One More for the Road

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Phyllis Alberici

Writing stories about a place in a quieter corner of the map may (or may not) be fiction but it takes me to a place where life may be weird but at least no one is driving drunk.

Explain something to me: why does every holiday office party seem to feature alcohol and at least one person doing something insanely inane involving stupid hats, paper products, a table top, and/or a co-worker while deeply under-the-influence. Why?

What makes the office Christmas party or someone’s retirement party sacrosanct as the Valhalla for closet drunks on a work sanctioned toot?

And how about what happens when the party’s over and the keys go in the ignition?

Is it a surprise that December leads the way for DWI arrests? And would it be another surprise if I told you that 66% of New York State’s drunk drivers were seriously impaired with high blood alcohol levels?

Consider this: in 2009, in New York State, there were over 36,000 DWI arrests and 321 fatalities. These fatalities cause an estimated $1.33 BILLION dollars a year in medical and work loss, not to mention the grief of losing a loved one. New York ranks in the top ten in this category. Where do I get my facts? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

How many accidents are there annually with injuries short of death resulting ranging from mild to life-changing and life-threatening? Those statistics are scattered among emergency medical services, hospitals, and fire services. But they’re much higher than the number of fatalities. At one point, in 2006, in an emergency medical services career that spanned 15 years of work weeks that passed the 72-100 hour mark, I estimated that 75%+ of the accidents I responded to involved alcohol and personal injury. I have no patience.

And what happens the day after that office holiday party or the retirement party?

Apparently it’s OK to toss off someone’s concern with a couple of declarative sentences, “I was drunk. Get over it.”

I’m not “getting over it” and neither should any boss or supervisor or party planning committee or any co-worker or anyone else in arm’s length of a potential impaired driver.

Who assumes responsibility if the drunk leaves impaired and causes an accident, maybe with death or serious physical impairment resulting?

The bartender?

The boss or supervisor?

The whole party planning committee?

Everyone standing there?

The drunk? Or is the drunk “forgiven” because he or she is impaired and therefore excused from behaving safely?

It’s a trick question. Answer: all of the above, including the drunk who should have exercised due caution in the first place.

There’s a chain of failure here and a broken chain of responsibility that disregards the potential seriousness in allowing anyone who is drunk to leave a restaurant or party without an escort and without their keys.

Tell me: how does someone negotiate roadways with cars, lights, pedestrians, bicycles and other party hardy drunks during rush hour after two plus hours of slamming down alcohol?

How does that person get home on crowded roadways when motor control, speech, balance, and vision is impaired? And how do you keep it together for maybe 10-20 miles while white knuckling the wheel and rocking along to the radio?

How is it that no one calls for a designated driver or a cab?

How is it no one gives a crap and it repeats year after year?

Why is it unpopular to say “let’s try this without alcohol next year.”

Explain that to me.

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Headlines from The West Burville Gazette/Christmas Eve Edition

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

It was finally here, Christmas Eve in West Burville. After a couple of days of coming up dry, the Counter Dwellers were facing a dilemma…

Linda Mae stood there. The Counter Dwellers sat there. No one said anything. Hooter thought he was imagining Linda Mae said she was marrying a total stranger.

But she had said it. What was the woman thinking?

Hooter and the other Counter Dwellers could buy the fact that Linda Mae had a crush but marrying someone you’d known for about two weeks was just plain dangerous. Hooter realized they didn’t have much time to save Linda Mae from herself.

No one knew anything about Sander Klauss, except maybe for the Ford Fitch. Maybe he was one of those German ski instructors who blew into town every few ski seasons, romanced the local talent and then evaporated with the snow. But what if he was an escaped convict that liked blondes and Linda Mae was in danger.

Hooter was fresh out of bright ideas. Except for one. He and the rest of the Counter Dwellers would spend Christmas Eve shadowing Klauss on his next date with Linda Mae. If he made a move, they’d be there to rescue her and her honor. When the rest of the boys agreed it was a sound plan, Hooter handed out assignments. The real trick was going to be getting away from their families on Christmas Eve.

At nine o’clock Hooter and Old Mel joined Bunchy, Flock, Ludovico, Dayrel and  Lambert in the parking lot of the West Burville Texaco. The Counter Dwellers were weighed down with rucksacks filled with thermoses of strong coffee and sandwiches. Lambert had swiped his wife’s holiday Five Pound Fruitcake and Flock had included a box of sticky ribbon candy he’d taken out of his grandmother’s gift pile. At least they’d eat. Dressed in insulated coveralls, heavy wool hunting socks and felt packs, the boys were ready for a long night of staking out Klauss and his intentions.

It was beginning to snow again. The boys were milling around stamping their feet when Lambert said it just might be a night for ol’ Rudolph to be guiding the sleigh. Old Mel and Ludovico chuckled until Hooter shot them a poisonous look that stifled the merriment.

Something wasn’t right. Old Mel was the first to say it when he whispered, “I got a weird feelin’ here and I can’t quite place it.” Everyone nodded.

“What now, Hooter?” Flock asked.

“We make for the Double Axle…and stay low,” Hooter replied. Everyone thought that was a good idea, except Old Mel, who argued that his lumbago was raising Hob with him and he wasn’t crawling around on his hands and knees for anyone. Ludovico suggested they leave him behind and a small scuffle ensued when Old Mel offered to clean Ludovico’s clock. Hooter shushed them both.

Hooter suggested they fan out and remember to stay out of the snowbanks. After a minute of getting sorted out and some pushing and shoving between Old Mel and Ludovico, they set off for the Double Axle.

Just before the parking lot at the Double Axle with the one flickering security mounted on a post, they stopped. Flock and Dayrel mentioned cold feet and frostbite in the same sentence and Lambert muttered that the kids would be wondering what had happened to Daddy. The others  nodded in agreement. But no one made a move to turn back. What they all wanted was a gander at Linda Mae closing up the diner. But there was no activity behind the counter. Had she left without shutting out the lights? Or had something happened to her?

Behind the Double Axle there’s a field bordered by pines. Here and there scrubby trees, stunted by years of wind and cold, stand twisted and bent. Right in the middle of the scrubby underbrush is an open area no one visits. The field serves as the view for diners who might glance out the plate glass window. But mostly it’s just ignored.

As Hooter and the boys were slogging their way through the snowy parking lot around to the backside of the diner, they noticed hazy lights way out in the field. What was going on out there?

The boys stepped up the pace. Hunched down together they skirted the dark edges of the field. As they got further into the field they saw the battered Ford Fitch parked in the deepening snow, the beam from its headlights looked like gauze through the veil of heavily falling snow.

What they saw next made the Counter Dwellers leave the shadow of the trees and pick their way across the brush strangled field. Klauss and Linda Mae were standing in the snow waving their arms at the sky. No one could hear a word they were shouting but it looked pretty urgent. The boys picked up the pace.

Staying a distance from Klauss and Linda Mae, they tried to assess if she was coming to any harm. It didn’t seem that way but the Counter Dwellers piled into each other trying to get a closer look.

If Klauss and Linda Mae had turned they would have seen a tableau of the Counter Dwellers hunched behind a few stripped out pricker bushes. But their attention was diverted by a light that was headed their way and getting stronger by the minute.

“What the…?” muttered Hooter with his mouth hanging open. The Counter Dwellers got a little closer to each other.

“Is that one of them UFOs like they got over in the desert?” Bunchy whispered. “I’m for getting out of here.”

“You’re not going anywhere,” Hooter growled. “What if that Klauss is an alien and he’s taking Linda Mae up in that UFO? We’ve got to save her. I knew there was something fishy about that guy,” he added.

The idea of saving Linda Mae prompted the Counter Dwellers to break cover and stalk toward Klauss and Linda Mae, still waving and hollering at the approaching light. Not for the first time Hooter asked himself what the hell was going on here.

“What if it’s a plane gonna crash into Linda Mae?” Bunchy said a little awestruck.

“Shut up, Bunchy. It ain’t no plane.”

The boys were rooted to the spot with their felt packs getting soaked. But no one was noticing their feet.

Out in the field things were so bright their eyes hurt. Hooter and the other Counter Dwellers couldn’t be sure but it looked like the Ford Fitch was shimmering.

“Is that Ford melting?” asked Dayrel.

“For chrissake, shut up, Dayrel,” said Lambert. “I think it’s, looks like a…what the hell is that?”

In the place of the giant ball of light that was once the rusty Ford Fitch stood an enormous white sleigh and eight of the prettiest reindeer all done up in red harnesses with little jingly bells.

“Santa? Is that Santa’s sleigh and…uh…eight tiny reindeer?” Bunchy exclaimed before Ludovico hit him one off the side of the head.

“Of course, it’s Santa, you jackass. I think,” Ludovico pondered.

Something else was happening that cut Ludovico off and made the boys creep closer. It was Linda Mae. Or was it?

Someone was standing in the field and she sure wasn’t dressed in a waitress uniform. A woman who looked regal and magical and dressed in a long white robe with gold trimmings and a wreath of holly around her blonde updo. Linda Mae? The boys held their breath. At her side was a familiar figure but it wasn’t Sander Klauss. In his place was a tall round figure dressed all in red with dark wavy hair. The white beard wasn’t there but the boys still has a pretty good idea who it was. So Sander Klauss was Santa Claus. Why hadn’t they guessed? And he was going to take Linda Mae off in that sleigh to God knows where.

They were going to lose Linda Mae to Santa Claus. It didn’t seem possible. Sander Klauss had come looking for a Mrs. Claus and had found her at the Double Axle Diner. At the same moment the Counter Dwellers were musing about how you just could never tell sometimes, Santa was helping the new Mrs. Claus into his sleigh.

The boys knew they were looking at Linda Mae for the last time. They abandoned any idea of trying to hide. But just before she sat down, Linda Mae turned and blew them a kiss that crossed the field and touched the lips of each and every man. They gave a collective sigh and Old Mel’s knees buckled. But that part might have been the lumbago.

