stories of the macey family

8/8/2019 Stories of the Macey Family

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Stories of the Macey Family


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skitching down whiteface mountain

done

during my off seasons when i had no steady job i found myself

working a couple of seasons on whiteface mountain as a cleanup

specialist, which was just a fancy name for a janitor, i would

arrive around 4:00 pm and quickly touch up the locker room areas,

then i would draw my supplies from old Joe the man in charge and

head out to the ski lifts to catch a ride up to mid station, where

it would be my job to wash down all the toilets and clean the

lower level before returning to the base lodge and continue with

my other chores. the problem was the ski lifts shut down around

4:30 to 5:00 pm each night. this meant i would either have to walk

back down the mountain in the dark following the ski line or call

over to the shack and request a cat or groomer to give me a lift

back down, this would almost always have old Joe screaming at the

shack to hurry up and get me back down cause i was just sitting up

there getting paid to do nothing , i remember the head groomer was

a man named Ronnie who loved to take it easy and sit in the shack

playing poker, making chili and pissing old Joe off, some nights i

would walk over to the shack and sit there for several hours

before one of the groomers lost enough money in the card game to

take a break and run me down. our head cleaner was a man maned

Albert peck , a gentle and kind heart-ed man who would give you

the shirt off his back. he had the distinctive nickname of PapaSmurf, probably due to the cute little beard he wore and the way

he always played the peace maker among his fellow workers, i

remember the first time i gazed up the slopes late at night and

saw these lights zigzagging from side to side on the slope, before

you could make out what it was approaching you a semi-frozen snow

groomer would come whipping around the end of the lodge and slide

right into the rear entry way laughing like hell, thus i was

introduced to the art of skitching as it was called, nobody seemed

to recall who started it or when, but what was known was that the

management had said that anyone caught doing it would be fired on

the spot as it was too dangerous , speeds of up to 60 miles perhour could be obtained by the time one hit the bottom, and hitting

the bottom was quiet possible if you didn't know what you were

doing. the procedure was very simple. all the snow groomers and

makers carried a large over-sized plastic shovel that they used to

shift the snow away from the snow guns and distribute it so the

cats could spread it easier, at the end of their shifts they would

turn the shovel around and with the handle stuck out between their

legs would drop their ass on to the shovels blade section, now by

grabbing the handle and pulling back on it , one would turn the

shovel into a mini toboggan with handle to hold onto as the rider

shifted his weight to the right or left and dropped a boot tocreate drag to whip into a more severe turn. skitching was an art


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i found out after trying it a couple of times, you had to lean way

back or the snow would build up in front of you and you could bog

out and come to a stop, one also had to take care not to drop your

leg to quickly or you could end up in what was known as a spin

out, which usually left you in one place and your shovel somewhere

god only knew, and never try to come to a stop by just droppingyour feet down in front of the shovel, this was often the

beginning of the famous catapult stopping maneuver, a heart

defying moment when your two front feet dug deep into the snow

your body would be snapped forward by momentium and continue as if

launched from some giants slingshot, it was not uncomman to

occasionally see a snowmaker limping into the lodge wearing only

one boot, the other lost til spring on a mountain of snow. but

then the time arrived when you finally got it , your body settled

into the shovel like a glove , aslight twist and lean and you were

gracefully swooping side to side down the mountain side the wind

cutting into you, taking your very breathe away,the speed wasintoxicating, as you went faster and faster down the mountian

side, no great wonder that even though you might get fired if

caught that skitching continues on whiteface mountain even today,

after a good ride or two it gets in the blood, its like flying ,

you feel so alive,and yes the fact that it can be dangerous seems

to add a thrill to it, i know i will always remember the times i

tried and finally succeeded in the art of skitching.

Tales of the family

my uncle the rabbit man

done

it was called the harkness road in those days before the new 911

addresses came into being, his name was Richard macey,he was my

uncle, but to the children of the area he was simply called the

rabbit man, i am assuming because i never asked him about his

title, that he acquired it because in order to supplement his

income uncle used to raise rabbit's for sale as children s pets

and when they got large enough as food for his own larder. my dad

would visit him fairly often and one of my great joys was to be

allowed to go along too see the bunnies and if any were old enough

uncle would let me pick them up and hold them and pet them. he had

a large operation for what started out as a simple hobby, in the

back were his breeding pens, there were eight of them. here was

where the best of his doe's and buck's were introduced to each

other in the hopes of producing offspring in the long run. inside

the back storage shed which ran along the house some 10 feet wide

by 24 feet long, were the nesting beds, there were six of them,

along the far wall two play areas were located for the young

rabbits that had grown old enough to be taken from their mother,

often fifty or more bunnies would be running back and forth in


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these enclosed areas, uncle always spent some time each day in

each of these play areas in order to give the young rabbits

attention and allow them to grow used to being picked up and

petted so a child could handle them without fear, most of these

rabbits were the common large black or white albino, or cross

breeds of the two, however uncle also raised two other types ofspecial rabbits more for his own enjoyment than for resale value,

the first was the Netherlands dwarf this stunted breed was so

small that a full grown rabbit looked like a normal baby rabbit

and could sit in the palm of your hand with no problems, his other

breed was the exact opposite in almost every way, the french flop-

eared rabbits were enormous to say the least, they tended to look

like a large child's stuffed toy bunny, he was always combing them

out and complaining about the amount of time it took to care for

them yet i knew he was attached to them and never would sell one,

i remember he was offered a hundred dollars once by some city

fella for one of the flop-ears for the guys six year old littlegirl, who was afraid to even get near the bunny, when uncle asked

who would be taking care of the rabbit the man said who cares ,

I'm buying your selling that's all that matters, i recall the look

of confusion on the mans face as uncle told him it matters , now

get off my property,

it seemed strange to some people that my uncle always wanted to

make sure the animals had a good home that they were going to, in

some cases i know he talked the people out of a sale, when i asked

him why he ran his business like that, he told me the following,

nephew your young and it probably wont sink in but trust me onthis, someday when you grow up if your lucky, you will find out

that money is not the greatest thing in the world, it sure comes

in handy at times and can be a trial at other times, but as long

as you have enough to get by with, enough to live on, it doesn't

matter if your house is old or your car is rusted out, it matters

more whats inside you than what your worth, a man can always find

a way to help his fellow man that doesn't even require money if he

puts his mind to it, kind deeds, putting a smile on someones face,

lending a helping hand, or just being there to listen, these are

some of the most important things in life that one can do. to give

of one's self freely and not to keep a tab, or to expect somethingin return, to give for the simple joy of giving.

