Down Memory Lane, and A Bear Story

Today has been one of those dreary ones when I really didn't accomplish much. My good intentions to take a walk didn't materialize. The road looked fine early this morning, but then seemed wet and probably slippery with mud by the time I was ready to go out, so I decided to get my exercise by vacuuming. That didn't work out at all. There is something wrong with the darned stick vacuum I bought about a year ago. Or maybe it's the operator. I'm never sure when it comes to modern gadgets. I still have my ancient Electrolux that works fine since Jamie replaced the power cord; but by the time I had taken the stick thing apart, examined the filters and figured out it wasn't going to cooperate, I'd lost interest in cleaning. I gave the floors a quick brush-up with my trusty broom, swept away crumbs on the carpet near my chair with my little manual carpet sweeper, and called it a day. I'll just pull out the Electrolux next time I get the urge to clean. 

This afternoon our weather turned cooler and wetter. The rain came around 3:30 and the temperature dropped to about freezing, so now the trees and bushes have a thin coating of ice. Forecasters predicted this and said the roads were not likely to be affected because the earth has warmed and pavement probably wouldn't ice over. I hope that is the case. Right now, the thermometer on my deck shows 32F, but my weather station, with a sensor on the shaded driveway-side of the house, shows 34F. The trees out on my back lawn are sheathed in white ice drops. It's a good night to stay inside.

A friend recently asked me what Cabot Plain was like when I was growing up, and that brought back so many memories. I told my friend that it was a thriving farm community, and, like most towns, Cabot had clusters of these "communities" where there were farm families with lots of children and a school. The school building served as a community center. Problems were solved there, neighbors gathered for school activities or sometimes kitchen-junket type parties and dances. 

There were beautiful, productive farms on the Plain. The Stones, Desmarais, Maynard, Barnett and Harringtons come to mind. Beyond our farm there was the Jack Foster place, where the barn burned one summer after being struck by lightning. The Shatney farm on what is now Dubray Road also burned, and later Harrington's beyond Helfand's on Deeper Ruts Road. The Desmarais farm was next to the school - the old Cate farm. It had a big barn and beautiful stone house, and before the Desmarais family moved there, it belonged to Ed Badger. I'm not sure who owned it after Desmarais, but in July 1953, on the eve of my first wedding, some local culprits set fire to it and it burned to the ground. I was awakened in the middle of the night by the light of the huge fire reflecting into my room.

Gradually, my generation grew up and all of the kids I knew married and moved away, just as I did. A few farms struggled to keep going - ours, the Maynards, Howard and Frieda Stone; but eventually they were all gone, too, and the fields have gone fallow, the pastures are overgrown, fences are down and buildings are decaying. Over the years, new houses have been built here and there, but nobody farms. Some pasture land is rented for young cattle or beef critters by a farmers in other parts of town, and some of the fields are still hayed, our farm that was once nearly 1000 acres was sold off in pieces until all that is left are the buildings on less than 30 acres. It was a dairy operation for a few years, but after the owner died, it has been home to horses, goats, and beef cattle; I know of no dairy farm left in production on the plain. 

This used to make me very sad and I resisted going over the Plain. I didn't like seeing everythng changed so radically, but now when I go that way I enjoy the beauty of the land, the hills, the views and my memories, knowing that there are new families hopefully loving where they live, just as I did so many years ago.

I was noticing last week when I went over the Plain to get to a meeting at the Cabot library, the hill beyond the house where we lived when I was growing up doesn't look nearly as high as I remembered. It seemed a long hike to the top with a toboggan in tow when I was six or seven years old. I'm sure the hill hasn't changed, but I certainly remember it as being higher. I suppose that's the way with lots of things. Childhood memories are apt to be a bit different from reality, but I think prefer my memories to whatever the reality was.

I heard from my ice-fishing friend today that the ice depth on the pond is about the same as it has been, 23 inches; but he said the ice is all the "soft" variety now. There were layers of very hard ice the last time he reported, but now it's all "pretty soft" when he drills through. He also told me he found bear tracks in the snow on the pond. He said it was evidently a sow and a cub, and that the tracks led to the west shore, as near as he could tell going ashore about at Layton's. He is an experienced bear hunter, and we had a short discussion of how powerful and dangerous those creatures are. He told me he never goes bear hunting unless he has someone with him who can't run as fast as he can . . . !