As she settled herself next to Klauss, Linda Mae gave one last wink and a little wave toward the Counter Dwellers. Hooter and the boys heard a single shout and caught a whiff of warm reindeer as the sound of tinkling bells filled the clear cold night. With a flick of the reins, the reindeer bounded into the dark snowy sky.

From the middle of the field, the boys waved their mittened hands one last time  at Linda Mae. No one spoke. They stared at the field and into the sky and at each other. Finally Hooter said, “I told you there was something fishy about that Klauss guy.”

Tromping back across the field on icy feet, hungry and miserable, the Counter Dwellers agreed that Linda Mae better not have been abducted by some fancy alien in a Santa suit. Old Mel wondered out loud who was going to keep the diner open and Flock said as long as the lights were on they might as well grab some pie before heading home.

Stumbling across the hillocky snow the Counter Dwellers tried the door at the diner. It swung open.

“Linda Mae must have forgotten to lock up,” Hooter said as he stepped inside.

“And she left the coffee on and fresh pie. For us?” Dayrel asked the other Counter Dwellers.

“Would seem so,” said Lambert. “Let’s dig in.”

As Hooter was digging around behind the counter looking for a knife to cut the lemon meringue, he spotted a letter beside the coffeepot addressed to the Counter Dwellers. “Hey, look at this. Linda Mae left us a letter,” Hooter said, coming out from behind the counter.

“Hurry up, open it up.”

Hooter ripped open the white envelope. Inside was a single sheet of paper signed by Linda Mae.

Hooter read for a minute in silence. He lowered the paper and puckered his brow.

“Ready for this?”

They were.

“Boys, according to this here letter, Linda Mae, left us the Double Axle and all its accouterments, whatever they are. She spelled it all out right here and she spelled out our names too. “

The Counter Dwellers were dumbstruck.

“You mean we own the place?” said Bunchy.

“Looks that way,” Hooter replied. “Now what?”

Now what indeed…

Merry Christmas from everyone up at the Double Axle, West Burville, Vermont, population 683 give or take.

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Headlines from The West Burville Gazette: Christmas Edition/2

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

If you’ve ever been through Piney Woods County, tucked up in the northeastern corner of Vermont, when the snow’s beginning to fly and Christmas lights are twinkling around the steamy windows of the Double Axle Diner over in West Burville, VT, population 683 give or take, you probably stopped in for pie and coffee. If you ski you might remember an instructor named Sander Klauss. No? You wouldn’t be the only one. If your visit up that way was around Christmas, let me remind you what happened.

Hooter was concentrating hard on Klauss as the man ambled his way.  What was wrong with this guy? “I’ll be damned Klauss but something ain’t right about you.” Hooter said in a low voice.

Klauss chuckled. “It depends on what you mean by “right”, Hooter. A lot of things aren’t right. And a few things are. Know what I mean?”

Behind the truck the Counter Dwellers were puzzling that one out. Flock and Lambert decided it might be a good idea to take some notes and began noisily divesting themselves of their insulated coveralls in an effort to find a pen when old Mel yelled, “What’d he just say?” That pretty much blew their cover.

Ignoring the commotion behind the truck, Hooter spat, “What the hell are you talking about? Don’t talk stupid to me, Klauss, it don’t up the ante in your popularity in these parts to make fun.”

“No harm intended, Mr. Gibson,” Klauss answered shifting from one foot to the other and stuffing his cold hands into his pockets.  “Look, let’s get to the point here. What is it you want from me?”

“I want some answers.” Hooter responded in the same low menacing tone.

Hooter stood facing Klauss. Neither man moved for a few seconds. Finally, Hooter admitted, “I seen you, we all have, eyeing up Linda Mae. How long you been here? Two weeks? And already she’s burned the meatloaf twice and run out of pie. This some kind of game you playing with her? ‘Cause if it is, it ain’t going to end the way you might be hoping.”

Klauss stared at him.

“Why you staring at me? Don’t you have nuthin’ to say?” Hooter asked.

Klauss opened his mouth to speak then shut it again. The snow had begun to come down with a vengeance and the two were wrapped in dime-sized flakes. “I don’t have much to say right now, Hooter. I just think you might be making a mistake, that’s all.”

“Now listen here, Klauss. Linda Mae is a good girl.”

By now the Counter Dwellers were out from behind the truck crunching across the snow and preparing to defend Linda Mae’s honor and her pie making skills. But they sure were hoping it wouldn’t get physical.

“Me and the boys here have known Linda Mae for a long time and we’re pretty fond of her. She makes the best damned meatloaf in the entire county and maybe the next one over to boot. And she ain’t bad to look at either, if you know what I mean.”

Klauss nodded as if he knew.

“We don’t want our girl hurt and we ain’t standing for any foolishness. No broken hearts, you got that?”

Klauss nodded again.

“Ain’t you got nuthin’ to say? Dammit, man, this is serious stuff.” Hooter was riled. This wasn’t going the way he and the boys thought it would. Klauss was agreeing with him. What was wrong with this guy?

“Look boys, I’ll meet you halfway. I’ve grown fond of Linda Mae. She’s special. Really special. I knew that the minute I saw here. I think you’re going to have to wait, just like me. I don’t have much to offer aside from that.”

The boys looked at each other.

Klauss turned and walked into the falling, swirling snow. In a matter of seconds he was swallowed up. The snow had picked up considerably during the time they were outdoors and lingering in the parking lot didn’t seem like a good idea. As Hooter turned to head for his pickup, a thought hit him. What did this Klauss guy drive? No one had seen him in a vehicle and Hooter made a mental note to ask the other Counter Dwellers what he drove. Come to think of it, where did he just go? Linda Mae was closing early to get home to decorate and Vonda Sue had already pushed off in her ancient Datsun Avenger. Odd. Hooter was alarmed. This Klauss bore watching.

The following morning Linda Mae was bustling about the Double Axle, dishing out her usual smiles with an extra helping of happy and humming to herself.

“Now what?” Hooter mumbled under his breath. The rest of the Counter Dwellers had picked up his sour, suspicious mood and were watching Linda Mae flit from one end of the diner to the other. Something was up.

By the end of the 10 o’clock pie and coffee shift, Linda Mae made an announcement: “I’m closing early this afternoon, everyone. Right after lunch. I’ve got a…a… date.” She let it drop like an A-bomb in the diner. Linda Mae blushed and gave a little burpy giggle and went to retrieve the coffee pot. Down the length of the counter, coffee cups slammed down on saucers, spoons clattered, pie forks dropped, and the Counter Dwellers swallowed what was in their mouths before their jaws hit their knees.

“Aw, c’mon, Linda Mae, you’re not going out with that ski bunny, are you?” Bunchy chimed in. Linda Mae only smiled a simpering sugary smile and plumped her blonde curls. The boys exchanged looks.

There might not be time to handle this latest development with their usual attention to detail but there might be time to make sure a second date never happened. A hastily arranged stake out of Linda Mae’s house for the early evening hours was delegated to Flock and Dayrel, with high hopes they wouldn’t go ring the doorbell and ask her where she was going.

The next morning the pair reported that Klauss arrived right on the seven o’clock button in a boring looking Ford Fitch and rang the doorbell. He also, apparently, turned and winked at Flock and Dayrel who were hunkered down behind the arborvitae. Linda Mae was dropped at her door with not so much as a kiss at around eleven o’clock. Flock and Dayrel said they were guessing about the kissing part because they had moved to Dayrel’s pick up when the cold got too bad.

The next phase was more subtle. Hooter and the other Counter Dwellers were convinced that something fishy was going on and the “Klauss business” needed to conclude well before ski season did. So far all they knew was that he showed up at Linda Mae’s in an old Ford. If they were going to give Linda Mae any helpful information that might sway her thinking, they’d better get cracking. It was beginning to look a little too serious on Linda Mae’s part.

The Counter Dwellers elected Old Mel Winchel to spearhead the investigation up at the mountain. Old Mel was one of those Piney Woods classics who had his teeth out sometime in the Fifties and never saw the need for replacements. As a result, his lips were now sucked in so far the locals speculated he could swallow his face.  But  Old Mel had a talent. People told him things. Maybe it was the way he looked. A bit of this and a bit of that and the next thing you knew he had your whole life story.

After a conversation with the other boys, Old Mel made for the mountain in his battered Chevy pickup. Halfway to the base lodge, he hatched his own plan.

As usual, the parking lot up at the base lodge was filled with out-of-state cars and mouthy flatlanders who whined if the weather was bad because they couldn’t ski and whined if the weather was good because they couldn’t ski long enough. And they always asked for things like low-fat milk and their salad dressing on the side down at the Double Axle.

Old Mel was considered “local color” up at the mountain. This entitled him to certain privileges like using the main door instead of the employee entrance the way everyone else from town did. Sashaying through the air lock and narrowly missing being speared by a pair of long red skis the width of a stilleto, he headed for the ticket counter. Behind the window sat Judy Cosgrove, who reigned over  the ticket booth for the past twenty years.

“Hey, Judy, how goes it today?” Old Mel offered.

“OK, Mel. How you keepin’?”

“Good, good. Can’t complain. Nobody’d listen anyway. Hey what you think of that new ski feller? You know, that Sander Klauss?”

Judy smelled a rat. “What are you boys up to this time?”

Old Mel couldn’t think of a good comeback that wouldn’t further rouse her suspicions. After a couple of minutes of hopeless poking and prodding and getting nowhere with Judy, he slunk away. Rattling back down the mountain, he was no wiser than he was on the trek up.

The next day was the start of the final shopping spurt before Christmas and things were hopping over at the Double Axle. What with hungry shoppers, the vigilant Counter Dwellers, and Linda Mae mooning here and there, it was shaping up to be a heck of a Christmas. Klauss on his forays into the diner acted about as besotted as Linda Mae.

The Counter Dwellers spent a considerable amount of time asking each other if Klauss ever worked or if he really knew how to ski. So far, Old Mel had been unable to find anyone who had actually seen Klauss on a pair of skis.

It was sour grapes for lunch at the Double Axle with only two shopping days left until Christmas. Linda Mae floated around humming to herself and winking at the Counter Dwellers. What was she up to?