it took me thirty years to fully understand the great gift my

uncle had given me that day, the advice freely given that was

worth more than any amount of money, for it was a way of life the

old man had passed on that day, a more settled back existence that

allowed uncle to have a soul that blazed forth like a fire in the

darkest night. by action and word he helped and affected others

during his life as do we all, let us each strive to excel in

ourselves and be beacons to light the pathways of others so that

in their moments they to may shine out to lighten still otherpathways


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Tales of the family

bee hunting

done

it all started off with a discussion about the cost of honey and

how much it was going up, dad was sitting down in Alfred laws

basement having a clod one, bitching about the cost of life and

how he would probably have to even give up putting honey on his

toast each morning as it was getting so expensive, it was at this

time i recall Alfred saying hell Lawrence you don't have to buy

honey i can show you how to get all the free honey you can ever

eat , with these faithful words so began the great bee huntingadventures , the first thing you had to do Alfred said was to

caught a bee, not just any bee ,but a honey bee, once you caught

the bee you could follow it back to its tree and get all its

honey, he made it sound so easy, i should have known that nothing

was that easy. first of all one didn't just catch the bee one had

to hold it in a small wooden box scented with anise oil to entice

the bee to return once he was let loose we fed him a solution of

sugar water, it was poured over a piece of honeycomb and the bee

would sip the sugar water down until he was filled, then with a

gentle buzz he would arise from the box and circle the meadow

several times before flying off in a gentle arc, we always kepttrack of the direction he was going in to try and get a hint of

the trees location, after several return trips if he was close to

the tree he would return with several others from the tree, soon

the box would be buzzing with several dozen bees coming and going

as fast as they could, at this point the bees did not bother to

circle , rather they arose from their feast and made a bee line

straight towards the tree, after marking the direction down on his

map dad would wait for several bees to return and then would cover

the box and move it to another place, maybe a mile or so away in

another direction,when released the bees would start their

circling motion and take off to their tree, somehow knowing

exactly where it was located. after several moves it was possible

to pin point the rough location of the tree and to zero in on it.

after the tree was found the act of cutting it down was no easy

matter, ass Alfred had told me , when your feeding them a bee

thinks your a best friend for life, and having watched the old man

pouring sugar water onto the comb his hands barely visible due to

the bee's covering them . i believed him, but when you go to take

something away from them you wont find a more fierce foe in all

the world. i watched dad and alfred dress for the occasson two

pairs of pants were put on followed by a carhart denim

worksuit,double socks with the pants cuffs inside them and taped

all around, cotton gloves covered by leather ones. the wrists well


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taped so no stinger could get through. a thick towel was wrapped

around the neck and pinned in place, over the head a special hat

was placed called a bee bonnett by some it fit over a hard hat and

drapped down over the face and around the head coming to a stop at

a bottom ring sewn into the hat, it was then pulled tight and tied

under the neck , alfred would take a can of smoke, yes they domake smoke in a can, and if the opening on the tree was low enough

he would douse the hive with several shots of smoke too quiet the

bees down, most times however the hole was far up the tree with

little or no way to get to it. this was the time i was sent waay

back and had to view the action going on through a set of dads

binoculars, it was a terrifying sight, the moment dad started the

chainsaw and started cutting into the tree it looked like an

explosion of a black cloud out of the entrance hole into the tree,

they were on him in a second , literally covering his body and

trying to sting him away from thier hive, now i could appericate

the care dad and alfred had put into dressing themselves socarefully, with a crash the tree struck the ground and lay there

shaking from the impact, dad carefully cut into the tree removeing

a chunk of wood so he and alfred could get to the honey, if they

were lucky sometimes they would end up with several pails of fine

honeycomb as well as a large amount of liquid honey waiting to be

strained and bottled for home use. in later years when my dad was

still alive i often went with him on his bee hunts and yes we did

find several trees, my dad is gone now and i no longer hunt the

wild bee, but i still sit back and recall the memories as a sinles

honey bee flies by.

Tales of the family

moose and the pig

done

my brother Larry was also known by the nickname of Moose, how he

ended up with this is not exactly clear,some say because he was amember of the moose head bowling league down in troy n.y. others

because he always was so moose-headed about things or otherwise

that he had to do things his way or no way. having lived in the

same house as we were growing up together i tend to believe the

latter, it was inOctoberr, dad had just finished cleaning up the

family garden and had harvested the remaining pumpkin and squash

and now turned his mind to filling the freezer with meat for the

upcoming winter, during the year we had been raising several pigs

and now was the time to butcher them and pack the meat away for

the year to follow, the pigs were not the giant hog style that

many farmers tended to favor, but each of the three little porkerswould weigh in about 75 to 100 pounds, dad started to heat several


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large kettles of water on top of the old wood stove that heated

both the garage and was also piped into the house by a fan unit.

the pigs were knocked in the head with a small sledge hammer,

strapped to the pulley unit and raised up to be dunked into a 55

gallon barrel of ex termly hot water, this was to make taking thehair and bristles off easier, or so i was told, next the pig would

be raised up to dangle from one of the cross beams in the garage ,

mom would place a large blue enamel roaster pan under the pigs

head and dad would slice its throat from side to side, mister pig

would hang there for awhile as the thick rich red blood would drip

from his neck into the pan below, mom and gran ma would use the

blood in sausage making, blood pudding,and a small amount would

find its way into the head cheese that gran ma made so well.

dad would slowly carve the pig to git the choicest cuts out of it,

hams, and pork shoulders , good slab style bacon a 1/4 inch thick

or more, pork chops and short ribs, and a thousand little pieces

to go to mom as she patiently stuffed them through the old hand

cranked meat grinder clamped on to the counter top next to the

kitchen sink, sage and pepper, salt and fennel, and other various

spices were mixed in with the fresh sausage, gran ma was so used

to home made sausage that all she had to do was lean over the bowl

, breathe in and say, needs more thyme daughter.

