Life and Times at Cranberry Lake

This blog is about the life, wild and otherwise, in this immediate area of Northeast Pennsylvania. I hope you can join me and hopefully realize and value that common bond we share with all living things... from the insect, spider, to the birds and the bears... as well as that part of our spirit that wishes to be wild and free.

Sunday, April 26, 2015

The Telescope at the Cottage on Swans Island

That summer vacation on Swans Island, Maine, part of the huge building/cottage we stayed in was once a hardware store.  Inside the store it looked like a mann's typical cellar tool shop, though this was on the level with the land.  Whenever it had shut down, it still had so many tools, nails, screws, as well as shoe polish and just about anything a general hardware store had, whenever we had such a need, we would go there for something to hammer, saw, polish, etc.

In a nook underneath a stairs, I found an old telescope.  It was the most magnificent telescope I ever held, and from its age and size, I usually lay down with my back against something, propped it on my knees, and looked out into Bar Harbor, able to recognize a fisherman's boat from a mile away.

It must have really took my imagination away, as back home when I dreamed of Swans Island, I once dreamt that I could see up and over... like a modern day drone.  It's the only implement I ever handled that to me was magical.  At the end of our vacation, I never was so tempted to take it with me, and actually longed for it after, wondering if anyone would have even missed it, as it was so hidden in the piles of leftover hardware goods in that old shop.





I also added the picture of the sand shark I caught that summer with my brother Jerry's help when we rowed out to a friends lobster boat and fished using the line from a spool bought at a nearby shop for about 15c back then.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

Chapter Three; My Life... The Teen Years

...Still in pigtails:

When I went into seventh grade I was one of two girls in that whole school still in pigtails.  While I liked the transition to Jr. High, I didn't like "being different" and the following summer, before going to Swan's Island in Bar Harbor, Maine, Mom took me to her friend and hairdresser to have my hair cut and given a perm.  At that time, we had the machine curlers... I really don't know much about those old fashioned things.  A little later, Toni came out with Home perms.  I remember trying to give myself one, and it was the most exhausting feat in my life. I thought my arms were going to drop off putting in all those little curlers, and applying the chemicals which just irritated my eyes, and frustrating me further.  All the work, and it didn't take anyway.  So I ended up transitioning from pigtails to a ponytail from 8th grade on with the exception of one trip to Boston with a friend who was going to go to a beauty salon, and I had my hair cut and permed again, only to begin slicking it back when it came to having to figure out how to make those wavy curls that covered my head and looked good until the first shampoo.  People complemented the look while it was fresh, but after, I had to slick it back in kind of a boy's hairstyle in order for me to be content with how it looked.  It was that age whereas looks meant a lot to a 13 year old until... well... even at almost 75, I still like to look good even if home alone. It makes me feel better even if no one else is here.

When in seventh grade, I think I actually LIKED school.  For one thing, we moved from classroom to classroom to study different subjects.  We could select our subjects according to our curriculum.  One year I had Mechanical Drawing, which became my favorite subject, probably because I was attracted to my teacher, Mr. McCall, a very nice guy who was our mailman during the summer.  I had found out then he was a teacher, but hadn't realized he would be mine when I selected my subject.  Another subject I really enjoyed was Physics.  Mechanics was a natural for me.  I could understand the machinery of mechanical advantage, and finally understood why it was easier to use a wheelbarrow, as not only did it have a wheel, but once you lifted the handles, the slant of the load as well as the weight actually was an mechanical advantage to one who was using it to shift something from one place to another.  I should have used these subjects as a guideline as to what my future should hold, but never did.  It now comes in handy in so many ways on our small farm.

When I was at Swans Island that summer of my 13th birthday, I met my first boyfriend, Joseph Smith, who mainly tried to attract me by doing physical tricks like standing on his head or doing cartwheels.  We rented a cottage which had no electricity or telephone.  It was a neat experience to live for a few weeks in such a way... to get an experience of what the "old days" were like.  There was a cistern in the cellar from which we could use a hand pump in the kitchen to draw up water for cooking, doing dishes and washing clothes by hand with a scrub-board, as well as to take baths.  We had huge kettles on a wrought iron wood stove to heat up the water if needed... but for regular drinking water, one of us had to go out daily to a nearby spring for the community to bring back pure drinking water.

