Staring Down the Barrel of Another Winter

September happened.  I am another year older, a spring and summer have passed, the brilliant bright green leaves that were so new on the trees only seemingly seconds ago have hardened to a callous veteran status and with one free fall of the mercury, will yeild to color too spectacular to imitate. What do I have to show? Not as much as I would like. Back in May on a rainy Saturday, Donna, the boys and I crossed the Pemigawasett River in the White Mountains. The feeling was amazing. It felt like we were really doing this. This was only the beginning and here we were now, off to a good start.

Mt. Flume and Liberty was just too much for us and we could have had a better hike had we done better research. I. We  turned around when we realized that we would be walking for hours after dark, on steep slippery ridges in wind driven rain. We told the boys it was “Cheeseburger time” a famous saying of our YouTube friend Shawn a.k.a. Sintax77 when he finishes a hike. We told them that the first good (by which we mean not Mc Donald’s) burger place we find we are eating at. It was fun, but sad too. We so wanted to sleep in those hammocks that we almost hiked all the way up Flume with.   When we were back down on the trail alongside the river, we noticed a couple of hikers walking around gathering firewood. What this means is, out of sight the required amount away from the trail, there were people camping in the woods just like we wanted to. But, when you raced down a mountain in anticipation of a big hearty cheeseburger that no longer seems like an option. So we went and had our burgers. 

 It was memorial day weekend. Anyone who is been in the White Mountains knows that on holiday weekends nothing is cheap, nothing is available. We called a couple of hotels but they had jacked up their rates four hundred percent of course which made no sense. So late, late at night, we drove all the way back home. On the way home, extremely hard rains pressure washed us.  When we arrived home we put on the television, YouTube, and watched other people successfully do the hike that we just trying to do. It was clear to us, had we continued, we would’ve been in a world of trouble. 

The Long Trail

We still pressed on.  So we decided to try the Long Trail.  If you don’t know what the long trail is, it is a trail that was established around the beginning of the 20th century. It is the trail that inspired the Appalachian Trail. It runs 272 miles from the Massachusetts state line and ends at the Canadian border. 

 The hike we planned seem pretty simple. We would start from the trail head on route 103 in Wallingford. We would hike out past the Minerva Hinchey shelter, summit Bear Mountain, cross route 140 and end for the day at the Greenwall Shelter. This was about 9 miles of hiking with two significant climbs (for us anyway).

One of our biggest failures as a family is not being prepared for these hikes.  As a result of this we ended up leaving the house way too late that day. We knew for sure we would not get as far as we originally intended. However, it was a beautiful 74° day. We made it to Minerva Hinchey As the sun was setting. We got to talk with some through hikers, some flip-flop hikers, long trail hikers. Just as we arrived 15 other people were arriving at the same time. We decided that it was pretty urgent now that we find places to hang our hammocks.

Liam Ended up using a privy that was in the woods all by itself. And at 2:15 in the morning an animal was scraping and clawing up that privy trying to get whatever smelled in there.  It sounded huge to us, but likely was porcupines trying to get it. We will not know because we did not wish to shine a light down there just in case it was actually a bear because we did hear some noises of beers too. In fact, the nighttime noises were so intense it was like Mutual of Omaha‘s Wild Kingdom out there.

Here Comes Green River

My wonderful niece Melissa goes through a great deal of work and problem solving each year to give our family a truly unique outing. There are not many families that will ever experience something like this. So we got ready.  Opportunity always seems to knock in the form of investment, by which I mean 50% money and 725% ingenuity and hard work. This year it was in the form of a rowboat that was for sale for $100 on Maple Avenue in Claremont. The rowboat fit easily in the back of the truck could carry lots of cargo and people and would be a great thing to have at Green River. Besides how hard could it be to fix a rowboat?

We got to work. Patching and sealing and taking apart and scraping and painting. I also decided at the same time it was time to resurrect the old truck cap  that we had, so we started scraping and painting and sealing that as well. Then I realized that the oars that came with the boat we’re not what I would consider to be worthy and started to try to find those too. What I did not realize it was as I was working hard on this boat my YouTube friends the Crawford family were hiking up through Vermont in the hottest summer in a while and on Fourth of July a Wednesday that I had off, they were over in Clarendon gorge dipping into the cool freshwater. They crossed Route 103 and hiked up the next mountain and spent the night with Peewee another friend of ours and had nothing to eat except Ramen noodles that night. 

 Since these hikers had started last winter down in Georgia it was always my intention to meet with them when they got into the Clarendon area to feed them and to congratulate them on such a wonderful job well done. And I missed it. 

Green River started out rough. There was three hours of actual rowboat paddling which left my hands full of blisters, a trip to the emergency room in Morrisville with Noah who got a fish hook stuck in his hand and he wasn’t even fishing. Missing out on a great first meal and of course having to set up our hammocks  in the dark.  Thankfully, the rest of the weekend was wonderful. 

We're on the Road to Nowhere....Haa!