gran ma never was one to really write down a recipe, she always

just grabbed some of this and a pinch of that, a dusting of this

and mustn't forget to add a smidgeon of that. she knew what she

was doing , i cant remember ever having anything but a great meal

at gram's house,

the first two pigs quickly went into the freezer cut up into the

best they had to offer, the third pig was a hog of a different

color, as his siblings had met their grisly ends he had been

chewing at the bottom of the bag and had formed a fairly good

sized hole in it, moose reached into the trunk of his car and

lifted the sacked pig out, it was at this moment that all hell

broke loose in the garage, the pig giving a squeal managed to work

its head and part of one shoulder free from the bag, before moose

could react the agile porcine twisted his head and firmly gave

moose a painful nip on the inside of his right leg, from the

screaming he did you would have thought the pig had amputated the

whole lower part of his leg. he hastily dropped the bag which gave

our little porker the opportunity he had been waiting for, with

several short lunges the other shoulder popped out of the bag and

the rest of the hog followed, grab him dad yelled at moose , what

followed could only be described fully if you have ever seen one

of those old black and white movies where the keystone cops are

chasing a bad man around and around the block, thank god the

garage doors were all shut or he certainley would have made his

escape in short order, as it was the following ensued, moose

chased the pig around and around his car trying to caught it,


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after this didn't work moose slowly tried to slip up on the pig by

quietly walking around the car , trying to get close enough to

gran him, as moose turned the corner of the back bumper he never

noticed the pig walking up behind him. the animal let out a squeal

right behind Larry and if he didn't clear the floor by two feet

then it was damn close. now moose was really pissed off, with aroar of anger Larry lunged across the car and managed to grab the

pig by its back legs,heaving himself on top of the pig he wrapped

both his arms around the young porker an with a heave lunged to

his feet,it was at this point that the pig release his bowels and

promptly shit all over Larry,choking and gagging Larry dropped the

pig only to be yelled at b y dad, what did you drop it for, it's

only a little shit, now get that hog, Larry finally did catch the

pig and as soon as he did dad ordered him out of the garage , the

reason being was quiet clear, Larry my brother , you really stank,

i mean i think a skunk might have gone the other way

Tales of the family

Arrows from cedar roofing shingles holes to make noise

Done

it was long ago at least it seems so those thirty odd years past .

dad was partners with Charlie Cobb and the two of them would build

houses together, the firm was called Macey and Cobb contracting,

it was located on front street in the town of keeseville, rightacross from the old torrington cement plant. it was at the end of

one of the work days and dad had us boys clearing off the back of

the truck and stacking leftover materials to possibly use in other

projects to cut down on overhead costs. i had just brought a

armfull of cedar shake shingles into the garage when charlie said

"you know these arnt much use except to patch a leak and we almost

always buy a new square when we need them. why dont you give them

to the boys and they can make some whistling throw arrows out of

them, what are they we asked never having heardof such a thing

before, "simplicity its self my boy, you know what an arrow looks

like dont you, well all we are going to do is to lay out an arrow

pattern on this wooden shingle, now make sure you draw the rounded

feather area on the thin side of the shingle and draw the shaft

down the thick portion of it, we will round the end off to a blunt

point and make a little notch about an inch back from the tip. "

why do we need a notch i asked charlie", its for the whip he

replied, the arrrow needs alot of force to really go straight up

into the sky, and a man just cant throw it fast enough to make it

go up any distance, however if we take a piece oe 1/2 inch dowel

around a fot or a foot an a half long and tie about 16 inches or

so of cord to it we have made a whip. inorder to use it we need to

make a knot on the loose end that can caught in the notch in the

arrow so it doesnt slide out to fast, now watrch this my boy


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charlie said, taking the arrow in his left hand charlie laid the

cord acrosss the notch and gave it a little pull so as to snug it.

now taking the dowel in his right hand and holding the arrow by

its tail he swung his arms down in a gaentle arc torwards the

ground, a second latter he whipped his right arm up as fast as

he , the arrow leaped out of his left hand and sped torwards thesky almost faster than the eye could see, it went up at least if

not more than a hundred feet and genltle arced over and fell back

to the earth, the bright colors we had painted on the arrow

flashed in the sunlight and later as charlie drilled a small 1/8

inch hole through the shaft of the arrow we heard the weird

strange whilstling warble odf the arrow as it flew across the sky,

its caused by the air rushing over the hole we drilled, sounds

strange doesnt it.

as with all toys one had to respect them for what they were, as

charlie told us , you can have a lot of fun with these justremember that's and arrow falling down at you, and after seeing

have the shafts would often imbed themselves into the earth

several inches one could easily imagine what it would do to

someones head.

we made many of our own amusements back then, from coffee can

stilts we used to stomp around on to the old bicycle card motor

made with a playing card and a clothes pin and attached to ones

wheels so that the card just touched the spoke, as we rode a

wonderful bap .bap. baping sound like an old time engine would

occur, the faster you rode the louder it would get, i remember atone time almost everyone was doing it. and then like most fads it

wore away and was forgotten

Tales of the family

potato cannons at Dan's watching cop

done

it was during the

Keeseville, i had been bragging to Dan how far my gun could shoot

and how much fun it was to fool around with. now i intended to

show him and to get him hooked on the potato gun craze that was

sweeping the north country at that time, what's a potato gun?,

hell it can be made in about an hour with parts out of your local

hardware store, mostly PVC pipes and a Bar-B-Que ignition they

pack an explosive punch that can send a potato hurling hundreds of

feet through the air without any problem what so ever,i remember

the man that got me hooked on this explosive toy, he was agentleman from Ausable by the name of John Ryan, i was working


