmaker, and a maker of fine musical instruments, violin, and guitar. You should see them!
As I write this, I wish I could insert pictures, but I am just not that computer savvy, still very much a Luddite! No Facebook for me, thank you. But you will find Guy there for sure!
When Guy spends time in Florida, you can often find him with his sisters, Priscilla and her husband, Kent, and Phyllis. His sister Rose and her husband Frank live in Connecticut, and stay a week at a camp in Maine. We enjoy seeing them when they are here! Guy loves time spent with nephews and nieces and their families, who also live in the St Pete area some of the year. They are all very close, and embrace each other in a big family way. Stephanie and her husband Vic came to visit us this summer, and we enjoyed showing them Maine’s beautiful midcoast, lobster and all, having a wonderful time together. They want us to visit them in Long Island, but it is very hard for us to both get away.
My sisters and brother and I also enjoy our forever special love for each other. David retired a few years ago. He and Sydney sail the Caribbean for much of the year. When they returned to Maine this year, they bought a new house, smaller than their big Victorian where they raised their children. David loves and continues to practice medicine, working at the hospital when he is in Maine. Their daughter Willow and her son Zeb live nearby; daughter Ariel lives in Colorado, and son Sky lives in New York City. My sister Meredy lives in Maine, she is a writer, and directs the University of New Hampshire creative writing program. Two of her sons, Zachary and Ron, live in San Francisco; son Morgan and his wife Elizabeth live in Austin with Meredy’s beloved grandson, John. My sister Carole and her husband Dan live in New Hampshire. Two of their sons, Emerson and Brackett, are in college; their daughter Brittany runs a music store. Their son Dylan married the love of his life, Kristy during a magical wedding in Rye Beach last summer.
I continue working at Maine State Housing Authority, a time well spent providing affordable housing to low income families in Maine--and there are many. January marks my tenth year there and it is no coincidence that I have been out of touch with many of you during that time. My days are full, between family, work, and the farm.
Yes, I still have four horses, and one sweet palomino pony. My beautiful bay Arabian stallion, Czar, will be twenty-seven in March. When she was twenty-six, our favorite mare, Chici, had a filly, Legacy. Legacy will be twenty three in March! Redhaven Kia and Redhaven Rebecca are daughters of Czar, both still teenagers. Lacey, the pony, is a pale blond girl of ten. Lacey loves my granddaughters, who enjoy their visits, feeding Lacey grass or hay. Caring for the horses and their place keeps me balanced, in touch with the rhythm of the natural world, focused on the present. Since he is retired, Guy provides much help with this, and it is a joy for me on those many days when he joins me in the barn, and smiles in the cold as he waters or tosses hay. He has even finally learned their names, and knows their personalities!
Guy has resumed writing, and has a blog that many of you are familiar with, http://guybo-onemansview.blogspot.com/. His talent for both the inside and outside of the computer/technological world remains his primary fascination. His satisfaction sitting there for hours befuddles me, but it is wonderful that he is so proficient and enjoys it so much. Since he retired, Guy has become the primary cook and bottle washer, so that when I return from work at seven only to head out the back door to do evening chores in the barn, our meal is ready when I get up to the house.
Guy and Jaden are quite a team! Jaden keeps prodding Guy to go for walks or to play tug. It is a sight, watching Guy in his bathrobe, tugging on his pipe, walking down through a slightly snowy field with a pudgy yellow Lab placidly strolling beside him, accompanied by our two brother cats, Hobbes Folky and Loki. We are really very, very blessed.
Our old farm holds us gently, warmed by a new Hearthstone woodstove, looking out from a new deck my son-in-law built for us this summer; we both know how lucky we are. We hope that you, too, are enjoying your lives fully, healthfully, and lovingly. We are sending our wishes for all good for you and your loved ones this upcoming year. Stay in touch. We care about you.
Now, a note from “the man”:
I do not have much to add to what my partner-in-life has already said except that I feel very, very blessed. I owe a debt of gratitude to Prozac, which has allowed me to get off the worry-wagon and get on with life. Aside from the pharmaceuticals, I owe much, so very much, to Sandy, my wife. A word to all of you out there who trail me in years: Keep an eye for the white water, for beneath are the rocks. But above all, enjoy the voyage. There is no return trip.
Merry Christmas, Happy New Year!
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Lobstah
Maine and lobster, lobster and Maine are hard linked, joined at the hip, inseparable.
Until recently, Maine auto license plates bore the lobster symbol. Drive across the bridge on Interstate 95 from Portsmouth into Kittery and one of the first sights you behold is a large, red lobster symbol emblazoned on a white industrial tank. Indeed, if these decapods could speak, we assume it would be with a Maine accent.
Lobster and Maine have a love affair that goes way back; they have a history.
Before any European set foot on the rocky coast we now call Maine, the natives were having lobster bakes. Back then they preferred their lobster baked or broiled rather than the now popular, boiled.
In the late 18th century European settlers discovered the lobster. The tasty critters were easily caught: one needed only wade about in shallow water among the rocks and scoop them up, being careful not to lose a finger to the large crusher claw.
As plentiful as they were, there was a problem: unless cooked and eaten almost immediately lobster meat decays very quickly. It can't be dried, nor can it be salted. The early lobstermen had such a surplus that they began using lobster for fertilizer. Luckily for those neophyte Maine lobstermen (not so for the lobsters) the ladies and gentlemen of Boston were acquiring a taste for the hard-shelled creatures.
In 1835 Captain John Smith had six smacks (sloop rigged boats) fitted with tanks for a cargo of live lobster and began regular runs between Harpswell, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1841 Captain Elisha Smith recorded that he made ten trips between Vinalhaven and Boston, transporting a total of 35,000 pounds of lobster.
As the market grew, canneries began to spring up along the coast. William Underwood began canning lobster in Harpswell in 1844. George Burnham and Samuel Rummery began canning corn and lobster in Portland during the years 1852-57.
By 1880 no fewer than 23 coastal factories were busy canning lobster and other seafood products. Only the tails and claws of the lobster were used. The remaining portions were sold for fertilizer or pig feed. In 1879 the Red Beach Plaster Company began operations in Eastport, where they converted lobster shells into plaster.
In 1854 a full cargo for a Boston bound smack consisted of approximately 1200 lobsters. By 1880 this number increased to 8000. That same year, 1880, found canneries employing 800 to 1000 fishermen to supply the skyrocketing demand.
The part-time lobsterman, fishing from a pea pod (a rowboat with a pointed bow at each end) or on foot, gave way to the full time lobsterman, using newly invented lobster traps. The boats became larger, employing mast and sail for power. Fifty lobster traps were considered the manageable limit.
As demand increased so did prices. In 1862 lobster fetched forty to fifty cents per hundred weight. Lobsters weighing in at four to five pounds were considered small and those of two pounds and under were thrown away. As late as 1890, lobsters weighing in at less than three pounds were considered half a lobster.
In 1880 smack owners paid between four and five cents for a two-pound lobster while the canneries bought up the smaller specimens for one cent per pound. By 1887 the price paid by the smacks increased to three to four cents per pound and then skyrocketed to ten cents per lobster in the decade between 1890 and 1900. By 1906 the price had climbed to twenty-five cents per pound!
The new lobster market took off, but the lobstermen, in spite of the higher prices, were not seeing an increase in their incomes. In 1870 a man could make a decent living tending fifty traps. By 1880 the same man required seventy-five traps to maintain the same income. Something was wrong.
To understand what was happening consider the lobster life cycle:
As a lobster grows its shell remains the same size. When the shell becomes too cramped the lobster sheds it and grows a new, roomier model. It soon grows into the new shell, becomes cramped and so must repeat the cycle.
Female lobsters (hens) mate soon after shedding, while still soft. She may carry the male'ss (cock's) sperm around with her for up to twelve months before deciding to lay anywhere from five thousand to more than one hundred thousand green-black eggs. Today if a female is caught while carrying eggs the lobsterman will classify her a "breeder" by notching her tail. This new "breeder" is set free and may never be harvested by anyone.
The eggs, once released by the female, hatch in a day or two. As the infant lobster, about a third of an inch in length, begin their lives, they swim about near the surface feasting on plankton while trying to survive every eating thing above, upon and in the sea.
The new lobsters molt (shed) three times in the first two weeks of their lives and then head for the bottom to hide and grow. Today's legal size lobster requires around twenty-five molts or five to seven years of survival.
During this time they eat crabs, eelgrass, snails worms, mussels and occasionally each other. Only one percent survives to reach adulthood. Of the surviving one-percent lobstermen capture ninety-percent the first year. It is a major miracle that we have any lobster at all.
In 1872, faced with a diminishing supply, the first of many regulations was passed. It forbade the taking of females with eggs. Lobstermen at first ignored the regulation and simply scraped the eggs off the breeder.
The supply continued to diminish. More regulations were passed. Enforcement became severe. The increase in regulation and enforcement had an immediate, devastating impact upon the Maine canneries. Within a very short time most relocated to Canada where there was far less regulation.