What she didn’t know was that the boys were planning one last full out attempt to get rid of Klauss.

“Damn the man,” Hooter grumbled as he watched Linda Mae. How were they going to get rid of him before he broke Linda Mae’s heart. Among the suggestions was disabling Klauss’ Ford Fitch. No one knew where he parked it but they knew he took Linda Mae out in it and that was good enough for them. Hooter was volunteered to track the Fitch down and disable the engine.

A ride around town yielded nothing and Hooter realized that no one knew where Klauss lived. Strange. The only other choice was one of the parking lots up at the mountain. With a groan Hooter shoved his pickup in gear and made for the access road.

After a couple of hours of driving real slow through each lot, he spotted the Fitch. At about the same, security spotted Hooter. For the past hour they had been watching Hooter’s slow progress past the vehicles in the packed lots.

As Hooter heaved himself out of the driver’s seat and reached for his tools, security pulled up.

“Okay, buddy, want to explain what you’re doing?” said a bull-necked security guard. Hooter stammered something about looking for a friend’s vehicle.

“What’s the name of your friend?” the guard sneered. Hooter obliged. “Klauss, Sander Klauss. He’s one of the ski instructors up here. He locked his keys in his car.”

“Klauss? Who? Never heard of him. Listen, friend, if I were you, I’d hike my butt back down the mountain and we’ll forget this ever happened. Come up here again and I’m taking you inside. Got it?”

Hooter got it. Climbing back behind the wheel he wasted no time finding the main road. It didn’t make sense to Hooter. Nothing was adding up. No car, security never heard of him, no one knew anything. Who was this clown?

Back in the parking lot at the Double Axle the Counter Dwellers were not pleased to hear Hooter had failed. Old Mel indicated that his dead auntie could have done a better job and everyone retired for the evening mad at everyone else.

Christmas Eve day had arrived with no answers. Keeping with tradition, if not with each other, it was a sullen, miserable crowd that hauled itself onto the stools at the Double Axle for their annual cup of Christmas cheer.

Linda Mae had outdone herself in a dazzling white uniform with the sweetheart neckline the boys loved. From her ears swung gay little Christmas trees and pinned to her ample bosom was the twinkling wreath. Her coiffure was a study in the architectural possibilities of hairspray and her lips were rouged a luscious Cranberry Cinnamon Swirl.

With a collective sigh the Counter Dwellers hearts melted. This was their girl. But the spell was not to last. As Linda Mae handed around cups of spiced eggnog she hummed a little tune. Wait. Hooter recognized that tune. He’d last heard it over twenty years ago when he and Martha Louise had pledged their troth. She couldn’t be humming The Wedding March. Could she?

As the last of the cups met hands, Linda Mae wished her faithful patrons and admirers the best of the holiday season. As they gave her their best three cheers, Linda Mae just smiled.

To be continued…

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Headlines from The West Burville Gazette: Christmas Edition

Posted on December 19, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

The first snowfall (the one before the snow gets up to your keister and the car won’t start) kicks off the preparations for the holiday season in Piney Woods County, stuck way up there in the northeastern corner of Vermont. And, as it does every year, the seasonal merriment swirls around the Town of West Burville and its local eatery, the Double Axle Diner.

 For the Counter Dwellers, who ran afoul of Sheriff Les Good and the Fecteau clan over that business out in the woods, this is a chance to rest up before their date in court. But this Christmas season things might not be what they seem. After all, nothing’s ever more certain than something’s going to change…

When the skies start to take on a steely determined look and the wooly worms are nowhere to be found, the locals who reside in the Northern Hills begin to batten down for another deep winter. But not right away.

The first flakes of snow and the first icy blast of cold wind off the Arctic makes the firewood tossing, plow blade sharpening and snowmobile tuning take on a pace. Mixed in with these mundane annual tasks are visits to the best eatery in all of Piney Woods County, the Double Axle Diner, located in downtown West Burville, population 683 give or take.

Anyone who’s ever spun a stool at the Double Axle knows the owner and operator is the buxom Linda Mae. And today, just three weeks before Christmas, Linda Mae was looking particularly fetching in a teensy bit too tight starched white uniform accentuated with a festive red apron with itty bitty pine trees embroidered along the bottom, and one of those little wreath pins with the twinkly lights pinned right next to her assets. With her blond hair catching the morning light like spun sugar and her carmine lips, she was a sight to behold. And the Counter Dwellers were parked in their usual seats taking in the view.

“Morning, Linda Mae. You’re looking mighty pretty this morning,” Hooter gushed.

Linda Mae gave Hooter a wink and an extra warm up on his coffee.

“Mornin’, Hooter,” she smiled.

For the past decade or so, Linda Mae had wielded the coffee pot at the Double Axle, taking it from a tin can roadside hash house to the culinary capital of Piney Woods County. It wasn’t just the Meatloaf Special or Linda Mae’s signature Pecan Festival Fantasy Pie that drew the Counter Dwellers. For over a decade Hooter and Bunchy Meacham, along with Old Mel Winchel, Lambert Thistle and Flock Lambert, Dayrel Giroux, and Ludovico Haynes, when he could get off the log truck, would occupy the counter stools to share a meal and ogle Linda Mae’s amenities. For her part, Linda Mae would prod the boys with slabs of meatloaf and thick slices of pie served up with a saucy wiggle.

Now maybe it’s because the Double Axle was the only diner within striking distance of the local slopes or maybe because it had a reputation among the out-of-state ski crowd for great food and colorful local characters, the Double Axle would fill up every weekend with folks headed to the mountain.  By the time the new year rolled around everyone in West Burville was pretty much used to crazy driving, horn honking, loud talking, big spending out-of-state  skiers passing through town. The trick was to look both ways before you hoofed it across the road.

But two weeks before Christmas Eve something unexpected happened that shook the Counter Dwellers down to the soles of their felt packs. Someone arrived in town that made the ladies hustle over to the Double Axle for some lollygagging and a light lunch.

Around about noontime on a particularly busy Saturday the door opened to admit a burst of winter and six feet of fork dropping manhood. Word spreads quickly in a quaint village and even faster if there’s a new man in town. The ladies occupying the corner booth and nursing the low cal cottage cheese and hard-boiled egg platter were riveted to the vinyl upholstery. So was everyone else in the Double Axle. Strangers come and go. But not this kind.

The center of the commotion was ignoring the attention and making a beeline for one of the counter stools. And it didn’t go unnoticed by Hooter and the other Counter Dwellers. With a single movement that might do a ballet dancer proud and involving a lift, a half-pirouette, and a butt shuffle to the left, all seven Counter Dwellers came to rest one stool over blocking any new arrivals. Perhaps the stranger was among the many folks who don’t know that the counter in a small town diner is the property of a few townies who set the rules about who gets to sit where.  At the Double Axle the unwritten rule was strictly enforced.

And here’s something else: a quick lesson in small town romance. When a woman lives in a town the size of West Burville, where every available man smells like eau d’ two stroke and wears logger boots for a date, it isn’t a stretch to imagine the reaction of every woman in the diner, including Linda Mae and little Vonda Sue, who was in for the rush. Linda Mae had slipped the coffee pot to a precarious angle and stood slack-jawed, dripping hot coffee onto the red linoleum floor. Vonda Sue had forgotten who got what and the place was in chaos. Hooter and the boys were speechless.

As the eye-catching stranger decided on a side booth by the front window, Linda Mae set the coffee pot down on the counter, just missing Lambert’s right hand, and bustled over with a menu.

“Hi, stranger, welcome to the Double Axle. I’m Linda Mae. What would you like? I mean, uh, from the menu.”

“Well, hello there, Linda Mae. Nice place you’ve got here. I’m Sander Klauss. I’m giving ski lessons over at the mountain. I think I’ll have a cup of hot coffee and some of that delicious looking meatloaf. Say, Linda Mae, let me ask you a question. Do you ski?”

With a doll-like head nod, Linda Mae offered that she had always wanted to learn. The groan from the counter was audible.

Shifting his bulk to get a full view of the competition, Hooter narrowed his eyes and turned back to his pie. Hunching over the plate he watched Klauss in the mirror over the pie case.

In the next few days, things went from bad to worse for the Counter Dwellers. The food was still piping hot and the best around but Linda Mae was distracted. To the Counter Dwellers she seemed to spend her day checking her updo in the mirror and watching the door. Whenever Klauss came in, the temperature would go up in the place and Linda Mae would get all flighty and there’d go the conversation and the warm ups on the coffee.

After about a week of this, Hooter called a powwow. It was time for a little chat with this pretty boy ski instructor. Old Mel suggested he and the other Counter Dwellers might act as backup for Hooter.  Not too close to be noticed but close enough if Hooter needed anything and they could maybe hear him. When Hooter became suspicious of what seemed like a plan to leave him to face Klauss alone, old Mel clucked that none of them was as smart as Hooter so they’d just lie low behind their vehicles in case things got rough.

The time for the powwow arrived a few days later with skies that looked like two feet of drifting snow and the wind picking up. Klauss had just finished his usual lunchtime foray into the Double Axle and the hearts of the ladies of West Burville. For Hooter, it was time to ask a few questions.

Seeing Klauss arrive, the Counter Dwellers deployed to their vantage point behind Lambert’s rusty pick up. The backup plan seemed to be working just fine, except for the muttering about the cold and the stamping and the shuffling and the twelve legs visible from the knees down below the rotted undercarriage.

As Klauss was making his way across the parking lot, Hooter saw his chance.

“Hey, Klauss, I’m coming right to the point here. You mind if we have a talk?” Hooter offered.

The muttering stopped.

“Sure, Hooter, sure. Now is as good a time as any,” said Klauss flashing a pearly grin.

Hooter stopped and stared. Something didn’t seem quite right here.  But he couldn’t place it.

To be continued…

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I feel I must remind you again…and again…and…

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

If you come to visit me, and I hope you will, I must forewarn you: I like fruitcake. Perhaps you remember my confession last year or perhaps not. Never mind. Last year, this year…it’s all the same. When Christmas rolls around it’s time to roll out the fruitcake.