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with him at the time at the holy name school in ausable forks, he

used to carry a small version of one in his truck and i seeing it

asked him what it was,after work that nightjohn gave me a

demonstration of his mini tat gun as he called it, and i was

hooked on the spot. johns gun was only about two foot long, and

finicky to work, he had to clean the firing points inside the gunevery once and awhile becuase he fire it so often. the one in the

back of my truck was a full sized model topping off at just under

ssix feet, i had a drain plug set into the end of the gun to load

the chamber easyier and also to allow access to the points if i

needed to clean or adjust them, we were sitting out on dans back

porch with a cxouple of cups of coffee debatinng the finer things

in life and generally shooting the bull. i had set up an old

garbage can down by the junk yard fence close to the stream that

ran behind my brothers doublewide, dan had just told me for the

tenth time that no way in hell was that contraption going to throw

a potato that far but that in his opinion if i had made it itwould be lucky to fire at all. oh yah i said watch this, i loaded

my cannon with a couple of squiarts of auqa net hair spray, a

really good famible aerosol, and pressed the ignitor plunger,they

was a click and nothing happened, dan started chuckling and was

saying i told you so as i pressed the ignitor again, a loud

banging roar cut off my brothers words and a white streak lanced

across the dooryard missed the garabe pail by ten feet and snapped

off a piece of the top of the junhyard fence. hot damn, lets try

that againg danny yelled ,now fully into the spirit of the moment,

we loaded up the gun with another potato, recharged the gas

chamber, and dan moved the gun to what he considered a betteraiming position, boom went the cannon and another white streak

lanced across the driveway, splatt went the tater off the fence

wall, he had missed the garbage can by less then a foot, we had

just loaded up for a third shot when danny notice a new york state

police car slowly going down the road, the car had both its

windows down and one could see theofficer looking around, damn ,i

bet somone on top of the hill called the cops about the noise,

probley think its a real gun or something, man can't even have any

fun any more, ok let me know when he goes around the corner,dan

tells me. no way bro, i'm not losing my toy to some cop cause you

want to hit a target, hell you'll never hit it anyway. dannyglanced down the road ,nothing was in sight, he moved the gun an

inch or so to the right and pushed the plunger, boom and the white

streak lifted the garbage can up and backwards into the woods,

quicjk put it inside dan said tossing me the gun, i placed the gun

inside the door and barely sat down before the police car came

barrelling around the corner, he slowed down and made his way up

the hill, about ten minutes later he again went by slowly in the

other direction, that was the end of the shooting for that day,

but not the last time my brother and i would get togethor and play

with potato cannons


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Tales of the family

bullhead fishing with moose for last time

done

my brother Larry also known as moose was a great influence in mylife , and it was hard for me to understand the frailty of

humanity at the time, my brother was dieing,or so he said, he

could feel his life dripping away day by day, the doctors had

scheduled him for open heart surgery in a month over in Burlington

had told him to take it easy until after the surgery was done, if

you would have had the pleasure of knowing him you too would have

shaken your head knowing that Larry was not going to do anything

that Larry did not want to do, i remember that he did get his last

two wishes in life and so i thank god for that mercy, wish number

one was to go bullhead fishing for one last time, and we did,

LLarryand i,and dad loaded the car with lanterns, coolers, fish

rods, worms, ccollapsible chairs and several other campingg items

and set off for a place called union falls, parking the car

besides the road we slowly made our way down over a small bank and

set upcamp rightht next to the water ,. it waobviousus that many

people had used this spot in the past as there were several rings

of stone set up icircularr shaped pits along the waters ledge

every so often, one of them even had a grill made from the rack of

an oldrefrigerator sitting over it with scraps of tinfoil and

pieces of old corncobs still wrapped by foil on one end, someone

had some roasted corn dad replied to my question, just the way i

like it, take an ear of corn and stripthe husk back, clean it and

put some butter on it salt and pepper, roll the husk back up wrap

some tin ffoilound it and throw it on the grill after soaking it

in water for a minute, the corn will slowly stem cook its self to

utter perfection, that and a couple of burgers and you have a meal

fit for a king. seeing as we had not brought any corn with us we

settled down to the business at hand the caughting of the

bullhead. Larry baited his lines with several large

nignightcrawlersd cast them far out over the water to land with a

gentle plopping sound, twilight was almost upon us so dad lit the

lanterns we had brought with us and placed them close to the

waters edge, the light on the water attracted the fish to come in

closer ,or so it was believed by many fisherman.

the night was muggy and it seemed that instead of attracting fish

the lanterns had attracted every mosquito and flying bug in the

area, one couldn't even open your mouth to complain least several

fly in and take up residence there like a person moving into their

new house for the first time. we tried everything we could think

of to drive these pesky winged blood suckers away, spraying

ourselves with off repellent didn't seem to work, in fact I'm sure

it acted like a fine perfume to the mosquito's.

dad decided to build a smudge fire, telling us boys that the smoke


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would soon drive the bugs off, in a short time he had a small but

robust campfire going and carefully threw several green pine tree

branches on top of it, the fire snapped and popped like something

alive, and great thick puffs of smoke billowed out of it, yes dad

was right, wherever the smoke floated no bug stayed in that

area,the only problem being the smoke was so acidic in smell thatwe neither could stand it. the merest whiff would make our eyes

burn and we would cough and choke till we had to leave the general

area of the floating smog bank. we were not alone for long ,for as

soon as one of us stepped out of the smoke squadrons of killer

mosquito dived down from above hot for the blood that ran within

us.

my brother Larry had just pulled in two small bullhead and was

telling the world in general about the lousy flavor combination

that mosquito and Budweiser beer made when dad spoke up and

suggested that we get the hell out of there before he eitherchoked or was sucked dry. the choice was not difficult to make, we

had been there from early afternoon till almost two in the morning

and we all were fed up with the place.

it didn't take long to pull in the lines and tidy up the camp,

then dad sent we down by the shore of the lake to bring back a

bucket of water which he used to dowse out the fire stirring

several times with an old tree branch and adding more water till

he was satisfied that the fire was truly out and would not smolder

and start again once we had left .

thinking back it was probably one of the worst fishing trips i had

ever gone on, yet it was the last one i would ever get to take

with my brother Larry as he died shortly after wards, the victim

of a broken heart that never made it to his medical repair date.

and so i often ask myself,what price shall we place upon a memory,

we always cherish the good ones, yet sometimes the best are filled

with pain and a message,sometimes it hurts to remember what we

have lost, but better to have lived and loved and cherished those

moments than never to leave ones home, afraid of the world around

one's self.

we are the sum of our memories, both good and bad, we must embrace

them all and live the journey that is called life.

Tales of the family

Dan wayne fishing auger pond freezing,

done

it was late in December, winter had come with all its glory early


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the wind seemed to cut right through the clothes we were wearing

and although i didn't complain Danny could see that i was cold.

lets build a fire he said at least we can get some warmth out of

it .

but mother nature was not with us that day, try as we would wecould not get a fire started, the wind whipped out any spark

before we could coach it into a flame.