In the next few years a marked increase in steamboat and rail transportation allowed Maine to more easily export lobster and brought even more tourists into the state to sample the native delight.
The demand for lobster continued to grow. More traps were set by more lobstermen.
In 1889 2000 lobstermen harvested 25,000,000 pounds in 121,000 traps (an average of 206.6 pounds per trap, 12,500 pounds per man). By 1898 3100 lobstermen harvested 17,500,000 pounds in 156,000 traps (an average of 112 pounds per trap, 5645 pounds per man).
In the course of time the lobster population leveled off. No one seems to know the exact reason why it should or why it did although there has been no shortage of theories put forth. Heated arguments between lobstermen and government regulators on this subject continue to this day.
Hi-tech entered the lobster fishery following World War II. Depth finders, radios, radar, nylon pot warp (rope) and heads (funnels through which the lobster enters the trap) and faster boats impacted the fishery and the lobsterman.
In 1970 wire traps were introduced as a replacement for the old wooden slat construction. Although slow to find acceptance with the lobstermen, the new traps slowly gained in popularity. With the new traps however, came a new problem: ghost traps.
A wooden trap, if lost to the sea, soon disintegrates. The new wire traps, when lost, just kept on trapping and trapping.
A solution was soon found. A replaceable, biodegradable panel was added to the wire trap. If the trap were lost the panel would soon disintegrate thus releasing any marine life trapped inside. Along with this biodegradable panel a special hatch which allows "shorts" to escape is also now required.
Today it seems there are so many traps in the water that one could walk across the marker buoys without getting one's feet wet. With so many traps it seems that the poor lobster doesn't stand a chance. But neither does the lobsterman. Today he competes with over 7000 men hauling 2,000,000 traps not to mention imports, which keep prices down while his operating costs continue to rise.
Gone are the romantic days when the lobsterman built his own spruce traps, knitted his own heads and hauled his 50 or 60 traps from a pea pod. Today he needs the latest technology, a fast boat and upwards of 700 traps. He must leave home before daylight and work until dark. He must keep the IRS happy. He must know and abide by countless fishing and Coast Guard regulations.
Lobstering today is a difficult, dangerous, labor intensive and capital intensive business. He and his family have been tending these "poverty boxes" for generations. But in a good year, if the prices are up and foul weather doesn't throw his pots and warp on some rocky beach in a hopeless ball of knots, he just might make a fair living.
Until recently, Maine auto license plates bore the lobster symbol. Drive across the bridge on Interstate 95 from Portsmouth into Kittery and one of the first sights you behold is a large, red lobster symbol emblazoned on a white industrial tank. Indeed, if these decapods could speak, we assume it would be with a Maine accent.
Lobster and Maine have a love affair that goes way back; they have a history.
Before any European set foot on the rocky coast we now call Maine, the natives were having lobster bakes. Back then they preferred their lobster baked or broiled rather than the now popular, boiled.
In the late 18th century European settlers discovered the lobster. The tasty critters were easily caught: one needed only wade about in shallow water among the rocks and scoop them up, being careful not to lose a finger to the large crusher claw.
As plentiful as they were, there was a problem: unless cooked and eaten almost immediately lobster meat decays very quickly. It can't be dried, nor can it be salted. The early lobstermen had such a surplus that they began using lobster for fertilizer. Luckily for those neophyte Maine lobstermen (not so for the lobsters) the ladies and gentlemen of Boston were acquiring a taste for the hard-shelled creatures.
In 1835 Captain John Smith had six smacks (sloop rigged boats) fitted with tanks for a cargo of live lobster and began regular runs between Harpswell, Maine and Boston, Massachusetts. In 1841 Captain Elisha Smith recorded that he made ten trips between Vinalhaven and Boston, transporting a total of 35,000 pounds of lobster.
As the market grew, canneries began to spring up along the coast. William Underwood began canning lobster in Harpswell in 1844. George Burnham and Samuel Rummery began canning corn and lobster in Portland during the years 1852-57.
By 1880 no fewer than 23 coastal factories were busy canning lobster and other seafood products. Only the tails and claws of the lobster were used. The remaining portions were sold for fertilizer or pig feed. In 1879 the Red Beach Plaster Company began operations in Eastport, where they converted lobster shells into plaster.
In 1854 a full cargo for a Boston bound smack consisted of approximately 1200 lobsters. By 1880 this number increased to 8000. That same year, 1880, found canneries employing 800 to 1000 fishermen to supply the skyrocketing demand.
The part-time lobsterman, fishing from a pea pod (a rowboat with a pointed bow at each end) or on foot, gave way to the full time lobsterman, using newly invented lobster traps. The boats became larger, employing mast and sail for power. Fifty lobster traps were considered the manageable limit.
As demand increased so did prices. In 1862 lobster fetched forty to fifty cents per hundred weight. Lobsters weighing in at four to five pounds were considered small and those of two pounds and under were thrown away. As late as 1890, lobsters weighing in at less than three pounds were considered half a lobster.
In 1880 smack owners paid between four and five cents for a two-pound lobster while the canneries bought up the smaller specimens for one cent per pound. By 1887 the price paid by the smacks increased to three to four cents per pound and then skyrocketed to ten cents per lobster in the decade between 1890 and 1900. By 1906 the price had climbed to twenty-five cents per pound!
The new lobster market took off, but the lobstermen, in spite of the higher prices, were not seeing an increase in their incomes. In 1870 a man could make a decent living tending fifty traps. By 1880 the same man required seventy-five traps to maintain the same income. Something was wrong.
To understand what was happening consider the lobster life cycle:
As a lobster grows its shell remains the same size. When the shell becomes too cramped the lobster sheds it and grows a new, roomier model. It soon grows into the new shell, becomes cramped and so must repeat the cycle.
Female lobsters (hens) mate soon after shedding, while still soft. She may carry the male'ss (cock's) sperm around with her for up to twelve months before deciding to lay anywhere from five thousand to more than one hundred thousand green-black eggs. Today if a female is caught while carrying eggs the lobsterman will classify her a "breeder" by notching her tail. This new "breeder" is set free and may never be harvested by anyone.
The eggs, once released by the female, hatch in a day or two. As the infant lobster, about a third of an inch in length, begin their lives, they swim about near the surface feasting on plankton while trying to survive every eating thing above, upon and in the sea.
The new lobsters molt (shed) three times in the first two weeks of their lives and then head for the bottom to hide and grow. Today's legal size lobster requires around twenty-five molts or five to seven years of survival.
During this time they eat crabs, eelgrass, snails worms, mussels and occasionally each other. Only one percent survives to reach adulthood. Of the surviving one-percent lobstermen capture ninety-percent the first year. It is a major miracle that we have any lobster at all.
In 1872, faced with a diminishing supply, the first of many regulations was passed. It forbade the taking of females with eggs. Lobstermen at first ignored the regulation and simply scraped the eggs off the breeder.
The supply continued to diminish. More regulations were passed. Enforcement became severe. The increase in regulation and enforcement had an immediate, devastating impact upon the Maine canneries. Within a very short time most relocated to Canada where there was far less regulation.
In the next few years a marked increase in steamboat and rail transportation allowed Maine to more easily export lobster and brought even more tourists into the state to sample the native delight.
The demand for lobster continued to grow. More traps were set by more lobstermen.
In 1889 2000 lobstermen harvested 25,000,000 pounds in 121,000 traps (an average of 206.6 pounds per trap, 12,500 pounds per man). By 1898 3100 lobstermen harvested 17,500,000 pounds in 156,000 traps (an average of 112 pounds per trap, 5645 pounds per man).
In the course of time the lobster population leveled off. No one seems to know the exact reason why it should or why it did although there has been no shortage of theories put forth. Heated arguments between lobstermen and government regulators on this subject continue to this day.
Hi-tech entered the lobster fishery following World War II. Depth finders, radios, radar, nylon pot warp (rope) and heads (funnels through which the lobster enters the trap) and faster boats impacted the fishery and the lobsterman.
In 1970 wire traps were introduced as a replacement for the old wooden slat construction. Although slow to find acceptance with the lobstermen, the new traps slowly gained in popularity. With the new traps however, came a new problem: ghost traps.
A wooden trap, if lost to the sea, soon disintegrates. The new wire traps, when lost, just kept on trapping and trapping.
A solution was soon found. A replaceable, biodegradable panel was added to the wire trap. If the trap were lost the panel would soon disintegrate thus releasing any marine life trapped inside. Along with this biodegradable panel a special hatch which allows "shorts" to escape is also now required.
Today it seems there are so many traps in the water that one could walk across the marker buoys without getting one's feet wet. With so many traps it seems that the poor lobster doesn't stand a chance. But neither does the lobsterman. Today he competes with over 7000 men hauling 2,000,000 traps not to mention imports, which keep prices down while his operating costs continue to rise.