The fruitcake I covet is not the doorstop grandma made and you threw in the trunk to be hauled out when you were stuck in a ditch and needed traction. No, siree. Last year’s Ode to Fruitcake we published here on Indie Albany was filled with sun-kissed raisins, walnuts, and delicate jewels of candied fruit.

Tempted yet?

In case you forgot, here’s a little history lesson. Did you know that…

The fruitcake was carried along by Roman soldiers as they conquered the known world. The Crusaders ate it and they weren’t fooling around either. Fruitcake is not for sissies.

And can you forget that…

The joyful peasants of 17th century England made a nut cake and ate it the following year to celebrate the harvest and lo! the custom of soaking the cake in booze for a year was born.

Or how about…

By the 18th century the sinfully rich, decadent, voluptuous, full-bodied fruitcake was banned by culinary prudes throughout Europe, who were freaked out by its saucy come hither sweetness. By the end of that century laws had been passed to restrict its sale.

And because being a royal never goes out of style…

Enter Queen Victoria, long did she reign. And might the secret to her success be partly hidden in the slices of fruitcake she consumed with high tea? In fact, and New York State pols take note:  “Queen Victoria is said to have waited a year to eat fruitcake she received for her birthday because she felt it showed restraint, moderation and good taste.” Hail to the Queen! Perhaps we should encourage fruitcake dispensers in the legislative lobby?

But it wasn’t destined to last. It never does.

Somewhere in the Twentieth Century it all went horribly wrong. First it was a cup too much flour and a cup too little liquid. Then someone forgot they were making cakes and not cinder blocks. Next it was the truckload of mass-produced sticky neon-colored bits of candied fruit. Or were they really bits of old waxed fruit from auntie’s dining table centerpiece?

Either way, the magic was gone.

Now the glories of fruitcake are a memory savored by connoisseurs and those they prey upon. But in case you’re tired of hiding your fruitcakes in the neighbor’s mailbox before sunup, how about a trip out West? It’s the Sixteenth Annual Fruitcake Toss in Manitou Springs, Colorado, scheduled for January 8 and the crowd is expected to top last years. There’s even a $1 fruitcake rental, in case you don’t have your own. You have about a month to get in shape. This year participants can compete in the Kids Toss, the Fruitcake Toss, the Fruitcake Launch using a mechanical device, and, the ultimate: the Pneumatic Guns or Cannon category. There’s even a Spatula Race and a Fruitcake Glamour Competition. Don’t miss out this year.

But in case you must…

Just a reminder about the history making moment in 2006 when Thom Castonguay blew up fruitcakes in something called a “bomb calorimeter”. Strictly in the interest of advancing our scientific knowledge of exploding fruitcakes.

And, in the end…

Perhaps all of this has whetted your sympathies for the maligned fruitcake. In that case, there’s Fruitcake Rescue, where you can give an adoptable fruitcake a home for the holidays.

It just seems like the right thing to do.

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Headlines from The West Burville Gazette, Second Installment

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

What is there about a chilly November day and the thought of venison on the Thanksgiving menu that drives the residents of West Burville to saddle up before daylight…and get themselves in trouble with the law before lunch? And in case you don’t remember: Hooter, Bunchy, old Mel and a few of the other rifle toting Counter Dwellers have, in the first couple of hours of the first day of deer season, dispatched Millie, a prized heifer, and mistaken something for something else. What were the names of those two game wardens?

Hooter was feeling conspicuous. And the game wardens knew it.

“Mornin’, Hooter,” said Ardent Fecteau, the senior game warden, who was standing just far enough away to enjoy watching Hooter wiggle and twitch. “You and your boys have anything you want to share?”

Ardent Fecteau was one of the Fecteau clan who pretty much had the game warden thing sewed up in Piney Woods County. Armed with biceps the size of Easter hams and the “Fecteau Face”, a granite jaw set in a deadpan expression, his enthusiasms leaned toward bagging hunters who misinterpreted the fish and game laws and availed themselves of out-of-season game.

“I don’t believe I heard you,” Ardent repeated.

Hooter was in the pickle barrel now. Sweating little chilly rivulets down his orange collar, and trying to extricate himself from old Mel’s pawing, he had the feeling that saying he and Bunchy and old Mel had encountered a bear and were running for their lives wouldn’t cut it. And what was that yelling behind the treeline that was coming closer?

And what was Millie doing on the tailgate of Ardent’s truck? And why was she staring at him?

“Wow! What happened here?” Hooter gasped in his Sunday best awestruck voice.

“Somebody done shot poor old Millie,” explained Bunchy. Hooter could have kicked him.

Old Mel, seeing Millie, staring off into Eternity, opted to sidle behind Hooter and make an oblique slither for the trees. “You hold up there, Mr. Twitchel,” said the vigilant Ardent Fecteau. “I’d like that explanation now.”

Lacking any knowledge of the science fiction the rest of the Counter Dwellers might have cooked up for the Fecteau boys, Hooter wasted no time on fancy explanations. The Truth Will Out. Without so much as a glance at his colleagues, Hooter applied his most dazzling smile to the occasion. It was a toothpaste sort of smile but without the gums. It was the same one he used on his customers at the auto repair shop when they came in growling homicide.

Averting Millie’s accusing glare, and avoiding any eye contact with his compatriots, Hooter launched into a breathless account of seeing Bert Moran’s prize heifer turning stiff as sheet rock in the field and feeling the need to put the poor beast out of its misery before some of Piney Woods more enthusiastic predators decided to inflict pain and suffering on an already terminal patient.

Out of the corner of his eye Hooter saw the other game warden, Ardent’s cousin, Pernell, peel himself off the side of his green state truck. And what was that dangling from his hand? Handcuffs! Hooter swore Pernell was headed his way. Since when did he get to play the fall guy for this crowd?

With his heart pumping and his armpits working overtime, Hooter noticed the trees were swaying like Hawaiian dancers around one of them campfires. Hooter’s vision was filled with brown, dirt brown, as the ground came up to meet him. Everyone stared. Hooter lay on the ground, as much embarrassed as planning what he would say when Ardent and Pernell hauled him to his feet. Maybe he could say that he was so alarmed at seeing Millie all seized up and at the possibility that she might suffer that taking her Beyond the Pale was too much for him. Sort of a delayed shock reaction.

As the Fecteau boys were hauling him to his feet, and the gang from the diner were busy amongst themselves yelling and arguing about what happened, it dawned on everyone there was a ruckus just up the road. What was that? It sounded like rifle fire, which sent everyone diving for cover behind the state pick up. The Fecteaus, weapons drawn and ready, steeled themselves to confront the peril.

Around the bend came the backfiring pickup, fenders held on with baling twine, driven by the crazy person who had chased them through the woods. It was hard to tell which was scarier: the misfiring, the swearing and fist shaking and blasting of the horn, or the old rifle hanging out of the window. It didn’t take a high school graduate to notice no one was steering.

Down the road it came, a juggernaut careening in a generally forward direction, give or take a ditch or two, and in the back could be seen four brown plaster legs swaying and a huge plaster head heaving this way and that and twirling end over end on its massive antlers.

With a mutual shout of terror and alarm, the little tableau at the tailgate dove for the safety of the pricker bushes. With a curse and a screech the pickup slammed to a halt inches from the front bumper of the Fecteau’s state truck.

Jumping from the cab and waving a rifle that looked like it could bring down a wooly mammoth, the flannel shirted driver fired a few volleys into the air. This incited the two game wardens to draw their weapons and the Double Axle’s patrons to scuttle to the rear.

After several minutes of yelling and gesturing and threats and some more yelling, the story emerged from the deranged driver that two men in hunting clothes had blasted his beloved plaster lawn ornament to smithereens with him standing about ten feet away. As proof he dragged the four stiff legs and the leftovers from the underbelly out of the truck. The head was by now jammed by the horns under the back window and wouldn’t budge.

When the Fecteau boys asked the question, “What are your intentions toward the perpetrators of this offense, if it is an offense?” he emphatically stated he intended to kill them and where the hell were they hiding?

About this time it began to dawn on Hooter that none of the hunting party were in the best of spots, what with Millie being dead and slung over the tailgate of the state truck and now this lunatic threatening to kill them if he figured out it was the little crowd of orange clad hunters whimpering in the underbrush that had dispatched his prized plaster buck. If they stood up, they were goners. If they high tailed it into the woods, they’d only get lost again.

The problems that had multiplied like field mice when the Fecteau clan had arrived on the scene were solved a few minutes later with the arrival of Sheriff Les Good and his boys. Hunkering down in the shrubbery and waiting to be called out, it was a wonder no one heard the groans of despair emanating from the Counter Dwellers. To a man they knew that the sheriff was secure in his reelection and had no real need to be anything but downright nasty. Still, until such time as their expertise was called upon, they squatted and listened as the events of the day were recounted by the two beleaguered game wardens, who were yelling over the swearing driver they were holding at gunpoint.

Turning his mirrored sunglasses and his most shark-like grin on the pricker bushes, Sheriff Les invited Hooter and Bunchy and old Mel, Flock, Lumpy, Lambert, Dayrel, and Ludovico, who swore he was only passing by, to step out.

The questioning proceeded as it always did with exclamations of innocence punctuated with “you don’t expect me to believe that do you?” or “I should throw the book at you.” It was amazing how much you could cram into a conversation before lunch. Sheriff Les decided it would be a good idea to move the party to his office at the county seat in North Pineyville.

After more discussion about cooperation and handcuffs and who was riding with whom, old Mel nearly scuttled the sheriff’s good humor by telling him that “no way in hell” was he going to wear any bracelets or those handcuff things. Never wore jewelry and never would. One of the sheriff’s boys was heard to grumble under his breath that this was going to wind up being more trouble than it was worth.

After a few minutes of musical police cars, the party led by Sheriff Les, with the green state game warden truck bringing up the rear, headed toward the county seat.

