Ramblin' Boy

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I’ve always had a tendency for rambling, for lone wandering, and this is evident going clear back to some of my very earliest memories. 

Ramblin’ Boy, in the Fields

Big cows along the fence-line. 

I was just a toddler, and it was a summer evening, not yet too dark, after the cows had been milked and after supper.  My Dad was in the pasture down by the creek fixing fence or something.  I could see him and the truck from the barn.  I reckoned that I could get to him by simply following the straight fence-line that separated the pasture from the hayfield.  So I set out along the edge of the pasture toward the creek. 

The cows were grazing everywhere, and I was never really afraid of them.  But now one turned and walked over to me, curious.  I remember looking up at that huge animal lumbering over to me with the enormous snout and those big eyes.  She sniffed me and snorted loud, then took a step closer.  I was between her and the barbed wire fence, looking up at her.  She then put her nose down, nudged me and knocked me over. 

I was starting to get scared, realizing how huge and strong this animal was.  She started rolling me over and over with her nose, until she rolled me under the lower wire of the fence and thus out of the pasture.  I was now safe but disoriented.  By then my Dad arrived to save the day and take me back to the house. 

My big Great Dane babysitter

Later, as I rambled further afield, our big Great Dane, Czarina, was my friend and babysitter around the farm and in the fields.  My Mom always said that if she wanted to find me she would just look for the big dog.  I was so small that I had to carry a stick – a small staff as tall as me – to block Czarina’s tail from hitting me across the eyes as we walked together.  We rambled around the farmland with the big Dane close beside me. 

Czarina kept me from getting too close to the creek.  Walking the 100 yards through the pasture seemed a mile, but we made it to the water.  She blocked me from getting too close, just a few yards from the water, by turning sideways in front of me.  I would try to end run around her head, but she would put her head down and push against my chest, knocking me down.  Same thing if I tried to go around her tail end, when she would turn and nudge me down with her huge snout.  I tried going under her, but she would knock me down and sit facing me between me and the creek.  She never let me get to the water in those days. 

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Ramblin’ Boy, in town

This was a completely unauthorized solo expedition, and I caught hell for it in short order.  But it was one great adventure, etched into my memory. 

It was sometime in the early 1950s, and I was not five years old.  I remember wearing my little cowboy boots and taking off alone on a twilight summer evening to visit my cousins who lived on another street in town.  Playing with my cousins was always such great fun. 

Uncle Rod, Aunt Kate, and my cousins, Danny, Bonnie and Crystal, lived in The Little Red House on Pleasant Street.  I was too young to be able to walk to it straight across two hundred yards of rough field in a beeline, but I did know how to get there by the streets although I’d never actually walked it before. 

It was quite simple:  One could just walk up our street toward town, and take the first street to the left (Curtis Street).  Walk on until taking another left on Pleasant.  The Little Red House was on the left way down near the end of the street.  You couldn’t miss it.  I knew these directions because I had been driven there many times by my parents. 

It was summer twilight, and I was in the front lawn with my Mom and her friend Anita.  We were standing by the white board fence under the big maple, and they were talking about something.  I remember trying to get my Mom to listen to me, and asking her if I could go see Danny, Bonnie and Crystal, but she was busy talking.  I remember how tall these two adult women were, towering above me, and I tugged on the hem of my Mom’s dress and asked her again. But she didn’t look down or seem to be interested in hearing me.  I guess I figured that it wasn’t important enough to her to give any permission, so I permitted myself to go.  Typical. 

I just walked away, crossed the street, and took to the sidewalk.  I took the left at Curtis, and near the junction with Pleasant I met some older kids on bicycles.  Wayne Schoonover stopped, and with apparent concern asked, “Ross, do your parents know where you are?”  I said, “Yes,” thinking that my Mom had certainly heard me.  The walk along Pleasant was long, but before it got too dark I arrived at The Little Red House. 

I knocked on the door (or rang a bell, I can’t remember), and Aunt Kate answered.  The first thing she said was, “Do your parents know where you are?”  (Why is everyone asking this?)  I went up the steep stairs to my cousins’ rooms, and soon we were all laughing and jumping around, having great fun. 