Gone are the romantic days when the lobsterman built his own spruce traps, knitted his own heads and hauled his 50 or 60 traps from a pea pod. Today he needs the latest technology, a fast boat and upwards of 700 traps. He must leave home before daylight and work until dark. He must keep the IRS happy. He must know and abide by countless fishing and Coast Guard regulations.
Lobstering today is a difficult, dangerous, labor intensive and capital intensive business. He and his family have been tending these "poverty boxes" for generations. But in a good year, if the prices are up and foul weather doesn't throw his pots and warp on some rocky beach in a hopeless ball of knots, he just might make a fair living.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Where Is the Flag?
In 1814, when he was told by British officers that the guns of hundreds of British warships would be brought to bear upon Fort McHenry in Baltimore harbor, Francis Scott Key replied in horror that there were non-combatant women and children in the fort. He was assured by the British that all the occupants had been given an out—all they needed do was lower the American flag and the bombardment would stop immediately.
The bombardment began and continued throughout the night as Key, in disbelief, watched from the deck of HMS Surprise. He carried reports of the battle to American prisoners who were held below decks. They repeatedly asked but one question: “Where is the flag?”
In the morning the flag was still there and the free and brave persons within the fort gave inspiration to Key to pen a poem: The Star Spangled Banner.
To say that the full story of this important night in our history, which I never learned in 19 years of formal American education, moved me is a deep understatement. However, in the light of current happenings, or should I say shenanigans, transpiring in our nation’s capitol, I feel the strong need to ask President Obama: Where is the flag?
An act of terror was launched upon the inhabitants of Fort McHenry all those years ago, but like the generations who would follow them, they refused to bargain with terrorists. As a direct result very many died. Their bodies, as in countless battles since, in physical fact held our flag aloft. In the morning, “by the dawn’s early light”, Key observed the battered and singed colors still flying.
Mr. President, when the Republican side of the aisle recently held the welfare of the American people hostage to their wanton demands you stated to us all that you would not bargain with terrorists. Brave enough words. Then you dishonored us all, including those dead and wounded in Fort McHenry, when you added the caveat, “Unless the hostage gets harmed.” By so doing you refused to allow us to do what so many brave Americans have done before us—sacrifice
Freedom has always been expensive and still is and Americans have always footed the bill willingly. Now you, perhaps meaning well, refuse us the opportunity.
I am afraid, very afraid, significant damage has been done. At the twilight’s last gleaming, Mr. President, we look and behold: Where is the flag?
The bombardment began and continued throughout the night as Key, in disbelief, watched from the deck of HMS Surprise. He carried reports of the battle to American prisoners who were held below decks. They repeatedly asked but one question: “Where is the flag?”
In the morning the flag was still there and the free and brave persons within the fort gave inspiration to Key to pen a poem: The Star Spangled Banner.
To say that the full story of this important night in our history, which I never learned in 19 years of formal American education, moved me is a deep understatement. However, in the light of current happenings, or should I say shenanigans, transpiring in our nation’s capitol, I feel the strong need to ask President Obama: Where is the flag?
An act of terror was launched upon the inhabitants of Fort McHenry all those years ago, but like the generations who would follow them, they refused to bargain with terrorists. As a direct result very many died. Their bodies, as in countless battles since, in physical fact held our flag aloft. In the morning, “by the dawn’s early light”, Key observed the battered and singed colors still flying.
Mr. President, when the Republican side of the aisle recently held the welfare of the American people hostage to their wanton demands you stated to us all that you would not bargain with terrorists. Brave enough words. Then you dishonored us all, including those dead and wounded in Fort McHenry, when you added the caveat, “Unless the hostage gets harmed.” By so doing you refused to allow us to do what so many brave Americans have done before us—sacrifice
Freedom has always been expensive and still is and Americans have always footed the bill willingly. Now you, perhaps meaning well, refuse us the opportunity.
I am afraid, very afraid, significant damage has been done. At the twilight’s last gleaming, Mr. President, we look and behold: Where is the flag?
Monday, December 6, 2010
Man and Boy
I grew up in New London, Connecticut; a town on the Thames River that was once burned by the British, homeport to a fleet of square rigged whalers and famed for its submarine base and barrooms full of sailors. I recall the main streets still glistening with trolley-car tracks, though the trolleys themselves departed long before my arrival.
At the top of a hill, in a house that will forever define home, I fell to sleep at night gazing at the steeple light of the Coast Guard Academy Chapel that shined between the oak trees outside my bedroom window. By daylight I climbed out on the branches of those same oaks as in my mind, I struggled out onto the yardarms of a man-of-war to furl a sail.
In winter, rabbits tempted the Davy Crockett in me to track them through the new snow while steep hills enticed us all to sled down. At dusk in summer, there was a yelling gang in the street playing hide-and-go-seek.
While we kids played, our mothers washed, cleaned and cooked and our fathers went to work. Mr. Nichols from across the street, who had funny bumps on his head, also had a hand-painted-with-a-brush silver Ford van in which he disappeared every day to sand and refinish hardwood floors. Mr. Rasmussen, a wiry, white haired man who drove a faded-blue “Henry J,” taught baton-twirling to young girls—rumored to be State and National twirling champions—in his front yard. Mr. Johnson, whose nine-year-old son Douglas had hair whiter than snow and a nose that was always running, worked at New London Mills making linoleum. Red-haired Mr. Kelly, father of Jack, Linda and the twins Gary and Larry, smoked Chesterfields and worked at the Post Office.
Dad worked as a machinist, first at Pratt-Whitney up in East Hartford then at Electric Boat in Groton. He always referred to himself as an old “swamp-Yankee,” though he never did tell me just what a swamp-Yankee was. Being what some call a stepfather, his last name was different from mine, but to me, there was never anything “step” about him. Others may have called him Henry or Hank; but to me he was Dad, the man who took the time and expended the effort to raise me. What I hold dear, what I cherish and stand for, I learned from him.
To Dad, holidays were very special. While the Fourth of July was always spent picnicking at the beach or camp, Thanksgiving and Christmas were held most sacred. On those days Dad would entertain family at our home, for on those two days of all days, at home was where one must be.
Between holidays and fishing trips to the city pier, there were many special times between Dad and me, but of them all; one stands out clearer and more pointed than the rest.
He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his green work pants unbelted, his T-shirt drooping loosely on his torso. As I, a skinny, eleven-year-old watch from the doorway, Dad washes his face, removes his shaving-brush from the medicine cabinet, wets it and begins working up lather in the soap dish.
“How come you use that?” I ask, nodding toward the soap dish.
“Use what? Oh, you mean this?” He lifts the soap from the dish.
“Yeah. How come you don’t use shaving cream?”
He drops the small, slim bar of soap back into the dish.
“Oh heck, shave cream ain’t nothin’ but greasy soap,” he says as he works the lather over his face giving particular attention to the area under his nose. Then turning to me he winks and says, “I got plenty of soap and don’t need no grease.”
I nod. It makes perfect sense.
Today, Saturday, is the best day of the week for any eleven-year-old. However, there will be no idleness for me this Saturday, no sleeping until 10, no afternoon movie show. It is 6:30 AM and I’m ready to go to work. Dad has agreed to clean out an old, unused, store that belongs to his older brother, my Uncle Dick. His pay will consist of what he can salvage and sell down at Cohen’s junkyard. My pay will be fifty cents per hour.
The very idea of going-to-work thrills and sobers me at the same time. Work is what adults do and I am determined to do my best to fill the part. As Dad pulls the safety razor over his face, I vicariously participate in this adult morning ritual.
By ten o’clock, the day, begun with vigor and enthusiasm, is threatening to last forever. By noon I am hot and sweaty. Three decades worth of dust, dirt and grime has leaped from its disturbed resting-places amid the brick-a-brack and claimed me for its own.
We pause for lunch only long enough to silently devour a couple of bologna sandwiches and guzzle some water from a gallon jug before we are back at it. I begin to believe in hell. I sort, stack, load and unload in a stupor. I lose track of time. Ten hours after arriving at my uncle’s old store, Dad asks if I am ready to call it a day. So deep have I sank into the working world of the damned that I stare back at him and find his words difficult to comprehend.
We deposit one last load of someone’s old forgotten treasures at the junkyard, then bounce out of the gate and turn in the direction of home. I sit leaning against the scratchy felt of the front passenger door, quietly lost in a mist of exhaustion. The old, gray Dodge, looking oddly unbalanced without its left fender, rolls and bumps over broken cobblestones and trolley tracks giving scant notice to these relics from another age. I look over at Dad and am amazed to see him smiling broadly, the whites of his eyes and teeth in sharp contrast to the sweat streaked dirt on his face. How can anyone that dirty and tired find something to smile about?
He pulls sharply to the curb in front of a small market.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Gotta quench a powerful thirst, I do,” he replies, smacking his lips. My mom hates it when he ends a statement with “I do” like that, but I like it.
I start to open my door.