One day while there our family took a walk to a sandy beach on the other side of the island, estimated about seven miles away.  It was a nice time, but between the walking and swimming, picnicking on the beach and walking back in the early evening, we were exhausted.  When we got back, Uncle Henry and family had come to visit in his ChrisCraft, a cabin cruiser with a tuna rig on the front.  He took our family for a ride around Swans Island, and us children took turns sitting way out on the rigging, which was a thrill, as you could feel the swell of the waves, and being suspended above the water like that was thrilling to begin with.

Most of our summer vacations, when I was a teen, were spent on Peaks Island.  Even at ten years old we went for the first time to a cottage called Wanakena.  We were to spend many summer vacations there, and later in life, once married, my family stayed there, while Mom and Aunt Daw stayed at a little cottage below called The Three Twins.  I guess island cottages usually had names.  Their cottage had a pump organ, and a fireplace.  We rented there when in my teens one summer and had such fun playing with the organ... probably drove my mother nuts.  The very first time to Peaks Island, we stayed with a relative.  I don't remember much of it, except we went by train, taxi once in Portland, and then one of the Casco Bay Boats.  Then the next time, we went to that cottage Mom rented.  I say Mom, because Dad didn't always go... or maybe only got one weeks vacation and stayed for part of our vacation.  I'm sure she was the go-getter.  I take after my dad, and feel it's too much trouble to pack and go ...well, anywhere now.  But we have our vacation place in our own home now, and I'm very content with that.

The first time we rented Wanakena, when I was ten, we didn't have a car, so we had to take the train.  Mom wasn't going to leave Jeanie, our Scotch Collie, but in order to take her on the train, she had to have a muzzle, and stay in the baggage car.  Mom so loved that dog that she took the uncomfortable seat in the baggage car, probably sitting on a suitcase for the trip, as she wouldn't let Jeanie stay in there alone.  I now can understand, as more than us three younger children, Jerry, me and Peter sitting by ourselves, a dog doesn't understand what's happening, and now, I would do the same.  At the time, I thought Mom was a bit crazy to be in an uncomfortable place for such a long train trip.  I can't even understand where she got the courage and wherewithal to plan, pack, and execute such a trip.  We took a taxi to the waterfront in Portland to go on to the Casco Bay Boat, and an old rattle trap of an Island Taxi once on Peaks.  Aunt Daw must have gone also, as we have many pictures of that visit.  [I'll post them if I can find Tom's camera, as my printer doesn't scan into the iMac... used to be able when on a regular PC.]

When we went back to Peakes Island the summers after we'd vacationed on Swans Island, each time we'd leave Woburn, once on Route 1, and on our way, it seemed to rain, and because of it, it felt like a backdrop closing once scene of my life, and opening the next scene at which became my favorite place in the world, Peakes Island.  It was a place where no one knew of my high school days and insecurities.  I blossomed there, and became a wild Island teen... kind of.  I was very much in guard of my virginity, but it didn't stop the Island boys trying to date me.  My cousin, Peggy Doane, who lived on the other side of the Island, would come over to visit, and comb Jeanie while there, and we had a code my mother made up.  Everytime we left the cottage, before we entered again, we had to recite this poem she wrote, using islands in Casco Bay as well as the Casco Bay Passenger/Ferry boats:
Goose, Goslings, Eagle and Crow
Haddrock, Gooseneck, Horse and Brown Cow;
Genet; Maquoit; Cisco; Mericaneque;
Cushings; Diamond; Peakes; and Chabique.
[That's as close as I can remember... I should look up the Islands and Bay Boats to check the spelling.]

Peggy enjoyed the game as well.  We got on pretty well that first summer.  The next summer, she had entered her teens with a vengance.  To her, I was just a kid.  I saw her often, as her family and mine would have weenie roasts out on back shore.  We had red hotdogs.  Nothing ever tasted as good, though the red dye or however they made them was probably objectionable to later health standards.  But they bring back great memories.  Aunt Eleanor, Peggy's mother, would usually make a blueberry cake for our dessert.  Even back then, Mom was environmentally attuned, and objected to one of Eleanor's ways.  She merrily said once dinner was through that she loved picnics by the sea, as she didn't need to clean up,and would toss all the paper goods and wraps into the sea.  Actually it was all biodegradable even by todays standards, as we didn't use plastic ware back then.  I love Eleanor.  She was much younger than my Mom... she'd married my uncle when she was in her teens.  She was pretty and wore glasses so well that I hoped I would wear glasses some day and look somewhat like her.  And her laugh made me think that's what "lilting laughter" was from the song "Peg of my Heart".