But all too soon, Uncle Rodney’s deep voice called up from the bottom of the stairs, “Ross.  Come down here.”  (Huh?)  Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I knew the fun was over.  There was my Mom, who bent down, grabbed my arm, and gave me a spanking.  I guess I miscalculated about that permission thing.  Aunt Kate had (wisely) called my Mom, who was probably freaking out when she couldn’t find me. 

It seemed to me to be just a misunderstanding.  To my mind, I knew what I was doing and thought I was in total control of the situation.  This little solo adventure probably had my parents thinking about getting a leash for me.  But it shows that my rambling has had a long tradition. 

-Zenwind.

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Ice Skating in the Swamp

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I used to ice skate a lot in my younger days, when winters were so cold. But the greatest experiences I ever had skating were a series of solo explorations on skates into the big swamp just east of Sugar Grove’s borough limits during one of those frigid winters in the early 1960s. I was anywhere from 10 to 13 years old at that time, and I saw things in that winter swampland I’ve never seen before or since.
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I had tried to explore this swamp in earlier years in the summertime, and it was almost impenetrable because of both the dense thickets of brush and also the deep, sticky mud in the meandering streams and pools that would go over your knees and stop you in your tracks. My friends and I could only get into the outer margins of the swamp during the warmer parts of the year, never into its heart. But in the cold of winter the watercourses actually became my trails.
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I had just received a pair of boy’s figure skates for Christmas, as I had out-grown my old hockey skates. Christmas afternoon I went back to the little stream going through our north pasture, Brand’s Creek, and tried them out. The frozen stream surface was rough from wind ripples on the water freezing into ridges, and the little gradual waterfalls now became horrendously fast downgrades that made me rocket down along the stream’s eastward course. It was almost like skiing on ice. After falling hard many times and finally hitting a couple of barbed wire fences that separated pastures and crossed over the creek, I gave up for the day, skated back upstream against the wind and went home to lick my wounds.
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But before returning to the farmhouse I glanced at Brand’s Creek’s course as it went eastward far beyond my day’s short excursion and on into the great swamp. I knew that our creek met the bigger Stillwater Creek somewhere after going into that swamp.
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There was a challenge taunting me here. My father had always told of Doc Grant once skating down the frozen Stillwater Creek from downtown Sugar Grove to some point far downstream. I am not sure how far Doc skated, but skating downstream would take you eventually through Busti, NY and end when the Stillwater meets the Conewango at Frewsburg. I was not a good enough skater to go any of those long miles, but I thought that I would be able at least to skate Brand’s Creek to the swamp on my next try.
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On another day that week I skated Brand’s Creek from our pasture through Carl Allen’s north pasture and Francis Thompson’s north pasture all the way east to the swamp. I didn’t hit a single fence, because instead I just hit the deck and slid under them.
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One odd hazard I faced was double ice layers, caused by initial freezing of a higher water level followed by a drop in water level and then the hard solid freeze of a lower level. I would suddenly, without warning, break through an upper ice level – which was terrifying – and be stopped by the lower, solid level. Once I slid down between the two layers, which were not much more than a foot apart, and I stopped with ice above me and below me. I felt stuck, I could hear the water gurgling below me, and I was in panic, really scared. I could not elbow or claw my way back upstream to exit the hole I had fallen through. At last I discovered the virtues of the front teeth of figure skates, and I used them for grip to struggle out.
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Continuing downstream, skating down even the gradual incline of such a small stream was frighteningly fast, especially with the wind at my back pushing me on. I fell many times, but I eventually reached the point where the creek enters the swamp. I had to give up and return home because of the extreme wind-chill and because of my numb fingers and toes. The return against grade and wind seemed endless.
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After returning home and thawing out, I announced my plans for skating into the unknown of the swamp, and my mother was positively horrified with worry, especially because I always went alone. But my father reasoned: “Ice is usually solid if you have had three or four sub-zero [Fahrenheit] nights in a row.” That was good enough for me. We had had prolonged sub-zero weather for almost a week, with temperatures minus-10, minus-15 or lower most every night. So I was determined to try it. The things I put my dear mother through.