“Hold on there Butch, let’s settle up first,” Dad says. Why he calls me “Butch” has always been a mystery to me, but I don’t mind.
I turn toward him, momentarily puzzled, but the five one-dollar bills he thrusts in my direction causes a quick smile of awareness to spread across my face.
“Ten hours at fifty cents per. That’s five bucks, right?”
“That’s right,” I say, almost giggling.
We enter the dry coolness of the store where dust motes are dancing in rays of light and the well-worn wooden floor sighs and squeaks as we walk across it. My father steps directly to the squat pop-cooler and withdraws a cold, wet bottle of Pepsi, snaps off the cap and gulps half its contents before walking over and paying for it. I stand and watch.
“Ain’t you gonna get something?”
“Yeah... sure,” I stammer and quickly retrieve a Pepsi from the ice water, open it and walk over to the cashier.
As I approach, Dad turns and walks away leaving me alone at the register and somewhat perplexed. The cashier holds out her liver-spotted hand. I shoot a glance at Dad.
“Go ahead... pay the lady,” he says quietly.
I withdraw one of the crumpled bills from my shirt pocket and hand it to the smiling white-haired woman. She hands me my change. I hoist the pop and try to gulp it down like Dad had done but succeed only in having the cold, highly carbonated beverage rush out my nose. Gasping, I glance around in a minor panic and, relieved to see no one has witnessed my humiliation, take another, smaller sip of the cold pop.
As we walk toward the door, Dad suddenly stops. When I look up at him, he is looking down at me with a serious expression. “Feels good, don’t it?” A small smile begins pulling at the corners of his mouth
Somehow, I know that he is not referring to the cold Pepsi. I ram my change deep into a pocket of my dirty jeans and reply, “Yeah… yeah, it does.”
At the top of a hill, in a house that will forever define home, I fell to sleep at night gazing at the steeple light of the Coast Guard Academy Chapel that shined between the oak trees outside my bedroom window. By daylight I climbed out on the branches of those same oaks as in my mind, I struggled out onto the yardarms of a man-of-war to furl a sail.
In winter, rabbits tempted the Davy Crockett in me to track them through the new snow while steep hills enticed us all to sled down. At dusk in summer, there was a yelling gang in the street playing hide-and-go-seek.
While we kids played, our mothers washed, cleaned and cooked and our fathers went to work. Mr. Nichols from across the street, who had funny bumps on his head, also had a hand-painted-with-a-brush silver Ford van in which he disappeared every day to sand and refinish hardwood floors. Mr. Rasmussen, a wiry, white haired man who drove a faded-blue “Henry J,” taught baton-twirling to young girls—rumored to be State and National twirling champions—in his front yard. Mr. Johnson, whose nine-year-old son Douglas had hair whiter than snow and a nose that was always running, worked at New London Mills making linoleum. Red-haired Mr. Kelly, father of Jack, Linda and the twins Gary and Larry, smoked Chesterfields and worked at the Post Office.
Dad worked as a machinist, first at Pratt-Whitney up in East Hartford then at Electric Boat in Groton. He always referred to himself as an old “swamp-Yankee,” though he never did tell me just what a swamp-Yankee was. Being what some call a stepfather, his last name was different from mine, but to me, there was never anything “step” about him. Others may have called him Henry or Hank; but to me he was Dad, the man who took the time and expended the effort to raise me. What I hold dear, what I cherish and stand for, I learned from him.
To Dad, holidays were very special. While the Fourth of July was always spent picnicking at the beach or camp, Thanksgiving and Christmas were held most sacred. On those days Dad would entertain family at our home, for on those two days of all days, at home was where one must be.
Between holidays and fishing trips to the city pier, there were many special times between Dad and me, but of them all; one stands out clearer and more pointed than the rest.
He stands in front of the bathroom mirror, his green work pants unbelted, his T-shirt drooping loosely on his torso. As I, a skinny, eleven-year-old watch from the doorway, Dad washes his face, removes his shaving-brush from the medicine cabinet, wets it and begins working up lather in the soap dish.
“How come you use that?” I ask, nodding toward the soap dish.
“Use what? Oh, you mean this?” He lifts the soap from the dish.
“Yeah. How come you don’t use shaving cream?”
He drops the small, slim bar of soap back into the dish.
“Oh heck, shave cream ain’t nothin’ but greasy soap,” he says as he works the lather over his face giving particular attention to the area under his nose. Then turning to me he winks and says, “I got plenty of soap and don’t need no grease.”
I nod. It makes perfect sense.
Today, Saturday, is the best day of the week for any eleven-year-old. However, there will be no idleness for me this Saturday, no sleeping until 10, no afternoon movie show. It is 6:30 AM and I’m ready to go to work. Dad has agreed to clean out an old, unused, store that belongs to his older brother, my Uncle Dick. His pay will consist of what he can salvage and sell down at Cohen’s junkyard. My pay will be fifty cents per hour.
The very idea of going-to-work thrills and sobers me at the same time. Work is what adults do and I am determined to do my best to fill the part. As Dad pulls the safety razor over his face, I vicariously participate in this adult morning ritual.
By ten o’clock, the day, begun with vigor and enthusiasm, is threatening to last forever. By noon I am hot and sweaty. Three decades worth of dust, dirt and grime has leaped from its disturbed resting-places amid the brick-a-brack and claimed me for its own.
We pause for lunch only long enough to silently devour a couple of bologna sandwiches and guzzle some water from a gallon jug before we are back at it. I begin to believe in hell. I sort, stack, load and unload in a stupor. I lose track of time. Ten hours after arriving at my uncle’s old store, Dad asks if I am ready to call it a day. So deep have I sank into the working world of the damned that I stare back at him and find his words difficult to comprehend.
We deposit one last load of someone’s old forgotten treasures at the junkyard, then bounce out of the gate and turn in the direction of home. I sit leaning against the scratchy felt of the front passenger door, quietly lost in a mist of exhaustion. The old, gray Dodge, looking oddly unbalanced without its left fender, rolls and bumps over broken cobblestones and trolley tracks giving scant notice to these relics from another age. I look over at Dad and am amazed to see him smiling broadly, the whites of his eyes and teeth in sharp contrast to the sweat streaked dirt on his face. How can anyone that dirty and tired find something to smile about?
He pulls sharply to the curb in front of a small market.
“What’s up?” I ask.
“Gotta quench a powerful thirst, I do,” he replies, smacking his lips. My mom hates it when he ends a statement with “I do” like that, but I like it.
I start to open my door.
“Hold on there Butch, let’s settle up first,” Dad says. Why he calls me “Butch” has always been a mystery to me, but I don’t mind.
I turn toward him, momentarily puzzled, but the five one-dollar bills he thrusts in my direction causes a quick smile of awareness to spread across my face.
“Ten hours at fifty cents per. That’s five bucks, right?”
“That’s right,” I say, almost giggling.
We enter the dry coolness of the store where dust motes are dancing in rays of light and the well-worn wooden floor sighs and squeaks as we walk across it. My father steps directly to the squat pop-cooler and withdraws a cold, wet bottle of Pepsi, snaps off the cap and gulps half its contents before walking over and paying for it. I stand and watch.
“Ain’t you gonna get something?”
“Yeah... sure,” I stammer and quickly retrieve a Pepsi from the ice water, open it and walk over to the cashier.
As I approach, Dad turns and walks away leaving me alone at the register and somewhat perplexed. The cashier holds out her liver-spotted hand. I shoot a glance at Dad.
“Go ahead... pay the lady,” he says quietly.
I withdraw one of the crumpled bills from my shirt pocket and hand it to the smiling white-haired woman. She hands me my change. I hoist the pop and try to gulp it down like Dad had done but succeed only in having the cold, highly carbonated beverage rush out my nose. Gasping, I glance around in a minor panic and, relieved to see no one has witnessed my humiliation, take another, smaller sip of the cold pop.
As we walk toward the door, Dad suddenly stops. When I look up at him, he is looking down at me with a serious expression. “Feels good, don’t it?” A small smile begins pulling at the corners of his mouth
Somehow, I know that he is not referring to the cold Pepsi. I ram my change deep into a pocket of my dirty jeans and reply, “Yeah… yeah, it does.”
Friday, December 3, 2010
Snow
The snow falls slowly in a whisper. One flake, three, three thousand float from the black night to the dirty streets below where the late night quiet suggests abandonment. The flakes join and become a thin blanket giving pureness to brown squalor. Blanket upon quiet blanket falls with a soft hiss audible only to those listening to the quiet. The heavens open. The thick curtain of clouds roll back and moonlight and starlight burst through, bouncing and ricocheting from white point to white point.
The alarm clock yanks Rachel from a fitful sleep. She slaps at the sound until it stops, then lays quiet for a moment trying to summon the courage to swing her bare feet out onto the cold bedroom floor. Tossing off the goose down comforter, she throws her legs over the side of the bed, rises quickly to a sitting position and slowly stands. She removes her terrycloth robe from the foot of the bed, puts it on and synchs the belt. She shuffles down the polished hardwood hallway to the bathroom, flips on the light, closes the door, and begins studying herself in the medicine chest mirror.