Over in North Pineyville, the office staff at the Sheriff’s Department craned their necks at the commotion in orange that came tumbling through the doors. Heads rotated in time to see eight hunters, several deputies, a wild old man with a plaster deer head, and the sheriff slam into the main lobby. As the doors slowed closed two game wardens and a stiff dead heifer, Bert Moran’s late prized Millie, were seen parked just outside the main entryway. In fact, Bert had telephoned ahead to let everyone know he was bringing his thirty-aught-six and planned to do “a little hunting” himself.

Rolling his eyes, Sheriff Les Good echoed Hooter’s sentiments of earlier in the day and mumbled that this was going to be “one doozy of a morning.” After a few more minutes of getting the crowd sorted, it was determined that everyone was probably guilty of something so everyone was charged with something. Words like “unlawful” and “trespassing” and “vandalism” were mentioned.

The sheriff was on the phone for awhile with the state’s attorney trying to figure out where Millie fit into the galaxy of charges pending against Hooter and the other Counter Dwellers. While he was doing this, the boys were lounging in the limited comforts of the county lockup.

Old Mel complained about the hard benches and his lumbago and Bunchy became testy with Lumpy when the latter raised the subject of “just who did kill that cow?” Hooter wished he had had something for breakfast besides the killer feed that was now congealing in his stomach like a boat anchor.

After a time of self-reflection and stupefying boredom all eight were released. They were informed by a nasally personage that they were being released “on their own recognizance”, would probably be going to trial sometime in the winter and maybe they should get a few lawyers between them ‘cause the sheriff wasn’t through with them. Lumpy said he thought it might be a different sort of way to beat Cabin Fever and was rewarded by a swift one in the ribs by Flock. Old Mel said he wasn’t going anywhere until that big word was explained to him proper and it better not mean they were going to try to send him to state prison as they’d never take him alive. Hooter realized this might be a good time to hustle Old Mel and the rest out the front door.

Stepping out into the crisp November air and the sunshine of another first day of deer season, Hooter and the boys allowed as how you just couldn’t tell from one minute to the next and wasn’t it a humdinger of a Big Day.

The next topic was lunch. Someone speculated that Linda Mae and little Vonda Sue were probably serving up the Double Axle’s legendary Meatloaf Supreme with Cowboy Coleslaw and some of the special Pecan Festival Fantasy pie Linda Mae always served with a smile and a little cleavage.

And over at the Double Axle, Linda Mae circulated with the coffee pot and a dazzling smile and agreed with the locals that this was definitely one first day of deer season for the record books.

 The End. See You In Court.

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Headlines from THE WEST BURVILLE GAZETTE

Posted on November 20, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

In the northern hills the first day of deer season is greeted with either expectation or dread, depending on who you are or who you know. In West Burville over at the Double Axle Diner, Hooter Gibson and the regulars have been drafting a few plans…

It was the first day of deer season in the great north woods and Hooter and the Counter Dwellers were feeling anxious. It’s a fact that the casual visitor to West Burville may not realize, or understand, that hunting is a fulltime occupation in Piney Woods County every November. But when the first snow falls in the forest, West Burvillians pack up the beer and baked beans and head to deep camp.

The command center for these expeditions, where chest thumping stories of the Big Buck are traded, is the counter space at the Double Axle Diner smack in the center of downtown West Burville, population 683 give or take. As is customary at local diners in small towns throughout Vermont, there is a contingent of retirees and local tradesmen who occupy the prime space in front of the pie case and coffee pot. These regulars are traditionally referred to as the Counter Dwellers and no one has much heart for sitting in their spots. The Double Axle is no exception. The ring leader of this pack is the owner of West Burville Texaco and Wilson Auto Repair, Hooter Gibson, mechanic and budding local private eye. Occupying the other stools in no particular order are Hooter’s co-conspirators: old Mel Winchel, Lambert Thistle, Bunchy Meacham, Lumpy Jarvis, Dayrel Giroux and Flock Edwards, with the occasional visit from Ludovico Haynes when he can get off the log truck. As it turned out this particular deer season was to be for the books…

It was Friday morning, mid-November, with the first day of deer season approaching and the Double Axle was hopping. Under the watchful eye of Linda Mae, who the Counter Dwellers agreed was every bit as luscious as her signature pie, Pecan Festival Fantasy, the place was abuzz with the latest strategy for taking down the largest buck ever sighted in Piney Woods County. In the past fifteen years no one had even come close to capturing the mythical eighteen pointer and Linda Mae, presiding over the coffee pot and pie rack, was betting the boisterous crowd seated at her counter would break their own record of most beer consumed and least deer shot.

Well before sun up on the first day, the Big Day, the Counter Dwellers and a gaggle of hearties gathered at the Double Axle for another annual ritual, the Hunter’s Breakfast. This usually gets underway before sun up. Bleary eyed, unshaven, dressed in an eye melting assortment of hallucinogenic orange and red plaid, deer season doesn’t begin without the sacramental stoking of a bellyful of All-American breakfast. Knuckling into a plate of ham, eggs, French toast, bacon, apple fritters and baked beans, topped off by coffee and early morning hunting repartee, it’s no wonder that not a few hunters decide to sleep off the morning in the snug cabin of their pick up trucks, a rifle poked out the side window. But the Counter Dwellers were having none of it. Setting the belt notch over one they heaved off their stools.

Folks who have never been hunting, or who have never observed first hand the various superstitious rituals that seasoned hunters practice, might not know that the second most important thing to do on the first day is to plan ahead to lunch. With two grill cooks and little Vonda Sue in for the rush, Linda Mae presided over the filling of thermoses and the cutting of ham sandwiches. She also parceled out a wink and a smile and an encouraging wave as the last pick up careened up the highway with the Counter Dwellers and their dreams of early morning glory.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

As the sluggish grey dawn light crept across the northern sky it became clear to Hooter and Bunchy, who were sharing the over-heated cab of Hooter’s 1994 Jeep Invector, that this was going to be a doozy of a morning. “Maybe we should have had a plan rather than fighting over who was going to bring the cooler,” Hooter speculated. So far just as dawn was becoming a sure thing that damned old fool Mel Winchel, who had forgotten his trifocals, had mistaken Bert Moran’s Jersey heifer, Millie, for a fork horn and now Hooter and Bunchy were stuck with the mortal remains. Lacking a shovel and confronted with 600 pounds of dead, even the resourceful Hooter was at a loss.

While Hooter was speculating on how to hide the carcass Bunchy was waxing philosophical about “how didn’t it beat all how something seemed even heavier when it was dead and why was that?” while Hooter crawled through the underbrush in search of a discarded auto part or rusted farm implement that might facilitate a decent burial for poor Millie. Given Hooter’s relationship with Sheriff Les Good, or the chance of running into one of the jolly-jump-up game wardens that lurked around every tree on the first day of deer season, Hooter was beginning to sweat.

Hooter thought it might be fitting to give Millie a sort of Indian burial with a mound and a few words but all the shriveled leaves in the forest couldn’t cover up 600 pounds of dead bovine accessorized with an ear tag. While Hooter and Bunchy were contemplating the consequences of adding Mel to the pile, things went from bad to worse for the funeral party.

Hearing a rustling on the other side of the tumbled down stone wall they were standing beside, no one moved, breathed or bothered to think. What was worse in an already bad situation was the muttering. And the muttering was low to the ground. Without another thought for Millie, Hooter and Bunchy, dragging old Mel behind them, lit off through the pine trees as fast as their legs and Linda Mae’s apple fritters would carry them. Fetching up in the middle of a dense growth of trees that looked a whole lot like all the other dense growth of trees in Piney Woods County, the three men stopped. With a look around and the same practiced motion, they reached for their compasses, which regrettably weren’t there.

Turning first this ways and then that ways, it was quickly apparent that the old saying about all trees looking alike when you’re lost was true. They were, in fact, hopelessly lost. After allowing themselves a moment of uncontrolled panic and some pretty focused thoughts about hunters finding their skeletal remains in years to come (a moment they would later deny), Hooter and Bunchy became a bit testy with each other.

Both men had a strong opinion about which way was out. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same opinion and neither was prepared to concede to the other. It was old Mel who decided that drawing straws, or twigs, was the only fair way to settle the matter and get to someplace warm. Winning with the shortest twig provided Hooter an opportunity to show off his woodsman skills. The result was parading around in circles for an hour or so. Conceding to the runner-up, Hooter insisted that if Bunchy could do any better he might as well have a go at it and the parade began anew.

After the second round of tree passing and aimless parading was well underway, Bunchy stumbled out of the woods into a small field. Hooter would always insist that it was just luck. At exactly the same moment Bunchy came crashing out of the trees, his boot got tangled under a hidden root. Flailing his arms and trying to save himself he grabbed Hooter by the vest front. Hooter grabbed Bunchy and Bunchy grabbed old Mel and the whole mess of arms and legs came crashing out of the trees onto the ground scaring several small rabbits who were enjoying the spectacle.

Abandoning any pretense of stealth Hooter and Bunchy punched and swore until the ran out of steam for the idea and there wasn’t much left to swear about. At just about the same time they noticed where they were standing. The field they had found was the smoothest haying job either man had ever seen: low, level and clean to the dirt. And way down at the end of this curious field was the biggest buck Hooter and Bunchy and old Mel had ever seen. It was the Big Buck.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. This was, after all, the great grand daddy of them all, the legendary reason every man and woman in West Burville got up on the first day of deer season. After years of lying about how close they had come, here was the chance of a lifetime. It stood there like a statue. It wasn’t looking at them. It didn’t care. It was staring off in the opposite direction, unperturbed by the presence of the three men.

Hooter, Bunchy and old Mel were frozen. The firearms they were still carrying, and which hadn’t discharged despite a couple of near misses in the woods, were forgotten in their hands. Was this Buck Fever? Was this what happened when you went out to kill something and you just couldn’t? Was this what made you a camera toter?

Whatever the feeling it only lasted a minute. It occurred to Hooter that maybe the deer was just deaf. As he slowly bent down to retrieve his rifle, it occurred to him that his feet had gone to sleep from standing in one place on the cold ground too long. It must have been contagious because Bunchy and old Mel couldn’t move either. Faced with the dilemma of shooting from where they stood, which guaranteed failure, and the possibility that attempting to balance and walk on pins and needles might arouse the deer’s suspicions, they silently agreed to get off a couple of rounds from their spot. For some reason, no one thought twice about how the deer never moved, staring off into the same direction as it had when the commotion started. In fact, the deer seemed oblivious to their squeals and lead footed attempts to get the circulation going.