Danny probably would have stayed longer if by himself but took

pity on me and called it a day, the tip-ups took forever to get

out of the ice several frozen in so solid that Dan had to re cut

the holes around them and carry home pieces of ice to slowly melt

in the warmth of the garage to be used again another day.

it had been a cold day to say the least and i ended up with a

really bad cold that stuck with me most of the winter. i can truly

say i did learn one important lesson from my frigid foray, and

that was if the temperature was below zero the best place to be

was curled up in a recliner watch television. they have some

really good movies you know, and one doesn't have to freeze ones

balls off at the same time.

Tales of the family

playing checkers with uncle Richard on the porch

done

one of the fond memories i recall was the several times weekly

stops i made at my uncle Richards to play a round or two of

checkers with him.

sometimes i would take him to the store to pick up his groceries

for the week, and we would talk about the old days and uncle would

tell me how life had been during the depression, the wars, and the

CCC camps that helped the country get back on its feet.

whats a ccc camp i asked him interrupting his flow of almost

endless conversation.

whats a ccc camp, don't you know/ whats that school teaching you

kids these days , why the ccc camps are part of our history, it

was when our president Roosevelt started the civilian conservation

corps, to replant the country sides and help people get money

working at fixing our country after the war. my god i must have

planted several thousand tree seedlings by myself alone, but it

wasn't just trees, it was fixing the roads back up, we built dams,

repaired buildings, helped people out, you got to understand boy,

it was a bad time in our country's history, people were

desperate ,they didn't know where to turn, our president took a


15/28

country that was falling apart and pulled us back together he gave

us a purpose and a hope for the future. he was one hell of a man

no matter what anyone says.

it became part of a daily thing this checker game and over the

small table on my uncles porch many the discussions of life ingeneral took place, it was here the younger learned the lessons of

life from the elder, how many would have paid to hear the simple

wisdom handed down form teacher to student, the lessons learned

the mistakes made, the love and laughter of a lifetime floated

back and forth over a simple game of checkers,

looking back upon my life, on the schooling i received, the

collage education, the programs of advancement, i realized the

life lessons this man had lived overshadowed it all.

how often do we tend to ignore our elders,to let the wisdom of

time earned through the life of that individual to merely slip in

one ear and out the other,and why we do it is perhaps the saddest

reason of all, we do it because they are old, we say they just

don't understand, that they are out of touch with today's world,

careful we should be for the lesson they teach are timeless and

one day we to shall be old and shall also try to impart to our

children and the younger generation the lessons we have learned in

life.

we do this out of love , because we don't want them getting hurt

making the same mistakes we did, we pray that they understand and

are listening to us.

but in the end it is free choice that rules, we as elders can but

guide the next generation along, their future is indeed up to

them.

Tales of the family

first gun dad bought me, but i was not a hunter

done

i had just turned 14 years old and noticed dad seemed to be paying

more attention to me lately, don't get me wrong dad always took

time out for the kids when he had a chance, but running a

contracting business took up a lot of time and effort, at the end

of the day most times he would retire to sit under his little tree

in the backyard with a cold beer and try to relax knowing that

tomorrow would bring much of the same.

often these jobs he took on were on time limits, meaning that the

work had to be finished in a certain time or he would pay a

penalty of cash back to the landowner, this often meant working on


16/28

weekends and longer hours if need be.

the day of my 14th birthday came and dad seemed real jumpy like a

man with a secret or someone with ants in their pants. mom had

baked a cake and we would be having ice cream,that was about the

extent of a normal birthday party at our house, no big fuss,justanother day.

this time however it was different, dad drew me to one side and

asked me to follow him. he lead me to his bedroom where on the bed

was a long brown cardboard box with a tag on it.

the tag read happy birthday, to my son who is now old enough to

take his place in providing for the family. within the cardboard

box nestled in white wrapping paper lay a marlin tubular feed 22

long rifle, just below the gun was a yellow colored plastic case

with a sliding top that held 100 rounds of ammunition for the

rifle.

well what are you waiting for,dad asked me . pick it up and we'll

go sight it in at the sandpits, i remember tagging along as frank

had sighted in his 30-30, and Danny with his double barreled

shotgun, the sighting in was fun, and i found out that i was a

fairly decent shot. the only problem was one i had tried to

explain to dad many times but he just wouldn't hear it.

i was raised mostly by my mother, a kind gentle woman who

installed within me a respect for all living things and the fact

that all things had a right to live their life's as god hadintended them to do.

mom didn't care a lot about hunting, she said it wasn't really

necessary anymore, that man raised enough cattle and grain that

their was no real need to go into the woods and kill the wild

creatures that still lived there.

that most people didn't even need the meat these days and only did

it for sport, just to have a reason to kill, and brag about how

big their deer was, and come home and hang it in the tree so the

neighborhood could see it as they drove by.

i remember my first kill, a tiny little chipmunk that scurried by

our campsite at meadow brook farms, go on boy shoot it, get your

taste going for something bigger, i was a good shot and proved it

a second later as the little fellow rolled up into a ball near the

edge of the meadow.

as i looked down on this life i had taken many emotions ran

through me, what had this little forest fellow ever done to me

except bring a smile to my face as i watched him and his kind,yet

behind me stood my dad with a smile on his face and puffed up with

pride for what i had done. i believe that was one of the great


17/28

turning points in my life, for i realized that day that you can

never please everyone in life , as hard as you may wish to you

have to make your own choices in life, i was never to be a hunter

like my dad wanted, i loved life in all its forms and did not wish

to harm them.

in later years the skills my dad taught me came in handy indeed as

i took up hunting with a camera and obtained the best of both

worlds, i can brag about how big my prey was, how it ran so

gracefully, and unlike most hunters tall tales, i have the

pictures to prove it.

Tales of the family

the fire balloons

done

it was back in the 70's, my brother Danny and i had gone camping

on a friends property down by lake Champlain and were relaxing

beside a small fire trying to caught a few fish and taking the

time to roast several hot dogs and marshmallows over our fire.