Not quite thirty, she retains the girlish look of short hair, freckles and dimples, to which has had been added the pallor of worry, sleeplessness and...
"Ain't you a sight to behold", she says aloud to the figure in the mirror. After turning on the water, she removes her toothbrush from the cup holder and proceeds to scrub the remnants of another bad night's sleep from her sticky palate. Then, snatching the hairbrush off the top of the toilet tank, she passes it quickly through her short brown hair. Disgusted with the image looking back at her, she shakes her head slowly and sighs heavily before trudging to the kitchen to start coffee and see what she can scrounge up to feed her son and father.
Rachel had never intended to be living with her father at this stage in her life. She hadn't intended to be a widow at twenty eight either, but a North Korean artillery shell had done that. So much for intentions! But that was all behind her now, or was it? The night sweats still soaked her sheets. The dreams still left her feeling empty and alone. The long, empty days still seemed to stretch out before her. Everyone kept telling her to, "Give it time, give it time." But it had been three years, three long, lonely, miserable years.
She fills the coffee pot with water at the sink, measures out the coffee and sets it on the stove; the burner igniting with a low whoosh. She looks out the kitchen window at the snow.
It is the type of snow that clings to everything. The branches of the trees are bent low with the weight of it, the wet-black of their bark forming a stark contrast to the overwhelming white. The plows have been out for hours and the street in front of the house resembles a black shiny river running between high white banks. A solitary car sloshes upstream under a sky turning pale blue in the new morning light. The coffee pot begins playing the Maxwell House song.
"Mornin'."
The sound startles her. She swivels her head and sees her father standing in the kitchen doorway watching her. She stands upright and turns toward him, a smile forcing its way onto her face.
"And to you too," she says, walking over and kissing him on his bald forehead, noticing as she does the lingering smell of lathe oil which clings to all of her father's clothes, to his skin itself, refusing to be washed out.
He is sixty and almost bald. What hair remains is thin, white and grows only along the sides of his head. He is dressed, as usual, in green work pants and shirt with black work oxfords and white socks. A wry smile is on his face.
A short, fat, leprechaun, she thinks. A man without a mean streak anywhere. She is overcome with a rush of love for the old man.
"Got any preferences for breakfast?" she asks.
"I was kind of looking forward to French toast, I was," comes the reply.
"Then French toast is what it will be". She laughs a small laugh. "Ready for some coffee?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?" he replies in mock seriousness.
His name is Henry and beneath his soft, good humor this morning, his concern for his daughter, his Rach, his little girl, weighs heavily on him. Sure, she is a big girl now, but in his mind she will always be his little girl; full of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Rachel's mother died of cancer a year after Rachel was born, leaving the old man devastated and alone to care for his new daughter. And now there is Todd, his five year old grandson. Todd will grow up without a father, without even a memory of him. Henry does his best to act the surrogate, but is well aware of his inadequacy. He feels too old, too tired. It's time his daughter started surfacing, started living again, if only slowly. Time has passed, and in his opinion, is beginning to waste. But how do you broach such a subject with a person you love so much? He watches her move through the kitchen, recognizing the pallor of broken sleep on her face, seeing the slumped shoulders. Time, a little more time, he thinks.
Rachel takes a glass mixing bowl from the shelf over the sink, sets it down and glances quickly at the green clock on the wall. She begins to walk out of the room to call Todd.
"Let him sleep", Henry says as he adds two tiny saccharine tablets to his coffee.
"But dad, you know how that boy is. If I don't get him up now he'll be late for school."
"No need worrying about school today." Henry is smiling as he cradles the warm coffee mug. "They canceled it because of the storm."
"Storm!" Rachel was incredulous. "What storm? You mean that wee bit of snow we had last night? They call that a storm?"
"You're starting to sound like an old fart." Henry says. "Next thing you'll be telling me how you used to walk ten miles through ten foot snow drifts when you were in school."
"Not ten foot drifts and not quite ten miles," Rachel began to counter, "but it just seems to me...".
"It's the busses." Henry interrupts, "The bus company is scared of accidents. Insurance and all, you know."
"Busses?" Rachel turns to him and tilts her head, totally perplexed. "The streets are totally clear! A little wet maybe, but clear."
"Well, at any rate they canceled school. I heard it on my bedroom radio.
"I think that old principal, what's his face there, old boozer McCree, he had a bad night, woke early and saw a few flakes, felt his head pound and recognized a perfect excuse for a holiday," Rachel says, opening the refrigerator and removing the eggs and milk.
From above their heads comes a thump. Todd is up.
Rachel looks up at the ceiling shaking her head slowly. "Of all days for him to get up on his own, he chooses a day when he doesn't have to." She makes a move to leave the room.
"Save your breath." Henry says without looking at her.
"What?" says Rachel, stopping in mid-stride.
"If he's up, he's seen the snow. If he's seen the snow, then school or no school, he'll be wanting out into it. That's why he's getting up on his own. It's the snow. It's magic to a kid Todd's age. Now what about them French toast, or should I go out to the diner this morning?"
Rachel gently cuffs her father on the back of the head as she turns her attention back to the milk and eggs.
Breakfast over, Todd is ordered into the living room to clean up the toys he left there the previous evening. Rachel piles dishes into the sink and begins wiping the table. She stops and turns at the sound of water running in the sink. Henry is standing there adding detergent to the sink as it fills.
"And may I ask what you think you're doing?" she says in an overly authoritative tone.
"What's it look like? I'm going to wash up these here dishes?"
"Now why would you want to go and do that for? How am I supposed to earn my keep around here?"
"Daughter, your KEEP around here was earned, bought and paid for the moment you entered this world. Besides, the hot water is good on these old arthritic fingers." He says this without turning and begins washing the dishes.
Rachel lets the matter slide .
"I saw your friend Karen at the grocery yesterday," Henry says. He continues washing and rinsing, waiting.
"Oh, what she been up to?" There was a slight waver in Rachel's voice.
" I didn't grill her. Just said hi and passed a few pleasantries. She did say something about inviting you out this weekend though. Her brother is in town or something like that." He knows perfectly well what the something was.
Karen's brother, Carl, had returned to his old hometown after his marriage dissolved. An accountant and an officer in the Army reserves with two tours in Korea behind him, he had married almost immediately after returning from overseas. No one in the family, or in the neighborhood for that matter, had given the marriage more than a year. It lasted fifteen months. Karen had called Rachel several times trying to "fix her up" with him. Rachel made one excuse after the other. It wasn't like the guy was some kind of looser. Rachel had even dated him a few times in high school. Now he was back, looking to re-establish roots.
Henry liked him, had always liked him. Carl was the first to make Eagle Scout back in prehistory when Henry was Scout Master. While the other kids wasted away their summers, Carl kept busy mowing lawns and delivering papers. The kid had character. Henry had, more than once, thought of how Carl would be as a son-in-law, had rather liked the idea, had come to almost expect it would happen in due course. But it hadn't.
Carl moved away, first to college and then into the service. They lost track until the invitation arrived for Carl's wedding. By that time Rachel had married a nice guy from New Hampshire, moved to Rochester and given birth to Todd. The "Police Action" in Korea ended that with the force of an exploding artillery shell. Rachel had tried to cope in New Hampshire, but finally gave in to her father's pleas and moved back home.
"Yeah, she called and asked me over a few times. I told her I'm just too busy, what with Todd and all."
She hoped her father would drop it there. She hung the dustpan and broom behind the cellar door, closed it and turned back toward the sink. Her father stood facing her, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
"Honey," he says, his voice soothingly smooth, "I think you need to get out of this old house. As for Todd, you know I..."
"I know what you're saying, dad," she cut in, "and I appreciate it, I really do. But....not now, not yet." She begins to walk quickly past him toward the living room. Henry places a hand upon her shoulder as she passes and pulls her to him. He can see the glistening moistness in her eyes. He hugs her gently.
"Well, whenever. You know I'm here."
Todd moves quickly, unseen, from the living room, through the kitchen to the mud room door. He opens the door and, ignoring the rush of icy air, goes out and climbs up on an old wooden chair. He reaches out and snatches his blue snowsuit from its hanging place on a nail, and slides down to a sitting position, white mist pluming from his open mouth. He slips his legs into the suit, but as he does his pant legs are pushed far up on his short legs. He removes the snowsuit, pulls his pant legs down and tucks them into the tops of his gray wool socks, then rams his legs back into the snow suit, slides to the floor and begins bending, writhing and struggling to get both arms into their respective holes.
Rachel appears in the doorway, her hands white from kneading fresh bread dough. She crooks her right hand out of the way and wipes a few dangling strands of dark hair from her eyes with a clean wrist.
"You sure you want to go out there, it's pretty cold you know?"
"Yes", he says quietly, not looking at her.