Raising their rifles in the general direction of the massive deer Hooter and Bunchy and old Mel shared a common vision of winning the buck pool over at Wallace’s Feed and Seed and having the catbird seat on the front page of the West Burville Gazette. Together they fired first one round and then another with enough racket to cause temporary hearing loss. Together they watched the bullets impact the magnificent beast. Together they watched the animal explode into a million pieces. All that was left was a dissipating smoke cloud of plaster dust. Lowering their rifles they stared. But not for long. Action was far better than inaction.

Around the tree line came a crazy person wearing high top mud boots and a red bandana shouting and waving a shotgun. Hooter, Bunchy and old Mel turned and pumped their prickly feet across the field while profanity and shotgun blasts chased them across the uneven ground. No one could remember how far they ran but run they did across field and dirt road and through stands of young trees. As they tore across the second open field and made for the underbrush they caromed around a sharp bend and nearly collided with Flock, Lumpy, Lambert, Dayrel and a perplexed Ludovico. The group was in a lively discussion with a couple of game wardens and Millie, although for her part Millie wasn’t too conversant.

Long forgotten was the warmth of Linda Mae’s smile and the kindness of her waving them off to the hunt. Gone was the memory of her excellent Arabica Millennium brew. Long forgotten were the ham sandwiches lovingly packed. And any thought of a believable explanation.

As Hooter and Bunchy turned their frozen smiles on the game wardens, all the while ignoring old Mel yanking on Hooter’s sleeve, they thought they could detect the sounds of angry swearing and shouting closing the distance.

Shrugging his orange shoulders and arranging his face in what he hoped looked like a fair imitation of an innocent grin, Hooter allowed as how this had been a doozy of a morning and it didn’t appear to be over just yet. The two green jacketed game wardens did not return the pleasantries. There appeared to be some explaining that needed to be done. And the sooner the better.

Our story continues…

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A Bag Full of Mystery

Posted on November 1, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

The better part of my life over the past three weeks has been spent looking for jelly beans. Not those gor-may kind. The ones I’m talking about are orange and black. Just orange and just black and they’re mixed together and you squish the bag around to make sure there are enough black ones. You know what I’m talking about: orange and licorice Halloween jelly beans. Last year you could find them in every store you walked into. This year…poof. Gone. Vanished. It’s a mystery.

I remember we used to get little twists of the beans all done up in an orange napkin with some ribbon when we were out trick-or-treating. Over the years I’ve hoarded enough bags to fill the hold of an oil tanker. This year I came up dry.

It would be one thing if one store didn’t have them…but…every store? I’m not buying it. Literally. Something fishy is going on.

It’s a conspiracy.

No one talks about it. No one acknowledges there were ever any Halloween jelly beans in stores. I get blank stares that kind of remind me of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. An empty eye socket kind of stare. It’s odd, weird, unnerving. Like being on some other planet where no one ever heard of Halloween. Orange and black jelly beans and popcorn balls scream, “It’s Halloween!” to me.

This evening I visited store # 15. After going to every g’normus store logic would tell you was likely to have every candy ever dreamed up for Halloween and finding nothing and sneaking a peek at the 50% off candy in some off brand mom-and-pops and discount dollar stores in strip malls, I became convinced my old friends had disappeared off the face of the earth. You know, if they were people the feds would be all over this area.

But wait! The Internet has EVERYTHING! I’ll look there! Apparently the Internet also has a few online stores that will sell me just the orange ones in 5 lb. bags for nearly $20.00 plus another $10 for shipping. And…oh god no…not A-m-a-z-o-n. With prices ranging from $26 to a whopping $65, what just happened here? But wait. The black ones are even more expensive.

So, if I get the math right, I can go into sugar shock for about $60.00, give or take a pound or two. It’s not the sugar that’s putting me into shock.

I’ll tell you what happened. Another Halloween tradition disappeared in favor of the expedient mini candy bars and other junk from conglomerate candy. My orange and black jelly beans will never meet in a Brach’s bag again. Somehow I feel a wee bit sadder for that. And to think, they were only 99 cents. Oh, the Horror.

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To Hell with Tom Wolfe

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

Somewhere between exits 7 and 8 on I-91, snaking up the east side of Vermont, and smitten with the fading autumn landscape, I decided to give my home state another chance.

To get to this point we have to journey back to June 22 a few decades ago…

When you turn eighteen and you’re in that final summer before you’re expected to Do Something With Your Life, you have one of two mindsets about Vermont: either you go or you stay. Most “go” for fear that “stay” might lead to unemployment, a penchant for flannel shirts, sandpaper retreads and searching for love amidst the piney trees.

I went. With a bus ticket and the suitcase my mother thoughtfully gave me for graduation (“Be sure to stop back and visit anytime”), I declared as I boarded the Trailways bus for Boston: “You’ll never catch me in this neck o’ the woods again.”

That lasted two weeks, which coincided with the second week of college when I ran out of money and underwear at the same time. Back on the bus. Fortunately I had a round-trip ticket.

Life has been pretty much a round trip ticket to Vermont ever since. So far I’ve moved back, hopscotching around the state, maybe five times give or take that lost three weeks in some town with a pond.

Back in the 80s it was Charles Kuralt’s fault. Remember him? The nice man from CBS who got paid to travel around and ferret out America’s backwash towns and eat in diners? That devil sold me on Cabot, VT. He did it by staging a Gone With The Wind rip off starring a local ham of a farmer lugging a milk can up a hill against the fiery summer sunset, soft choral music underpinning the whole shebang, maybe to cover the grunting and cursing from all that lugging. I reached for the phone.

Somehow if you listen to a country real estate agent he’ll make a couple of slickers feel guilty for not helping to preserve Vermont’s architectural heritage. House foundations, drinkable water, windows that don’t fall out (or in) when you try to shut them, and racoons gnawing on the steps are optional.

Taking our duty very seriously, as so many before us, we bought the tumble down farmhouse with walls that didn’t quite meet in the formal parlor, ice on the bedroom floors in the winter, and a bridge on a corner over the creek where drunk snowmobilers would hurtle into the icy water a little after midnight every Saturday night every week every winter we were there.

The first year we were there it snowed on the Fourth of July.  Our youngest son turned one on July 12 and his summer party pictures featured a fully stocked woodstove, turtlenecks, a hearty stew, and an amusing picture of me standing amidst my ninety tomato plants with high heels on and a stack of old bed sheets against a killer mid-summer frost. Later I found out no one but Flatlanders bothered with tomatoes because Cabot is Zone One, just like the Arctic Circle.

We moved.

In the 90s we tried it again in a condo on a ski slope in another town even further north with great views, bear stumbling around in the backyard, moose misreading the height of the clothesline, and the next door neighbor wanted by the state police and the FBI for fraud, conspiracy, and other stuff with or without weapons. We never did find out that part.

We moved. Sometime after midnight.

Then there was that junket over by Burlington in the dead of winter where the cute bungalow came equipped with antique window quilts and one giant beast loosely attached to the wall above the sliding door. You might be able to plead and finagle the smaller ones down but the beast was aiming for your head. It would wait for you to tweak the rope then hurtle toward your noggin with a force great enough to cause a concussion if you didn’t jump back in time. We usually left it on the floor. And how could I forget the footprints in the snow in the morning. No, they weren’t deer looking for apples, more like some guy’s size 10s looking for something else.

We moved. Yes, yes, I know.

The last time around I got a job so far south in Vermont the rest of the state calls it The Banana Belt and refuses to acknowledge it isn’t really part of Massachusetts. That time I lived in another condo but this one came with a cellar that acted as the town rain gauge. If the water was up to the second cellar step it was time to evacuate the trailer park down river.

I moved. Again. To New York.

Which brings me to now. How does a place without billboards and packs of angry traffic on steroids grab you? How does having coffee and a cookie and a smile at DMV sound? How about being able to find a parking space? How does half the cost of your auto insurance and house taxes sound?

When you’re young(er) you have the luxury of announcing you’ve been thrown out of better places than Vermont. When you start to feel a touch of winter in your veins, you start to appreciate a life to be lived where you have some say in the pace of your life. Calling ten cars a traffic jam works for me.

Posted in Stories | 2 Comments

I heard Will Shakespeare was a fan

Posted on September 22, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

I’ve been thinking a lot about blogging lately. Mostly because I’ve sucked at posting anything for the last few months. It doesn’t have anything do with the anguish of Writer’s Block. I just stopped. The key wound down in my back. My hiatus was voluntary, prolonged, and left me feeling disjointed and crabby. While I was talking about writing but never getting around to it, I learned something about myself: writing is my doppelgänger. If I’m going to get up in the morning I might as well write something. That’s pretty much it.

If you saw the film, Contagion, you might remember Eliot Gould (yes, I know you thought he was dead) and this line:

“Blogging! Blogging isn’t writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”

I beg to differ.

A trillion words of wordiness have been written about how blogging:

(a) has made the creative process accessible and global,

(b) just might be the Death Star of writing as an art form,

(c) is probably what killed newspapers (not corporate greed and lousy speculative commentary that whores around as journalism), and

(d) is an opportunity for any narcissist with access to a computer to bloviate on the favored topic du jour.

I beg to differ. OK, maybe not entirely.

When I went to Journalism School there was no blogging. Hell, there were no computers either.  If you wanted to get creative you were probably going to be writing Saturday features or be the queen of the recipe column until you either got the pink slip or you died of old age at the Olivetti.

Here’s the point: blogs can transcend corporate greed, family gossip, communal whining, and be a forum for some smashing good writing. I think Indie Albany does that. The smashing good writing part, not the rest of it.

Here’s the best part: Happy Birthday Indie Albany. And many more.

As for Will Shakespeare, the answer to your question is yes.