Danny always liked his marshmallows golden brown and would take

several minutes slowly rotating it till it was utter perfectionbefore popping it into his mouth.

i on the other hand could never seem to wait that long and would

always move my marshmallow to close to the fire where it would

suddenly caught on fire and be engulfed with flames, quickly

pulled back, the fire blown out ,left one with a carbonized treat

fit for the gods, the slightly burned ash flavored the gooey

melted interior to create a flavor that can't be truly described

but has to be experienced.

as we sat there i was telling Danny about an article i had

recently read about several boyscout who had made their own hot

air balloons using the most conman of materials, candles , plastic

straws, tape, and an thin weight laundry bag, the kind you can get

out of a laundry mat for a quarter or fifty cents.

how high do they go Dan asked me, well according to what i read if

constructed right they can go up several hundred feet and travel

for miles, most of the ones the boy scouts made went up to around

a hundred and fifty feet and floated well over a mile.

wait here my brother told me and headed back up the bank to where

his car was parked on top, i heard a lot of rummaging going on andlooked up to see Dan coming down the bank his hands full of an


18/28

assortment of trash he had just cleaned out of the car. among this

mess were several straws, the forgotten remains of many a

milkshake or coke that accompanied each happy meal, some old

tinfoil from sandwiches became our fire basket, a roll of scotch

tape found inside the glove box yellowed by age but still sticky

would serve us well, a piece of a scented candle could be meltedover some fluff tinder in our makeshift tinfoil; fire basket to

provide the fire for lift once we set it off, the only thing

missing was our bag for the balloon its self, never fear Dan is

here exclaimed my brother as he tossed me a small cardboard box,

if one looked closely you could barely make out the laundry bag

logo on its faded cardboard face, turning the box over i noticed

the stock date on the box was over four years old, are you telling

me this thing has been bouncing around in your car for the last

four years i asked Danny, hell probably longer then that,i moved

that stuff from my old car, i only bought this one a round three

years ago.

as we assembled our makeshift balloon i looked at my brother and

realized how lucky i was, Danny was 11 years older than me and

didn't really have to spend his time with his little brother

tagging along after him, and yet he always seemed to find some

time to spend with me, the balloon was ready, the wax was lit and

slowly the bag floated out over the water,it glistened and

flickered in the evening twilight bobbing up and down like some

spectral entity dancing across the waves.

i recalled that several times in the next days we heard peopletalking about the strange lights that were floating over lake

Champlain that evening so many years ago, nobody ever knew what

they were until now that is.

Tales of the family

gran ma an gran pas garden, coal shed gramps workshop blind (done)

two houses down from ours lived my gran parents, gran ma Mary, and

gran pa Henry Lamountain, they lived in an old two story saltboxstyled farmhouse with withered gray clapboards, gran pa Henry was

blind but the average person would not know it, he knew were every

object of his was located to the inch, if one were to observe my

gran pa during his daily routine it would have went something like

this,

he arose each morning and cleaned himself and then would proceed

to apply lather to his face out of an old chipped stoneware cup

using the small round bristle brush to apply a heavy layer of

lather to his face, he then would lovingly draw forth his pearl

handled straight razor and strop it once or twice on the shortpiece of leather belt hanging by the sink. with deft movements


19/28

gran pa would whip the gleaming steel razor from throat to chin

and down the sides of his face with no hesitation what so ever, in

a minute or less he would pas his hand over his face lightly to

feel if he had missed anything before wiping down the razor prior

to putting it away till another day. he would dress in the clothes

that gran ma had laid out for him the night before and make hisway to the downstairs breakfast table.

his normal morning breakfast never seemed to vary, it was almost

always two toast two eggs and a cup of coffee, after breakfast he

would sit in his easy chair and listen to the morning news on the

radio. later depending on the season you might find him outside

planting in the small garden they had, or working on some small

craft thing in his barn workshop.

the garden had a series of cords strung this way and that , often

looking like some bizarre spiders web floating several feet above

the soil, it was by means of this lattice of cords that gran pa

knew where everything was, a small piece of stick would tell him

how far apart to plant the seeds and the string beside him allowed

him not to wander as he planted row after row in a goodly straight

line,

once the plants were up several inches he would also take on the

task of weeding the garden just by touch alone, he did an

excellent job except for the carrots which he left to gran ma

because he said they felt just like weeds anyhow.

in his barn workshop i marveled at the beautiful little birdhouses he would cut out by hand , sand and paint, and add little

details to without the aide of his sight, his paints were lined up

in order of color as he wanted it, as soon as he used one he re

covered it and placed it back in its spot, he had made little tool

jigs which kept his handsaw straight as hie cut the pine boards

for roof and sides prior to gluing them together,

it always struck me as some kind of miracle watching him do what

he could do, i know because i often tried ti imitate my

grandfather by closing my eyes and seeing how far i could walk

with out straying from where i wanted to go, his barn was onlyaround fifty or so feet from the back of his house and yet in that

short distance with eyes shut and thinking i was going in a

straight line i managed to miss the house and continue across the

yard into the field beyond, one can not but respect the man who

would not give up, his favorite saying seemed to be " a man must

work, if not at one thing then at another"

and work he did until god called him one day at the age of ninety-

nine years and six months, he left a legacy of memories and

teachings to pass on to the next generation.


20/28


21/28

yanked from the bike almost landing on top of ole brownie who

decide enough was enough and took off for greener pastures where

people didn't throw themselves at him, at the same time Linda had

been flipped to the opposite side and sat there laughing her head

off, no doubt seeing something about the situation that was

humerus to her alone. her humor quickly turned to panic as i satthere crying my ankle had been skinned by the spokes of the bike,

as well as being bent badly and i could hardly put it on the

ground much less walk on it. it was now that my sister showed her

concern for me with the following kind words, "but you gotta get

up, if dad finds out he will kill me" i finally did manage to

stand and to walk ,even thou it hurt like hell, to top matters of

we didn't even get to ride back home as the chain had broken one

of its links and until fixed the bike could only be pushed by hand

and it was a long walk back the our home on front street.

get home we did, and someone fixed the chain for sis, i wore tallsocks for a couple of days till the purple color left my ankle,

and dad never said anything about the incident, i think he knew

anyway, ones things for sure , we never did ride double a gain

after that, trust me once was enough.