"Well then let me help you with that suit". She bends down, wiping her hands on her flowered apron, but he quickly jerks himself away.
"I can do it myself!" he snaps.
"Okay, if you say so. But I want to check you over before you go out."
He doesn't answer. He is intent on trying to line up the ends of the zipper.
She sees his inexperienced fingers fumbling and fights the temptation to zip it for him. She turns back into the kitchen.
A few moments later he comes to her, sliding his stocking feet across the shiny waxed linoleum, unzipped snowsuit hanging about him like a bag.
"Mom", he whines, "I can't get this thing..."
Rachel drops down to one knee. Taking his small hands in hers, she lines up the zipper and pulls it up a couple of inches. He quickly finishes zipping when she releases his hands. She buttons the top button snugly against his neck. He stands motionless offering no resistance, the black, scratchy, wool mittens hanging from the sleeves, sewn there at the end of a short piece of elastic. Rachel watches as Todd sticks his thumb out and slips first the right mitten into place and then the left. He turns toward the door.
"Not so fast young man", she says.
He looks back at her with a puzzled expression.
"Oh yeah", he says with a quick smile of remembrance. He turned back and digs around among the assorted boots and shoes on the floor dragging out first one and then the other of his black galoshes. He plunks himself down on the floor, reaching inside the boots and withdrawing the two squares of wrinkled waxed paper. Rachel watches patiently from the kitchen as he tries in vain to cup the heal of his right shoe with the paper so the shoe will slip easily into the boot. The grunts and bangs increase in volume.
"Mommmm!"
"Need some help?"
"I can't get it", he whimpers in frustration.
She lifts him up onto the old chair. Putting the waxed paper in position, she pulls the boots into place with a swooshing sound. Without stopping she buckles each metal clamp with a snap, wraps his neck in a knitted, white scarf, and pulls a red stocking cap carefully down over his ears. Finally she tugs his hood up, tucks blond curls and hat inside it and tightens and ties the drawstring. Todd chunks toward the door, the buckles on the boots jingling.
"You stay right out back where I can see you."
"Okay", he says removing his mittens so he can turn the old ceramic door knob.
The door opens. He runs outside but quickly turns back and pulls the door closed. He pulls his mittens back on and begins hopping down the steps.
Todd stops as he passes through the shadow of the porch roof and squints in the bright white glare. His nose is already running from the cold air and his tongue darts to wipe the meandering, salty stream. Water drips from the icicles hanging from the eaves drilling holes in the snow below. He tries to look up at the icicles but his head just pivots inside the stationary hood until his vision is blocked. He pushes the hood back a little and leans backward to look up.
The sunlight passing through the slender ice prisms flashes color in all directions. Todd inclines further back, enchanted by the sight. A small wisp of low, white cloud races out from the shelter of the roof. Todd sees the pointed roof speed forward against the backdrop of the stationary cloud. Vertigo overtakes him and he falls over backward into the unmarked snow. He recovers immediately and slowly lifts himself up onto one elbow. He lays there in this position for a moment, then stands and looks back at the indentation his body has made in the soft snow, studying it very carefully.
"Did you ever make a snow angel?" The deep, husky voice startles him. He whips around toward the sound only to confront the coal man standing not five feet away. He is big. He has on green pants like his grandpa wears, a heavy canvas bag of coal is slung over one shoulder. He has an old, gray, felt hat pulled low almost to his eyebrows. His eyes shine white against the dark black streaks of coal dust which covers most of his face. Instead of a coat he is wearing only a red wool shirt which hangs outside his pants, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and collar open at the neck,
"Where's your coat?" Todd asks, still squinting in the brightness.
"Don't need no coat. Don't slow down long enough to get cold. Besides it would just get in my way".
"My mom won't let me out without one."
"Mothers are like that sometimes." The coal man sets his heavy bundle down with a groan and a grimace. "Now what about them snow angels? You ever make one?"
"An angel?" Todd sounds very curious and skeptical.
"Sure", the man says. "You see that print of yourself you've made there?" He points to the imprint Todd made in the snow when he fell. "Well, that's sorta like a picture of you."
Todd looks again at his imprint then back at the coal man. "Yeah, but how do I make an angel?"
The coal man squats down to be eye to eye with the small boy. He flips his hat brim up and looks directly at him, into his eyes
"I could tell you, but I thinks it best if I show you." A large grin breaks out on the grimy face. The man looks around for a suitable patch of unmarked snow.
"Come over here now. Stand right next to me and do what I do."
Todd moves over close to the coal man.
"Not quite that close," the coal man says. ""Hold out your arms like this." The big man thrusts his arms straight out from his sides. When Todd lifts his arms the man moves a step to his right putting a few inches between their outstretched fingertips.
"You ready?"
Todd shakes his head excitedly.
"When I say three, we flop over backwards just like you did before, but we don't move afterwards. Okay?
"Okay." Todd says, almost in a whisper.
"One, two,.....THREE!"
Boy and man, man and boy flop backwards with a crunching of new snow. They lay in the snow motionless, quiet. Todd scrunches his eyes shut.
"What do we do now?"
"Just move your arms up and down, like a bird flappin' his wings," comes the reply.
Todd and the coal man flap.
"That's it! Your angel's gonna to be a good one!"
Todd flaps harder.
"That's enough. The coal man stops and remains motionless for a moment then clears his throat. "Phew! Now comes the hard part. You just stop your flappin' and lay quiet while I get up".
The coal man takes a deep breath and raises himself to a sitting position. Then with a loud grunt, he stands straight up. He looks down at Todd.
"That's the hard part, getting out of it without mashing it all up. Here, give me your hand". The coal-man reaches out a large soot smeared, reddened hand. Todd reaches. The coal man grabs his mittened, small hand tight and lifts him out of the angel. Laying his big hands on the small boy's shoulders, he turns him around to see.
Todd looks down at the two snow angels, one small, one large.
"That's neat!", he cries. "Let's do it again!"
The coal man is holding Todd's hand. "Neat? Yeah, it sure is little fella". His voice softens. His mind drifts back in time. "My dad taught me to do this a long time ago." He stands quietly for a few seconds, then with a shake says, "I'd love to make a thousand of them all over your backyard, but I have to deliver this here coal or people will be cold tonight. You go ahead, though, have a ball!" The coal man grins widely and warmly becoming all white teeth and white eyes as he does. Then, pulling his hat back down he picked up his coal bag, slung it over his back and walked away, turning once to wave good-bye.
For the next hour Todd plops and flops in every clear patch of snow he can find, until, at last, he finds it difficult to rise. He sits in the wet snow, feeling suddenly sleepy and cold. His wool mittens are soaked through and the wet wool is both warm and itchy to his hands. He shakes one mitten off and looks at his red, wet hand and smells the wet mitten. He grabs a handful of snow with his bare hand. It feels cool and soothing. He takes a small bite and chews it a little, then drops the rest and rubs his hands on his snowsuit.
In the kitchen, Rachel, cleaning up from her bread-making, looks up at the clock. "Three-fifteen", she says aloud, "Never enough time."
The telephone catches her eye and she stops with her hand on the receiver. Slowly she lifts it, dials the numbers. Her eyes are open wide and unblinking. She is aware of her acts, aware of the compulsion, the unseen force which has momentarily taken over her reason. One ring, then two. Karen answers. Small talk. "Saturday night? Sure, I'd love to. I'll be ready at seven thirty. See you then."
Rachel slowly and gently replaces the receiver. The numbness subsides The hint of a smile begins at the corners of her mouth, fed by a warm vibration flowing upwards from her navel. She hurriedly begins untying her apron as she leans to the window to check on Todd.
He is standing in the center of the yard looking down at something. She plainly sees the dark blue splotches of wet across his back and shoulders and the almost black circle around his bottom. He is removing his mittens and looking at his hands.
She opens the door and calls out, "Todd, I think you'd better come in now."
Todd turns and tilts his head back to look up at her. "Come see what I made!"
The gleeful excitement in his voice catches her off guard. She had been expecting the usual pleading, "Just a little while longer".
Rachel opens the door fully and steps out onto the small landing. The sight which lay before her causes her mouth to open. Todd is standing squarely in the middle of the yard, wet, red-faced and smiling. He is completely surrounded with images in the snow, images of angels. Her mind centers and locks on her son; smiling, laughing, now twirling around with arms outstretched; held in and protected by a circle of angels.
Her open mouth closes then reopens into a broad smile as she takes it all in. Her eyes dart from one angel to another. She sees them sparkle in the lowering winter light, hears her son's gurgling laughter. A lightness fills her, lifts her. She begins to laugh a quiet happy laugh. Then her eyes stop and fix on another object, one similar but different. She stare in wonder and bewilderment at the large angel.