I had boyfriends at home in Woburn.  It wasn't like I wasn't popular there, but I felt I was only popular with really shy boys who didn't dare ask those girls that all the boys were after.  I had a hard time turning down anyone who would ask me out on a date.  Someone willing to spend money to take me to a movie, or go to a play.  I just couldn't hurt anyone's feelings.  My mother, at times, hurt their feelings for me, when she saw something she didn't like in a boyfriend.  Danny Rebel was okay in her eyes.  He took care of some rich person's stabled horses, would bring one over for me to ride.  I always thought riding a horse would be like my dreams... just sailing along on horseback without a saddle, holding on to the horse's mane.  In reality, they seemed too far off the ground, and because Danny was holding the reins as he led me slowly along, and it not having a saddle for me to hold on  the the saddle horn, I had to hold on to the mane or lean forward holding on to it's neck as much as I could reach on each side, and still felt like I was going to fall off the horse.  He finally caught on that I had been more interested in the horses he took care of than I was in him.  As for the procession of boyfriends in my life, that will take another chapter.
 

Friday, April 03, 2015

Chapter Two of My Life and Welcome into It

How do we learn? What comes naturally and what has to be taught?  Does affection have to be taught? All I knew as a very young child was whatever my 13 month older brother Jerry taught me.  He helped me to stand up in my crib, then when able, how to spring out of that cage by climbing over the bars.  He made me learn early as he wanted a buddy... another child with whom to play, and many games were of his own invention.  It seemed as if we couldn't go a day without being spanked, or at least being shut in our room.  It was a big old room with a window that was above the dining room bow window, which had a little roof.  As soon as we were old enough to lift the window upstairs, we found we could sneak out and sit on the steep little roof.  Once caught, we dared not do that again.  But Jerry had a game of feet off the floor.  We had to circle the whole room without letting our feet touch the floor.  It was bed to window sill to bureau to closet where we'd hold on to the frame above the doors, stretching as much as we could for the bed against the wall, then up to the tall bureau near the door.  When we got that far, we peered through to the hook that locked our room, and Jerry realized we could lift it off the hook with a piece of cardboard slipped through the door.  But... once we unlocked it... how does one lock it again before Mummy finds out we knew how to get out?  I really don't remember that scenario. We probably played ignorant like something else did it.  We had a blamer: the Pink Monkeys.  Don't know how Mom let us get away with that, but maybe it was wise, as we never did unlock and sneak out of the room.  I guess knowing how was good, should there ever be a reason, like the house afire... which, fortunately never happened... until sometime after last time I went back to the next town over where my younger brother Peter now lives with his wife Marie. That was 2011 when I finally got together with my high school friends on just a weekend visit.

I'd just visited Peter before, not looking up friends when my Aunt Daw died, and then in later years when Mom died in her 93rd year.  He took me to my old house while it was still there, and I immediately wished he hadn't.  I found that it whitewashed over the way I remembered it.  Things had really changed.  The little evergreens Mom planted out front were as tall as the house.  The porch where Mom read us The Swiss Family Robinson, and Hedi, was glassed in, and there was no longer a sleeping porch over that used to be porch roof.  I had spent most of my summers sleeping out there.  There were 6 or seven windows around, and screened in so I could keep the windows open and listen the the frogs, croaking from the brook and feel the breeze if there was one cooling off the room after a hot summer's day.  All gone... making me feel like ...well... like I could never go back.

Now, living as I do in rural Pennsylvania, I feel like I've captured that ideal relationship with nature that I learned through Jerry and my experiences of roaming around the paths and following the brook, climbing hills and trees to see how far we could see when a child back in North Woburn.  Maybe we cannot go back, but we can find that lost freedom in retirement.  Tom, who never did have that freedom of responsibility as a child being one of ten on a farm, has learned through me how to let his child out to play.  We both enjoy life to our fullest, and find just staying here all the vacation we need... though he would like to visit Alaska again.  (I think he may have led a previous life as a frontier, tackling and taming the wilderness.) But this is the next best thing: Living on our 10.2 acres of land and his raising beef while I raise the birds: pheasants; turkeys; chickens; bobwhite ...at different times.