Posted in Communications, Writing | 6 Comments

I can’t tell you what happened

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

In 1939 three children went missing during the snowy winter months in northeastern Vermont. They were never found. There was much speculation at the time but not much since. If you ask one of the old timers, he might relate this story…

At the edge of the pleasant places to live is a hard-scrabble area the locals will tell you has ‘nine months of winter and three months of damn poor sledding’.  That place is the northeastern part of Vermont. When the tourists descend on the state they generally give the area a wide berth. And the locals like it that way. There’s a feeling among the youngsters who’ve spent a weary childhood looking at glamorous magazines and television shows filmed in places where you get to take off your winter coat, that if you don’t leave by the end of your graduation summer, you’ll be trapped there forever.

And it’s a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business but no one asks too many questions. It wasn’t surprising that no one could ever figure out what happened. Or no one would say.

In the middle of this wild landscape of forests and scattered towns of under a thousand inhabitants is a lake. It has several names, depending on who you ask. Lake Willoughby, Cold Lake, Lake Despair, Glacier Lake. No one knows what the Indians called it but everyone is pretty sure it has an Indian name.

The lake is dark and cold and wrapped in legend, most of it involving Indians and caves in the cliffs and mysterious sounds and lights at night. People go there because it half scares the pants off them and provides them bragging rights if they stay to midnight. Having survived that ordeal they return home and turn on the lights, safe from whatever inhabits the cliff faces on either side of the black water.

Directly behind the lake, a few miles due East, is a village. A typical New England “white” village, so named because no one ever thought to paint a house any color other than white. The name of the village isn’t important. Neither is the name of the lake. But it gives a compass bearing for the rest of this…

The first to disappear was young Evan Tate, a lad of great curiosity, who was the apple of his father’s eye. Evan, at age ten, knew he was destined for great things and had made a personal commitment to studying snow in some forbidding climate far worse than northeastern Vermont. Evan believed, and he might have been right had Fate not intervened, that he was meant to occupy the pages of National Geographic some day.

One of the great truths of life in the North is that you do not linger when the sun begins to go down. The temperature drops and Nature is not hospitable to stragglers. Evan was not a dawdler but dawdle he did on the evening of January 17, 1939, on his way home from a particularly hard day at school. Disembarking from the rickety truck that carried Evan, along with a half-dozen of his school chums, home that winter evening, old Bert Whitlock, the driver, urged him to “run like the dickens” straight home. Home was about 500 yards up the dirt road with no stops. Still, it must have been enough distance for Evan to get himself in trouble.

By 6 o’clock on a winter evening closing down fast, Evan’s father and mother were beginning to worry. Ringing the party line, Bert told him that he had left Evan off at the end of the road at about 4:30.

By 6:10, Evan’s now frantic parents mounted a two person search party to no avail. By 7:15 they had called the constable and the constable had called the Sheriff.

By 8 o’clock the constable and the Sheriff had made a sweep of the roads within a three- mile radius of the house and declared that stumbling around in the snow in the dark was not going to help matters any. Besides, they didn’t have any manpower.

By dawn, it was apparent that Evan was gone, not staying over at anyone’s house, and not face down in a snowbank. He was…just…gone. All that was left of Evan were his boot tracks that ended next to a snowy hillock. Stopped cold.

Despite a week of searching, Evan Tate was never seen or heard from again. The boy who wanted to study snow was seemingly no more. His parents withered after losing their Evan, dying before their time, and never knowing what strange and terrible thing had happened to their son.

By February 22, 1939, there was a ferocious blizzard that swept down out of the St. Lawrence Seaway and obliterated every road sign, landmark, and plowed driveway in a three county area. It was also the day Seth Bingum disappeared.

The loss of one child is inexplicable and harsh. The loss of two is a crime.

Seth was a lad of twelve and well on his way to being the town pill. Disobeying his parents and tempting the fates was all in a day for Seth. Large for his age and rangy, he was considered either jail bait or football potential, depending on who you asked and what day of the week. His mother would tell you he was a good boy and his father would concur, with reservations. But both parents were neither protective nor permissive. It was just in Seth’s nature to push limits.

The day of the storm Seth insisted that he was going to join his buddies, Carl Desilets and Bill Prout, for a few sled runs down Thornton Hill, near the Congo Church a short walk from Seth’s front yard. Seth left at 1:30 in the afternoon, in a break in the wind, and set off with a thermos of hot cocoa and a PBJ sandwich supplied by his mother.

When Seth hadn’t returned by 4:00, and darkness compounded by the storm had locked the town down, his mother called his father at the hardware store to ask him to take the family wagon over to Thornton Hill to drag their son home. And, boy, was he in trouble.

At 4:15, when Morris Bingum pulled up to the hill, it was, as you would expect, deserted and snowed in. Mr. Bingum drove the few blocks to Carl’s house to see if Seth had decided to stay over and forgot to call. Carl was home and what he told Mr. Bingum more than a little disturbed the older man. Seth had never arrived at the hill. Both Carl and Bill figured that the storm was too bad and that Mrs. Bingum wouldn’t let Seth out of the house so they each made a run and went home.

At 4:35, Mr. Bingum used the Desilet’s telephone to call the constable. The constable called the Sheriff. Because the storm was piling snow faster than the horse-drawn plows could handle it, the whole town had closed down until daybreak. The Sheriff was stranded on the other side of the mountain.

Mr. and Mrs. Bingum, and their neighbors, ventured out in the teeth of the second wave of the storm to call for Seth. But he didn’t answer. Come daybreak, the search resumed and the Bingum’s feared the worst. They had good reason. Despite searching door to door, prodding the snowbanks with steel rods and questioning whether any strangers were seen in the vicinity, all that was found of Seth was his sled buried in a deep drift of snow at the edge of the main street.

Much was made of the boys’ disappearance. The Sheriff conducted what the state’s largest newspaper called “an exhaustive investigation.” But it was no use. The old timers exchanged looks the youngsters failed to notice. Mothers hauled their rosy-cheeked sons and daughters into the house refusing to let them play outside. Fathers walked their children to school…and back. Social life in the town disappeared.

It was inevitable, I guess, that someone would rebel against this parental prison. That young man was nine-year old Clive Pitkin. After spending every available minute with his mother and father, he needed to get away. He and Sam Robinson, Derek Bywalter and Bob Orcutt decided to duck out the back door of the school just about the time the fathers were coalescing at the front door. It was 3 o’clock on a dingy afternoon, March 7, 1939. Not a month since Seth Bingum had disappeared. But children have a taste for adventure and curiously short memories.

By 3:05, a giggly, excited group of misbehaving boys, led by Clive Pitkin, exited by the same wooden door the janitor locked from the outside at night. Whether they had a plan was never determined but the joy seemed to be in running and whooping. After a few minutes of this and the realization that a bracing spanking was probably going to be universal when their fathers caught up with them, the other three boys high tailed it back to the school hoping to make up some excuse on the way that didn’t sound too far-fetched. Clive Pitkin decided to linger. And that was his mistake.

By 4 o’clock, a worried Mr. Pitkin was hoarse from calling for Clive. With a growing fear and despair vying for equal time in his gut, he drove up one road and down the other street calling out the windows for Clive.

By 4:30 with darkness setting in, he stopped by Clive’s best friend’s house. Derek Bywalter had managed to construct an adequate alibi to cover himself, at least until Mr. Pitkin arrived. When it was discovered that all the boys, except Clive, had returned to the school, a frantic Mr. Pitkin repeated what the other frantic parents had done: he called the constable who called the Sheriff. It was 4:45.

Again a night search was mounted. Traversing the roadway and field behind the school with flashlights and half the town at their heels, the Sheriff and his deputy, Amos Mars, used long metal poles to poke holes in the snowy fields. Nothing was found. Nothing was seen. Like Evan and Seth, Clive had vanished.

It would seem that three boys going missing in three months in a small town in a remote area would cause the locals who could to move. But no one did. At least not right away. It did, however, turn neighbor against neighbor. Tempers flared. Everyone suspected everyone else but there was no one to accuse. Not really. No trace of anything suspicious was ever found. No strangers were seen lingering by the roadways. It is what it was at the time: a mystery.

But these facts remain: whatever happened involved snow, and darkness, and time. The same times every time. The hours between 3 and 5 p.m. The fact that Evan’s boot tracks and Seth’s sled were found next to the margin where the road meets the deep snowbanks did not escape the notice of some of the old timers who were less bound by fact and more by the myths that grip the lake and the mountains that surround it.

In nearly eighty years no one has unlocked the mystery of the disappearance of three boys from a snow-locked town of 600 people in the inhospitable northeast region of a rugged state. The old timers died one by one taking the local lore with them. But some of it remains, passed down from son to son. And the questions remain. Why is it none of the locals venture to the lake at night? Why do visitors insist there are lights on the cliff sides where there are no roads? And, maybe most important of all, why do the locals keep their children close when the snow falls and the sun goes down on a winter night. Sometime between 3 and 5.


Posted in Crimes, Stories | 3 Comments

The flu makes no friends

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

This past week I’ve been lying in bed sneezing into a hankie and moaning. I’ve been on the mean streets of my second flu-bronchitis-near-death experience this winter. Having a lot of down time, and a high fever, makes for some weird disorganized logic. Was Jesus an alien? Can my dog read my mind? Can you really cough up a lung?

If the words “crazed looking disheveled wreck” creates a vision for you than you know what was staring back at me from a 3 a.m. mirror the other night. It might have been my dead grandmother but I think it was me.

With all this time to entertain fever dreams it seems only natural to cave into worry about the Middle East, the implications for gas prices, the cost of food, the chances of losing a job/getting a job/never being able to retire/ not finding a house without some weird smell/leak/mouse poop/live ammo in the attic/or holes in the floor, or never finishing a knitting project. I’m pretty well beat up.

Driven by a spiking temp, I’ve been asking myself some really important questions. Was the career counselor onto something when I was 18 and she told me my aptitude tests showed I should either be a writer or a shepherd? Or why is it when you meet someone you swear you’ll never forget, you can’t remember their name a month later? And why do you just dislike some people on sight? Or, on the opposite pole, why can’t we all just be friends?