The alarm clock yanks Rachel from a fitful sleep. She slaps at the sound until it stops, then lays quiet for a moment trying to summon the courage to swing her bare feet out onto the cold bedroom floor. Tossing off the goose down comforter, she throws her legs over the side of the bed, rises quickly to a sitting position and slowly stands. She removes her terrycloth robe from the foot of the bed, puts it on and synchs the belt. She shuffles down the polished hardwood hallway to the bathroom, flips on the light, closes the door, and begins studying herself in the medicine chest mirror.
Not quite thirty, she retains the girlish look of short hair, freckles and dimples, to which has had been added the pallor of worry, sleeplessness and...
"Ain't you a sight to behold", she says aloud to the figure in the mirror. After turning on the water, she removes her toothbrush from the cup holder and proceeds to scrub the remnants of another bad night's sleep from her sticky palate. Then, snatching the hairbrush off the top of the toilet tank, she passes it quickly through her short brown hair. Disgusted with the image looking back at her, she shakes her head slowly and sighs heavily before trudging to the kitchen to start coffee and see what she can scrounge up to feed her son and father.
Rachel had never intended to be living with her father at this stage in her life. She hadn't intended to be a widow at twenty eight either, but a North Korean artillery shell had done that. So much for intentions! But that was all behind her now, or was it? The night sweats still soaked her sheets. The dreams still left her feeling empty and alone. The long, empty days still seemed to stretch out before her. Everyone kept telling her to, "Give it time, give it time." But it had been three years, three long, lonely, miserable years.
She fills the coffee pot with water at the sink, measures out the coffee and sets it on the stove; the burner igniting with a low whoosh. She looks out the kitchen window at the snow.
It is the type of snow that clings to everything. The branches of the trees are bent low with the weight of it, the wet-black of their bark forming a stark contrast to the overwhelming white. The plows have been out for hours and the street in front of the house resembles a black shiny river running between high white banks. A solitary car sloshes upstream under a sky turning pale blue in the new morning light. The coffee pot begins playing the Maxwell House song.
"Mornin'."
The sound startles her. She swivels her head and sees her father standing in the kitchen doorway watching her. She stands upright and turns toward him, a smile forcing its way onto her face.
"And to you too," she says, walking over and kissing him on his bald forehead, noticing as she does the lingering smell of lathe oil which clings to all of her father's clothes, to his skin itself, refusing to be washed out.
He is sixty and almost bald. What hair remains is thin, white and grows only along the sides of his head. He is dressed, as usual, in green work pants and shirt with black work oxfords and white socks. A wry smile is on his face.
A short, fat, leprechaun, she thinks. A man without a mean streak anywhere. She is overcome with a rush of love for the old man.
"Got any preferences for breakfast?" she asks.
"I was kind of looking forward to French toast, I was," comes the reply.
"Then French toast is what it will be". She laughs a small laugh. "Ready for some coffee?"
"Is the Pope Catholic?" he replies in mock seriousness.
His name is Henry and beneath his soft, good humor this morning, his concern for his daughter, his Rach, his little girl, weighs heavily on him. Sure, she is a big girl now, but in his mind she will always be his little girl; full of "sugar and spice and everything nice." Rachel's mother died of cancer a year after Rachel was born, leaving the old man devastated and alone to care for his new daughter. And now there is Todd, his five year old grandson. Todd will grow up without a father, without even a memory of him. Henry does his best to act the surrogate, but is well aware of his inadequacy. He feels too old, too tired. It's time his daughter started surfacing, started living again, if only slowly. Time has passed, and in his opinion, is beginning to waste. But how do you broach such a subject with a person you love so much? He watches her move through the kitchen, recognizing the pallor of broken sleep on her face, seeing the slumped shoulders. Time, a little more time, he thinks.
Rachel takes a glass mixing bowl from the shelf over the sink, sets it down and glances quickly at the green clock on the wall. She begins to walk out of the room to call Todd.
"Let him sleep", Henry says as he adds two tiny saccharine tablets to his coffee.
"But dad, you know how that boy is. If I don't get him up now he'll be late for school."
"No need worrying about school today." Henry is smiling as he cradles the warm coffee mug. "They canceled it because of the storm."
"Storm!" Rachel was incredulous. "What storm? You mean that wee bit of snow we had last night? They call that a storm?"
"You're starting to sound like an old fart." Henry says. "Next thing you'll be telling me how you used to walk ten miles through ten foot snow drifts when you were in school."
"Not ten foot drifts and not quite ten miles," Rachel began to counter, "but it just seems to me...".
"It's the busses." Henry interrupts, "The bus company is scared of accidents. Insurance and all, you know."
"Busses?" Rachel turns to him and tilts her head, totally perplexed. "The streets are totally clear! A little wet maybe, but clear."
"Well, at any rate they canceled school. I heard it on my bedroom radio.
"I think that old principal, what's his face there, old boozer McCree, he had a bad night, woke early and saw a few flakes, felt his head pound and recognized a perfect excuse for a holiday," Rachel says, opening the refrigerator and removing the eggs and milk.
From above their heads comes a thump. Todd is up.
Rachel looks up at the ceiling shaking her head slowly. "Of all days for him to get up on his own, he chooses a day when he doesn't have to." She makes a move to leave the room.
"Save your breath." Henry says without looking at her.
"What?" says Rachel, stopping in mid-stride.
"If he's up, he's seen the snow. If he's seen the snow, then school or no school, he'll be wanting out into it. That's why he's getting up on his own. It's the snow. It's magic to a kid Todd's age. Now what about them French toast, or should I go out to the diner this morning?"
Rachel gently cuffs her father on the back of the head as she turns her attention back to the milk and eggs.
Breakfast over, Todd is ordered into the living room to clean up the toys he left there the previous evening. Rachel piles dishes into the sink and begins wiping the table. She stops and turns at the sound of water running in the sink. Henry is standing there adding detergent to the sink as it fills.
"And may I ask what you think you're doing?" she says in an overly authoritative tone.
"What's it look like? I'm going to wash up these here dishes?"
"Now why would you want to go and do that for? How am I supposed to earn my keep around here?"
"Daughter, your KEEP around here was earned, bought and paid for the moment you entered this world. Besides, the hot water is good on these old arthritic fingers." He says this without turning and begins washing the dishes.
Rachel lets the matter slide .
"I saw your friend Karen at the grocery yesterday," Henry says. He continues washing and rinsing, waiting.
"Oh, what she been up to?" There was a slight waver in Rachel's voice.
" I didn't grill her. Just said hi and passed a few pleasantries. She did say something about inviting you out this weekend though. Her brother is in town or something like that." He knows perfectly well what the something was.
Karen's brother, Carl, had returned to his old hometown after his marriage dissolved. An accountant and an officer in the Army reserves with two tours in Korea behind him, he had married almost immediately after returning from overseas. No one in the family, or in the neighborhood for that matter, had given the marriage more than a year. It lasted fifteen months. Karen had called Rachel several times trying to "fix her up" with him. Rachel made one excuse after the other. It wasn't like the guy was some kind of looser. Rachel had even dated him a few times in high school. Now he was back, looking to re-establish roots.
Henry liked him, had always liked him. Carl was the first to make Eagle Scout back in prehistory when Henry was Scout Master. While the other kids wasted away their summers, Carl kept busy mowing lawns and delivering papers. The kid had character. Henry had, more than once, thought of how Carl would be as a son-in-law, had rather liked the idea, had come to almost expect it would happen in due course. But it hadn't.
Carl moved away, first to college and then into the service. They lost track until the invitation arrived for Carl's wedding. By that time Rachel had married a nice guy from New Hampshire, moved to Rochester and given birth to Todd. The "Police Action" in Korea ended that with the force of an exploding artillery shell. Rachel had tried to cope in New Hampshire, but finally gave in to her father's pleas and moved back home.
"Yeah, she called and asked me over a few times. I told her I'm just too busy, what with Todd and all."
She hoped her father would drop it there. She hung the dustpan and broom behind the cellar door, closed it and turned back toward the sink. Her father stood facing her, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
"Honey," he says, his voice soothingly smooth, "I think you need to get out of this old house. As for Todd, you know I..."
"I know what you're saying, dad," she cut in, "and I appreciate it, I really do. But....not now, not yet." She begins to walk quickly past him toward the living room. Henry places a hand upon her shoulder as she passes and pulls her to him. He can see the glistening moistness in her eyes. He hugs her gently.
"Well, whenever. You know I'm here."
Todd moves quickly, unseen, from the living room, through the kitchen to the mud room door. He opens the door and, ignoring the rush of icy air, goes out and climbs up on an old wooden chair. He reaches out and snatches his blue snowsuit from its hanging place on a nail, and slides down to a sitting position, white mist pluming from his open mouth. He slips his legs into the suit, but as he does his pant legs are pushed far up on his short legs. He removes the snowsuit, pulls his pant legs down and tucks them into the tops of his gray wool socks, then rams his legs back into the snow suit, slides to the floor and begins bending, writhing and struggling to get both arms into their respective holes.
Rachel appears in the doorway, her hands white from kneading fresh bread dough. She crooks her right hand out of the way and wipes a few dangling strands of dark hair from her eyes with a clean wrist.