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New Years Day was minus-10 at 9:00 AM with a stiff wind when I again went down Brand’s Creek to the swamp. When I crossed into the swamp on skates I got tangled trying to get through a barbed wire fence and I kept tripping in the underbrush, tree roots and grasses when the front teeth on my figure skates snagged. I finally found a small stream in the swamp and started exploring.
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The ice was immediately smoother, more level and more forgiving, because the trees and brush had shielded it from the wind. It was like glass with only a dusting of snow. This was the first time I had ever skated on smooth ice, and I was ecstatic. The little hummocks of grass and sod that would form a sort of stepping stone of dryness in summer travel were now obstacles that would trip me. I had a little open U-shaped area in the fork of this small stream were I could skate fast, and any falls would not be too rough. I skated back and forth on this area, faster each time. I remember once falling at great speed and sliding face-first across a broad area into the frozen grassy stream bank, and I was laughing so hard I could hardly stand back up.
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Later, as I was skating as fast as I could along my little course, a rabbit suddenly jumped out of hiding from somewhere among the grass hummocks, and he ran away from me skittering and slipping on the ice. He was having a hard time getting any traction, but I was already moving fast in his direction so that I was actually gaining on him. Now I feel bad for chasing the poor little guy, who was probably scared silly. I don’t know what I would have done if I had caught up to him, but the situation resolved itself quickly. The previously open stream was now turning into less and less ice with more and more grass hummocks and trees. As the rabbit jumped unto these little islands of dry land he gained traction and momentum, while I was dodging them, trying to keep my skates on ice and trying not to trip. The rabbit got further ahead, I finally tripped on the grass and crashed into a tree root, and the rabbit disappeared into the woods. Good for him.
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I visited the swamp again the next weekend. Again, it was sub-zero cold with even more extreme wind-chill. I explored further beyond my last point and found traces of a little tributary creek coming in from slightly upstream. I wound my way through sketchy ice patches in a mostly grassy stream-course, often having to walk over uneven hummocky dry ground, which made my ankles ache. I was ready to give up and go back until I saw a clearing up ahead and made my way to it.
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Entering this clearing was one of the most unique memories I have of my youth. Ahead of me was a beaver dam. It was low and broad, maybe 30 yards across. The area of ice dammed up in the pond above it was about the size of half of a football field. On one part of the pond was a beaver lodge. The dam of sticks was almost 3 feet higher than my stream level, and I found that I could use my figure skates’ front teeth to tip-toe up the frozen-solid weave of sticks making up the dam.
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Reaching up to this level of the broad frozen beaver pond, I was skating on the biggest area of ice I’d ever been on before. But I was feeling very cold now. This clearing in the swamp’s usual forest cover of trees and brush allowed the wind to reach me, and I was shivering and exhausted. I skated over to the beaver lodge, but all was still and silent there.
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Determined to explore a bit more, I skated in the upstream direction as the pond thinned out into little streams. Then I came upon another upper beaver dam. The dam was smaller, only about a foot and a half high. I front-pointed up it with my skates’ teeth and skated around a bit on this smaller area, but it was even more exposed to the wind. I now think that I was at that time suffering hypothermia from the wind-chill and my mind was getting sluggish.
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I don’t remember much about skating back except that I took a bad fall trying to go down the upper dam. By the time I got back to the lower dam I figured out that I must turn around and go down backwards while facing the dam, kicking my skates’ teeth into the wood of the dam much like modern ice climbers do. I do remember a painful return trip after leaving the forested swamp and going into the open fields again while skating back up Brand’s Creek, upstream and against the wind. I was frozen, with aching fingers and toes, and delirious. The open fire in the fireplace at home never seemed so comforting.
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I never made it back to the swamp that winter, because we had a January thaw and heavy rains that ruined the ice.
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The swamp was usually a remote, unknown and protected world, hard to reach. But the miracle of that winter’s hard-freeze allowed me a brief moment to peek into its inner mysteries. Truly a winter wonderland.
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-Zenwind.