None of it matters. If Thomas Paine was right, its times like these that not only “try men’s (and presumably women’s) souls” but just makes you trying, you know, a capital PIA Pain In the Ass. “Please, can you bring me over some chicken soup/crackers/kleenex/eye drops/nose drops/a netty pot/water/orange juice/ tea bags? Did I mention kleenex? Can you close the blinds? Turn off the light? Turn on the light? No, not that light, the little light. Bring me a book? No not that book, the other book. You forgot my glasses. No, not those glasses, the brown ones. Can I have some water? Can I have some more? Can you get me one of those bells so when I need something I can ring it and… and…”

I think I’m channeling Barbara Stanwyck in “Sorry, Wrong Number”.

I have to go back to sleep now.

The flu makes no friends.

Posted in Health | 1 Comment

Reality v. Realty

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

House hunting is like a blind date gone horribly wrong. You never know what’s waiting on the other side of the door. Maybe it’s just the anticipation. But lately I’m finding the reality of the realty is anything but what was promised. It’s too much like those crappy dating sites that promise violins and romance but deliver some weirdo in bunny slippers with way too much of your personal information.

Take the wide-angle lens. If you show me a shot of the front yard that makes it seem as if it has the setback of the White House and I drive by it because I can’t find the house, maybe it’s because you lied and it’s right there next to the road and you were lying in the road, or squatting on the neighbor’s lawn, when you took your deceitful wide-angle photo.

Do you think I’m going to trust the other photos? Or you?

And what else might be amiss?

Let’s do a couple of case studies: a “charming cottage” (code for “claustrophobic with structural issues”). You tell me it’s occupied but the desiccated dead bugs on the floor and the window sills, and their live cousins beating a retreat under the rug, the weird assortment of little girl’s tutus in a closet with no other clothing, and the empty refrigerator tell a different story. Are they “just away for the weekend” as we’re told? Is it “excellent” as advertised? When you go down into the basement and see the Rube Goldberg wiring festooning pegs and nails and draped over cans on the floor that would make any code enforcement officer salivate… See where I’m going with this?

Or how about the “historic property” described as “very good”. But while you’re there, part of the roof slides off with a crash and water pours down the kitchen wall with the gusto of Angel Falls. And the ceilings are so low from multiple layers of suspended ceiling tiles installed over the millennia that a 5’6” woman can lay her hand flat on one of the panels and release a shower of mouse turds on her head.

Or the “charming” (big word here) country property that’s really behind a gas station (edit out courtesy of Photoshop) and has a frightening water softener “system” that’s peeing crystallized blue gunk all over the cellar floor, mold on every surface you can watch consume the rafters, and live ammunition stored in the crawl space…

Listen, I need to buy something. Somewhere. A tepee  a cabin, a yurt. Someplace remote where my nearest neighbor has four legs and hooves.

But, just as a reality check, I also want my slice of cake and a fork. In short, I want a decently priced house with decent taxes. The neighborhood I reside in bones the locals for upwards of $22,000 in annual property taxes, and it’s a shoot-out on the tarmac to get services beyond police and fire. There is nothing short of the Taj Mahal that would induce me to give away that much money.

I’m convinced my Beatrix Potter bolt hole is somewhere waiting for me. But maybe I need meds. I have a picture of a home somewhere where you wouldn’t find it unless you came looking. Maybe a Victorian cupcake or a classic built in the days before power saws, and nail guns, when time was taken and it shows in the symmetry.

Either way, this is what I’ve found out over the weeks and months of house hunting: when you’re dealing with real estate and real estate agents, fantasy trumps reality.

Posted in Communications | 4 Comments

Troy drops the ball again

Posted on February 1, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

I’ve had it. What’s up with Troy?

I live here, pay exorbitant rent that single-handedly covers property taxes, admire the Fire Department and believe the Troy Police do a terrific job in a hard town…and think the City Council and the Mayor need to go. If not for the political in-fighting (remember the City Hall Takedown debacle and resulting fines?), finger-pointing, questionable ethics (as evidenced by last week’s corruption indictments), and good-old-boy-club deals (anyone else notice there are no women on City Council?) than for this: there is zero mandatory snow emergency policy that I can find. Nothing. Anywhere. Correct me if I’m wrong. But it has to be “m-a-n-d-a-t-o-r-y”.

You got it. It’s “voluntary”, as in the city is under siege from the snow and has a lack of a coordinated emergency snow removal policy that tells drivers where and when to park their vehicles and on which side of the street or face summary towing.

This afternoon, Feb. 1, local media outlets listed Snow Emergencies in Effect. All of the towns/cities have declared snow emergencies and have a policy telling drivers what to do. But guess what? Right the first time. This from Troy:

“City of Troy:

Mayor Harry Tutunjian called a “voluntary snow emergency” today “asking” people to park on the even side of their street on Thursday starting at 8AM and odd side of their street on Friday also starting at 8AM.”

Seriously. Are you kidding? This isn’t an invite to tea. “The pleasure of your company is requested on the other side of the street…” It’s time to make a definite statement in the face of another major storm. And this “please if you feel like it” is business as usual. Track it back for yourself.

This is a city and the streets are a mess with minimal clearance on either side and enormous banks. There’s no safe way for the elderly to get out to medical appointments or to buy food, unsafe conditions for school kids waiting for buses and crossing the street, negative conditions for emergency services trying to reach locations, and a killer for commerce…and its “voluntary”?

And where are these “volunteers” moving their cars? There’s NO ROOM. The streets are choked with snow.

Some of the streets are now so narrow they’re within inches of being impassable on either side. And we’re waiting for the teeth of this latest major storm.

It’s “Lord of the Flies” in Troy, NY.

Inexcusable.

And if there was a mass incident, it would magnify the disaster.

Fires in a crowded city…a relative with a heart attack or stroke…a child who can’t see over or around a massive snow bank without stepping into traffic…an elderly person who falls and is badly injured…or…

Can’t happen here. Keep thinking that way.

Let’s make it harder for everyone.

And where is the City Council in all this? Most of the residents in Troy, in the city, no matter the neighborhood, have no place to park BUT the street. How about some support for your constituents?

Does Troy even have plows? I’ve seen a few around but they can’t do much. Why? Because no one moves their car because there are no consequences. There’s no snow emergency policy like Albany has where you either move your car or it disappears until you find it and pay the fine.

Maybe the citizens of Troy are complacent accepting their lot from the Mayor and the City Council, or maybe they’ve just given up. Troy may go its own way on some other issues but this is a public safety issue. And it’s being mishandled.

High time to develop a coordinated mandatory plan for snow emergencies and snow removal.

What’s that date again for the next city election?


Posted in Government | 3 Comments

The driveway in Winter

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Phyllis Alberici

I know a woman who bought a house when the leaves were green and the birdies were singing. The house is on a hill. A steep hill.

Yes, admire the view. Yes, extol the beauty of seeing the rain cross the valley and dampen the bluebells.

Flash forward.

Yes, admire the view. Yes, extol the beauty of the snow as it gently blankets the valley below, and the neighbors below who live on the flats, and the driveway. No, wait! It’s snowing on my driveway? How did that happen? How the hell am I going to get out of here?

Remember the fun and excitement of finding the perfect house? Who cares if the driveway looks like a black diamond ski trail. All it requires is a little bit of elbow grease to shovel. It will be great family exercise!

It’s summer and winter is months away. What can go wrong on a sunny summer day? Where do I sign the papers?

Someplace between love’s first blush and over two feet of snow and ice is a lot of space for regret.

This is how the story goes: first, you buy the house on the hill then you call everyone you know to come over for a cookout and a general admiration session.

Next comes the brilliant autumn and you take a million pictures to decorate your office and amaze your friends. Lovely! I love this house.

Hold on! There’s more. After the autumn comes the Dastardly Northeast Winter. Now you arrive at the office in a foul mood, without any pictures and with two hours of sleep, because you got up at 3 a.m. to shovel a path down the friggin’ driveway. No, wait! IS that the driveway? I can’t see a damn thing in the dark with all this goddam snow. I think I’m shoveling the lawn. Where’s the car? Somebody get out here and help me. It’s too damn steep for the snowblower. Where’s that snowplow guy? Who the hell talked me into buying this dump? I hate this house.

But it gets better. That was snow. Now that nothing but ice came raining down the other day, the driveway is a, what’s the term?, “sheet of ice.” That was smart, the car got parked up top and the only way down is spinning down…and across the road…and onto the neighbor’s lawn crushing the mailbox and smashing the right front quarter panel of your car. Why not.

Is winter over yet? Can I park at the bottom of the driveway? Great, I have to claw my way up the driveway or break ice on the lawn as I scale the summit to the house. Why, God, why?

And who’s that on the phone? The Town? They’re gonna what!? Tow the car if we don’t get it off the road ’cause the plow can’t turn around! What plow? I never saw a plow.

Tsk. Tsk.

The joys of buying a house in the country on a hill.

Don’t get me wrong: life in the country is terrific. But you get more than you bargain for if you decide to buy on a hill. Where I come from, where the snow gets about 120″ in a good winter, we used to save those properties for the “flatlanders” who wanted a view.

Next to selling out-of-staters old houses with no sills and uninsulated pipes running about a foot off the ground in an unheated cellar, the house on the hill trick was just about the best. It was a tribute to human ingenuity to see how many ways folks could try to make a go of getting home at night with the groceries. There were snowmobiles, sleds, snowshoes, hoofing it, frog marching the kids up the hill with the groceries and dragging stuff behind you as you cursed and swore your way up the mountainside of a driveway.

It’s a scientific fact that the vertical driveway gets steeper in proportion to the amount of snow and ice. Sort of like silly taffy. But not so funny.

None of it was worth it after a few years.

There’s a reason houses on hills stay on the market for a longer time. If you think a few seasons ahead, you eventually get to the problem of winter. And if you don’t have that black diamond driveway sealed, you also get the fun of spring run off and your very own hubcap sucking mud season, an axle buster if there ever was one.

How do I know all of this? My lips are sealed.

Posted in Nature | 2 Comments