Tales of the family

our pet ferrets

done

did you ever have things just seem to fall into your hands,

objects that other wise you would probably never have acquired or

even wanted until the fickle hand of fate set itself in your path

and slapped you across the face, so it was when i acquired a set

of ferrets that became a large part of our life's over the next

five years, i t all started one day when an old school friend Dale

Doner asked me in for a cup of coffee, he wanted to talk to me

about something but for the life of me i cant seem to recall whatit was, something to do with his wife's computer i believe, it was

over this coffee that i started to hear about his real reason for

inviting me in. it turned out that he had to get rid of his pets

because his wife had an allergy to them that had just mysteriously

developed and he was sick of hearing her bitch about them. at

first i thought he was talking about a set of dogs and was just

about to tell him no way as we walked into the back yard and

approached a large pen, inside were two of the most beautiful

little bundles of fur that i had ever seen.

so it was that i met the duot of barnabas and salty a pair offerretts that were destined to take over my heart anf to teach me


22/28

several vauluble lesssons in the game of life along rhe way.

it wasn't long until i had the two installed in my back yard and

within a short while they had the run of the house rarely spending

any time in their outside pen .

Barnabas was more forward than the little female aptly named salty

as her main joy was to lick ones skin to taste the salt in ones

sweat,

their bodies were so soft, silky to the touch and they loved to

cuddle up in your lap just like a cat,

barney enjoyed draping himself around my neck like some living

stole await the unwary walker by who approached for a closer

look , then he would quickly raise his head and make a little

chattering noise as if to say , hey' not too close buddy, this is

my spot

salty the little daredevil had a habit of running up peoples pants

legs much to their surprise, i can only thank god above that none

of my friends had weak hearts, i know from personal experience

that it can be quiet a shock when one does not expect it.

living in the old farm House AT THE TIME WE surrounded ourselves

with animals , having no children of our own our animals became

our children,

and to you who smile at the last statement ,i assure you it isvery true, all the love we possessed was transferred onto these

suffragette children of ours, we raised them with all the worry of

any parent, doctors appointments when they were sick, laughing and

playing with them as they grew, and devastated when the time came

for them to leave us.

barmy and salty were old when they came to us, but we were still

happy to have known them in the two years they stayed with us,

their passing came within a week of each other and almost broke

our hearts in the way it occurred, barmy passed quietly in his

sleep one night, he had lived to be a very old, old, ferret

salty his companion was brought at a different time and was

several years younger than him according to our vet, in the days

following barns passing we tried to spend even more time with

salty so she wouldn't feel so lonely, alas it was to little

effect, she just lay in their little bed refusing to eat, crying a

sad little sound,

a trip to the vet reveled nothing wrong physically, and some

vitamin drops were added to her water supply'

we went out of our minds trying to get her to eat anything but itwasn't meant to be, and a week to the day of barneys passing his


23/28

mate joined him in the sleep everlasting

our vet told us she had seen it time an again, animals so

connected that when one died the other would stop eating and just

lay there waiting for death to rejoin them once more.

i have to wonder if animals do or don't have a soul? to feel the

loss of a mate so intense as to become depressed and await ones

own passing seems almost a human emotion to say the least.

and i wonder how i would be if something took my wife from me, the

very thought of it causes a moment of terror to leap into my

chest, how could i go on without her, and if i did would i be me,

or rather just some shadow walking through this world existing

alive yet not really, just abiding my time until we are finally

together again, yes thank you Barnabas and salty for t he lesson

of life you have passed on to me. the lesson final that all must

face in one form or another .

Tales of the family

ball in the road book in pants Danny in culvert

done

the following story was told to me by my mother as a warning to

stay away from the road which ran by our house a short distanceaway.

we had a nice lawn on the side of our home and it was here that

the children gathered to pass t he time of day playing Frisbee or

kick ball or some other lawn based sport,

as mom recalled dad had warned the boys and my sister several

times that week not to play around the road or near it, having

seen them chase the ball into the road without even slowing down

or looking to see if a car was coming, they were told to stay

toward the back of the house so they would be safe.

apparently warnings were like the wind to my younger siblings and

before long frank,Danny,and Linda were slowly working their way

from the back yard to the side yard and finally to the front

yard , right next to t he road,

no one knows who kicked the ball that bounced over the small ditch

t hat ran in front of our house and rolled out into the road

causing a passing car to lock up its brakes with a squealing of

tires that was heard by dad inside the house,

no child was in sight when he made his way outside,they hadseemingly vanished into thin air, however it dad little time to


24/28

find them and to administer a punishment that they would remember

a little longer then the warning he had t old them which they had

so promptley forgotten,

as mom said dad believed in the old phrase spare the rod and spoil

the child ,and none of his kids were going t o grow up spoiled.

and so to one passing by the sounds of a firm hand and a young

girl crying and her older brother yelling out painfully as dad

tenderized their backsides with a lesson they would remember each

time they sat down.

but the story doesn't end there, rather now it gets interesting,

for the younger brother Danny was now where to be found, mom said

dad looked from one end of the property to the other, he checked

inside the dogs houses, he looked inside his fish shanty's and

checked the small camper he had out back to no avail, all this

time he had been yelling Danny name and demanding the child come

forth.

by this time mom was in a panic and dad ready to get into his

truck and start checking up and down the roads believing that

Danny might have run away.

it was only luck that allowed him to hear what sounded like faint

laughter after he had called danny's name for the god knows how

many times, listening he yelled the name again and yes he could

certainley hear someone laughing. following the sound as best he

could and still yelling out his sons name dad tracked down hislost lamb who had ducked into the ditch and then proceeded to

crawl into a rather small culvert where he had listened to his

siblings getting their spankings and relizeing that dad couldnt

find him just found the whole thing so funny he started to laugh.

as he told me later i didn't laugh when i felt the old mans hands

clamp on my ankles and drag me out of that damn pipe, i looked up

at his face and thought i was dead on t he spot, instead dad told

me to go upstairs and wait for him, the longer i waited the worst

it was cause i knew i was getting a spanking just not how bad,

it was at this point that my brother decided he might as well try

to even t he odds as he had nothing to lose so taking two small

paperback books he slipped them into the back of his pants one for

each cheek so to speak.