"You sure you want to go out there, it's pretty cold you know?"
"Yes", he says quietly, not looking at her.
"Well then let me help you with that suit". She bends down, wiping her hands on her flowered apron, but he quickly jerks himself away.
"I can do it myself!" he snaps.
"Okay, if you say so. But I want to check you over before you go out."
He doesn't answer. He is intent on trying to line up the ends of the zipper.
She sees his inexperienced fingers fumbling and fights the temptation to zip it for him. She turns back into the kitchen.
A few moments later he comes to her, sliding his stocking feet across the shiny waxed linoleum, unzipped snowsuit hanging about him like a bag.
"Mom", he whines, "I can't get this thing..."
Rachel drops down to one knee. Taking his small hands in hers, she lines up the zipper and pulls it up a couple of inches. He quickly finishes zipping when she releases his hands. She buttons the top button snugly against his neck. He stands motionless offering no resistance, the black, scratchy, wool mittens hanging from the sleeves, sewn there at the end of a short piece of elastic. Rachel watches as Todd sticks his thumb out and slips first the right mitten into place and then the left. He turns toward the door.
"Not so fast young man", she says.
He looks back at her with a puzzled expression.
"Oh yeah", he says with a quick smile of remembrance. He turned back and digs around among the assorted boots and shoes on the floor dragging out first one and then the other of his black galoshes. He plunks himself down on the floor, reaching inside the boots and withdrawing the two squares of wrinkled waxed paper. Rachel watches patiently from the kitchen as he tries in vain to cup the heal of his right shoe with the paper so the shoe will slip easily into the boot. The grunts and bangs increase in volume.
"Mommmm!"
"Need some help?"
"I can't get it", he whimpers in frustration.
She lifts him up onto the old chair. Putting the waxed paper in position, she pulls the boots into place with a swooshing sound. Without stopping she buckles each metal clamp with a snap, wraps his neck in a knitted, white scarf, and pulls a red stocking cap carefully down over his ears. Finally she tugs his hood up, tucks blond curls and hat inside it and tightens and ties the drawstring. Todd chunks toward the door, the buckles on the boots jingling.
"You stay right out back where I can see you."
"Okay", he says removing his mittens so he can turn the old ceramic door knob.
The door opens. He runs outside but quickly turns back and pulls the door closed. He pulls his mittens back on and begins hopping down the steps.
Todd stops as he passes through the shadow of the porch roof and squints in the bright white glare. His nose is already running from the cold air and his tongue darts to wipe the meandering, salty stream. Water drips from the icicles hanging from the eaves drilling holes in the snow below. He tries to look up at the icicles but his head just pivots inside the stationary hood until his vision is blocked. He pushes the hood back a little and leans backward to look up.
The sunlight passing through the slender ice prisms flashes color in all directions. Todd inclines further back, enchanted by the sight. A small wisp of low, white cloud races out from the shelter of the roof. Todd sees the pointed roof speed forward against the backdrop of the stationary cloud. Vertigo overtakes him and he falls over backward into the unmarked snow. He recovers immediately and slowly lifts himself up onto one elbow. He lays there in this position for a moment, then stands and looks back at the indentation his body has made in the soft snow, studying it very carefully.
"Did you ever make a snow angel?" The deep, husky voice startles him. He whips around toward the sound only to confront the coal man standing not five feet away. He is big. He has on green pants like his grandpa wears, a heavy canvas bag of coal is slung over one shoulder. He has an old, gray, felt hat pulled low almost to his eyebrows. His eyes shine white against the dark black streaks of coal dust which covers most of his face. Instead of a coat he is wearing only a red wool shirt which hangs outside his pants, with sleeves rolled up to the elbow and collar open at the neck,
"Where's your coat?" Todd asks, still squinting in the brightness.
"Don't need no coat. Don't slow down long enough to get cold. Besides it would just get in my way".
"My mom won't let me out without one."
"Mothers are like that sometimes." The coal man sets his heavy bundle down with a groan and a grimace. "Now what about them snow angels? You ever make one?"
"An angel?" Todd sounds very curious and skeptical.
"Sure", the man says. "You see that print of yourself you've made there?" He points to the imprint Todd made in the snow when he fell. "Well, that's sorta like a picture of you."
Todd looks again at his imprint then back at the coal man. "Yeah, but how do I make an angel?"
The coal man squats down to be eye to eye with the small boy. He flips his hat brim up and looks directly at him, into his eyes
"I could tell you, but I thinks it best if I show you." A large grin breaks out on the grimy face. The man looks around for a suitable patch of unmarked snow.
"Come over here now. Stand right next to me and do what I do."
Todd moves over close to the coal man.
"Not quite that close," the coal man says. ""Hold out your arms like this." The big man thrusts his arms straight out from his sides. When Todd lifts his arms the man moves a step to his right putting a few inches between their outstretched fingertips.
"You ready?"
Todd shakes his head excitedly.
"When I say three, we flop over backwards just like you did before, but we don't move afterwards. Okay?
"Okay." Todd says, almost in a whisper.
"One, two,.....THREE!"
Boy and man, man and boy flop backwards with a crunching of new snow. They lay in the snow motionless, quiet. Todd scrunches his eyes shut.
"What do we do now?"
"Just move your arms up and down, like a bird flappin' his wings," comes the reply.
Todd and the coal man flap.
"That's it! Your angel's gonna to be a good one!"
Todd flaps harder.
"That's enough. The coal man stops and remains motionless for a moment then clears his throat. "Phew! Now comes the hard part. You just stop your flappin' and lay quiet while I get up".
The coal man takes a deep breath and raises himself to a sitting position. Then with a loud grunt, he stands straight up. He looks down at Todd.
"That's the hard part, getting out of it without mashing it all up. Here, give me your hand". The coal-man reaches out a large soot smeared, reddened hand. Todd reaches. The coal man grabs his mittened, small hand tight and lifts him out of the angel. Laying his big hands on the small boy's shoulders, he turns him around to see.
Todd looks down at the two snow angels, one small, one large.
"That's neat!", he cries. "Let's do it again!"
The coal man is holding Todd's hand. "Neat? Yeah, it sure is little fella". His voice softens. His mind drifts back in time. "My dad taught me to do this a long time ago." He stands quietly for a few seconds, then with a shake says, "I'd love to make a thousand of them all over your backyard, but I have to deliver this here coal or people will be cold tonight. You go ahead, though, have a ball!" The coal man grins widely and warmly becoming all white teeth and white eyes as he does. Then, pulling his hat back down he picked up his coal bag, slung it over his back and walked away, turning once to wave good-bye.
For the next hour Todd plops and flops in every clear patch of snow he can find, until, at last, he finds it difficult to rise. He sits in the wet snow, feeling suddenly sleepy and cold. His wool mittens are soaked through and the wet wool is both warm and itchy to his hands. He shakes one mitten off and looks at his red, wet hand and smells the wet mitten. He grabs a handful of snow with his bare hand. It feels cool and soothing. He takes a small bite and chews it a little, then drops the rest and rubs his hands on his snowsuit.
In the kitchen, Rachel, cleaning up from her bread-making, looks up at the clock. "Three-fifteen", she says aloud, "Never enough time."
The telephone catches her eye and she stops with her hand on the receiver. Slowly she lifts it, dials the numbers. Her eyes are open wide and unblinking. She is aware of her acts, aware of the compulsion, the unseen force which has momentarily taken over her reason. One ring, then two. Karen answers. Small talk. "Saturday night? Sure, I'd love to. I'll be ready at seven thirty. See you then."
Rachel slowly and gently replaces the receiver. The numbness subsides The hint of a smile begins at the corners of her mouth, fed by a warm vibration flowing upwards from her navel. She hurriedly begins untying her apron as she leans to the window to check on Todd.
He is standing in the center of the yard looking down at something. She plainly sees the dark blue splotches of wet across his back and shoulders and the almost black circle around his bottom. He is removing his mittens and looking at his hands.
She opens the door and calls out, "Todd, I think you'd better come in now."
Todd turns and tilts his head back to look up at her. "Come see what I made!"
The gleeful excitement in his voice catches her off guard. She had been expecting the usual pleading, "Just a little while longer".
Rachel opens the door fully and steps out onto the small landing. The sight which lay before her causes her mouth to open. Todd is standing squarely in the middle of the yard, wet, red-faced and smiling. He is completely surrounded with images in the snow, images of angels. Her mind centers and locks on her son; smiling, laughing, now twirling around with arms outstretched; held in and protected by a circle of angels.
Her open mouth closes then reopens into a broad smile as she takes it all in. Her eyes dart from one angel to another. She sees them sparkle in the lowering winter light, hears her son's gurgling laughter. A lightness fills her, lifts her. She begins to laugh a quiet happy laugh. Then her eyes stop and fix on another object, one similar but different. She stare in wonder and bewilderment at the large angel.
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