when dad finally made his way upstairs Danny was ready, dad told

him i don't want to do this but you have to learn to behave, and

so he placed Danny over his knee and started giving him a good

spanking

everything was going fine my brother told me i could barely feel

the blows, the books were working great it was at that moment that


25/28

i started to laugh, so help me i didn't want to, it just struck me

as finally putting one over on dad i couldn't help myself, he

would give me a wholly and I'd laugh, which made him mad so he

spanked me harder and i laughed harder.

he finally realized what i had done and then i got a spanking inever forgot minus the books of course and feeling very tender by

t he time he got done i had trouble sitting for the next couple of

days

Tales of the family

sturgeon larger than 14 ft boat,

done

there have been many stories of the strange creatures which exist

in lake Champlain, her for the record is one more,

it was a cloudy day slightly overcast with a possibility of rain

later in the afternoon, dad and uncle Richard Larry and Danny had

decided to cruise over to four brothers islands and try their luck

trolling for walleye , luck seemed to be with them and as the day

passed they managed to hook and land several nice fish in the ten

pound range as well as releasing several smaller sized ones,

the predicted rain was starting to fall gently and a small windstarting to form chopping waves and medium sized swells on the

face of the water,

bout time we head in boys uncle Richard said, after all the boat

they were in was a mere fourteen footer, and although it was a

good boat it wouldn't take much to swamp it loaded down as it was

with four men in it,

they were half way back to the shore at port Douglas when the

storm broke in all its fury, one moment a gentle mist and several

rain drops, the next as if a deluge fell from the skies, we

couldn't even see the shore Danny told me if it wasn't for the

compass we wouldn't have known what direction we were going in,the

wind rose and the lake started to almost boil, waves slapped at

the hull of our boat and we were tossed to and through ,clutching

the boat for dear life , it was at that moment we saw it break

water off to the left of the boat, a strange head followed by a

massive blackish colored back, the creature appeared to be three

or four feet across its back and a tail broke the surface just as

the head cleared our prow, Larry wanted to try and gaff it i

recalled by dad said are you crazy the damn things as big as the

boat and we're taking on water now, and so it sunk back into the

depths from which it came, we made it back to port Douglas just in


26/28

time for the thunderstorm to end, and the surface of the lake

looking like a mirror, not a ripple on it, we told several people

only to be laughed at , there are no fish that big in lake

Champlain we were told.

the following year two sturgeon were found off of kings bay,someone had shot them with a rifle the smaller one went almost

seven feet, the larger one a hair under nine feet and almost eight

hundred pounds

is there giant sturgeon in lake Champlain, i don't know, what i do

kn ow is that the lake holds many secrets. and there are more

things in heaven and earth than mortal man can comprehend

Tales of the family

moose & the deer

done

it was cold and rainy that foggy November morning ,and we were on

our way to Plattsburgh to do the monthly groceries as was moms

habit the first part of each month todo a large shopping at its

beginning then pick up the few small things she might need as the

month rolleedd on. the cars back seat was filled with assorted

goods and one small boy and was heading up the chasm hill road

when i felt the car swerve violently to one side and heard mybrother larry whos nickname was moose exclaim damn he almost got

me,i think that truck ran into him.

turning the car around we proceeded to go back down the hill

toward a red truck sitting off to one side of the road its four

way flashers blinking a message of warning to all who would see

them.

but the road seemed strangely empty that night, all the way home

from plattsburgh the old red truck was the first vecihle we had

seen this evening as moose pulled up in back of it and stepped outof the car and walked torwards it, there in the headlights of the

truck ,laying on its side was a young deer, one of its legs was

twisted bakwards at a strange angle as if it was trying to walk

backwards with it.

the poor man was quiet beside himself,repeating over and over

again , oh god i didnt see it , i didnt see it, it just jumped in

front of my truck, what am i going to do, ive never been in an

accident before

moose calmed the guy down and sent him down the road to a gas

station several miles away to make a call to the game warden to

inform him that a deer andd car colideed and see what he wanted


27/28

the guy to do.

this poor chap was barely out of sight when moose grabed the jack

hadle out of the trunk of his car and with a sharp snapping of his

wrrist lay ed a solid blow right between the deers eyes, ( maaa)

the young deer bleeted and thrashed its legs around , but the nextblow caused a quiver to run through its frame and its legs seemed

to stiffen for a moment then slowley relax, the legs had not even

straighten out before moose seized them and with a grunt heaved

the body of the young deer into his trunk and slammed it shut, get

in the cr he said and away we went torwards keeseville and home.

it was as we were pulling inti the town of keseville that a

strange thump came from the back of the car and my brother yelled

at me to knock it off thinking i has caused the noise, a few

seconds later another thump rocked the car and a bleeting maaa

could be heard, damn its still alive moose yelled and stepped on

the gas peddle to get us home as soon as poissible,

we quickly shot by the pepsi plant, and whizzed by the frienly

tavern to pull into our driveway a moment later, moose pulled into

the garage and heaed to the trunk of his car.

i think i shall always remember the following events as long as i

shall live, as my brother yanked open the trunk of his car to put

an end to this beast who would not die a cloven hoof shot out of

the trunk with a spastic motion and caught the great white hunter

about half an inch above his testicles,

maa cried the deer, oooh cried my brother,the deer thrashed in thetrunk of his car, my brother lay rocking back and forth on the

garage flooor, the poor deer bleated in terror ,racked with pain,

my brother moaned and made poppping noises like a gold fish

opening and closing his mouth rapidly, at this point it was hard

to tell which one should be put out of its misery,

the deer lost the draw and i must say im sure it was much tenderer

than my brother probley ever would have been.

Tales of the family

a visit to granmas house

just down the road from our house a mere two houses over gran ma

and granpa lamountain lived, they were my mothers mom and step

dad, granma having remarried after she wore her first husband out,

ther was and old split rail fence in front of the prooperty and a

great big oak tree that had a branch twisted out to one side that

was great to climb on and rest your back against the trunk of the

tree, just sitting trher and letting the world go by, many the


28/28

days and happy hours i just let time slip by cuddled in natures

strong embrace, the wind gently blowing thrugh the branches of the

old tree, its leaves seemed to wisper to me of days long gone by

and of days to come,

gram had a full porch off the front of her house thou i cantrecall ever spending much time on it, rather the busyest room of

the house was granmas kitchen, and it was also the best smelling

to a young and growing boy, gram always seemed to have something

good cooking or baking ,

stories of the macey family

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