My friends, family and co-workers alike have asked me for years when I would or if I would open a restaurant.  I have had very good advice from people close to me who owned restaurants.  The bottom line is, you become a restaurant owner because you love to cook.  You love the ideas, creativity, the execution and finally the reward of diners pleased with what they paid for.  I got that.  I can do that.  Much better than many. I mean no arrogance here, I just know.  But the issue is, a restaurant is a business, it has employees and it needs them to make it work.  Human Resource attention is needed, an accountant is needed.  No fledgling restaurant owner can just hire people to do those things, they must do it themselves.  So while you are handling those administrative "departments" someone else is doing the cooking that YOU thought you would be doing.  Do they share your dream and vision for what should be on each plate.  I really know in my case, absolutely not.  So you get it, restaurants are not in the plan.

Food trucks are a much better way to go, but do require an up front investment.  So after going back and forth with some folks at the City of Claremont NH, I became a vendor one Saturday in July, cooking and selling Southwest Egg Rolls.

The reception from customers was excellent, and if I had a Saturday morning to give each week, I could see the real opportunity of real momentum that could lead to a food truck.  Claremont is tough, their farmers market is still in the stone age.  Nothing wrong with that, they all had to start somewhere.  But in September I went to Londonderry Vermont, THATS a farmers market!!!

Goodbye, Farewell, Amen

In July the time had come to say goodbye to my cousin Tom. The previous March, Tom died at his home in Nebraska from the flu. He was only 56. A service had been held in Nebraska back in March, but for those of us on the east coast, a celebration of life was held in Danbury CT.  There was no way that I could not speak in honor of Tom.

Tom was 4 years older than me, yet he always gave me a chance before anyone else ever would. He was like my brother. We became friends in the late 70s and by the early 80s we had become best of friends. So many deep conversations were had and they always came so easy. Tom taught me how to play guitar. Tom’s life had dealt him some tough circumstances as the years progressed, certainly none that he deserved. You always think you have more time, but then in just one moment....time’s up. He was in Connecticut in 2016.  At that time of course, there was much happening in my life to find a moment to get down there.  I am sad that it meant that not finding the time, meant that I would not have one more visit with him.  He was really a great guy, good person and a true friend.

Back to the White Mountains...well for the day

"Was there a family of 8 here that are hiking the Appalation Trail, kids ages 2-17?"  I could not help but ask one of the attendants at the White Mountain Information Center.  "Yeah, there was, a couple weeks ago I think.  They took a picture over by that moose." (Stuffed moose).  Yup, missed them again, but I knew that.  Ben Crawford, the dad in that family had messaged me and told me they were in Maine and we probably had missed an opportunity to meet, but he thanked me for sharing my "story of change" and for the support.

We wanted a hike.  We asked a woman at the counter what would be a good hike that would take just an afternoon but allow us a nice summit with nice views of the Whites.  She suggested Hedgehog Mountain, which is just up beyond Hancock campsite, on the Kancamangus Highway.

It was a wonderful hike but it did take more time than the woman said, we came out right at dark. There is a youtube video of this hike posted in this blog.

First Vacation in Two Years

Moose Hillock?  It is a campground in the White Mountains.  It is resort like, has all the amenities, yet sites that are not on top of each other. This is still not the type of camping that we do, but I was plotting in my mind that, we would get the kids to go to a campground that has all the attractions, and we can hike the Whites.  This campground would be more than I have ever paid for a campsite, but hey, if you are the best.  No regrets, right?  Well, then there are these pesky little things called "reviews".  The more I read, the worse it got.  It seems that Moose Hillock was in a tailspin, and we were not going to be spending $72 a night for such a regrettable experience.  So Saturday of vacation, I am directionless. The next thing I know we forgot the camper and we booked an AirBnb in Sevierville, Tennessee.  Oh boy!  The AT in the Great Smokey Mountains.  Yes it would be rural, and the kids might be disappointed that there is nothing to do there but hike.  

Pidgeon Forge and Gatlinburg Tennessee turned out to be as Ben Crawford says, a cross between 1980s Las Vegas and something else. So the kids were not interested in hiking.  A YouTube friend was very helpful in suggesting things to do. We did get to cruise Cade's Cove and go to Clingmans Dome. An expensive vacation complete with 2 stays in the same Ramada Inn at Strasburg, VA, that could be a great set for a post apocalyptic movie.

Inevitably....Autumn Arrives

September arrives, three seconds after the end of May.  Another summer season over. We had a weekend booked at winhall Brook in South Londonderry Vermont. I love this place and I also love the farmers market in Londonderry Vermont that has such wonderful Vermont charm oh, there is no other place like it. Well there we met some mushroom growers. From them we bought some maitake mushrooms and some lion's mane mushrooms. These were amazing and we made crab cakes out of the lion's mane.

On Friday I had the opportunity to hike the Appalachian Trail from Route 11 to the Bromley Summit it was a beautiful day for a hike.

The Universal Antagonist

There is an underrated 1967 movie called “The President's Analyst”. It tells the story of a president's analyst who cannot talk with anyone about what he knows. This creates more anxiety than he can deal with. It leads to catastrophic paranoia. In the meantime, various government agencies are trying to kill him. The phone company (a unit with the same power as Facebook, Google, and other large personal data-collecting monsters) wants to use what it knows to further its power. He ends up being protected by a suburban “Liberal” family that has more guns than the “right wing wackos” they are protecting themselves from. With many crazy mind-bending plot twists that were common in the movies of the late 60’s, the kind that Austin Powers liked to spoof, in the end, the main character realizes that “it’s the phone company” behind all of the evil in their lives, behind all the evil in the world.

Hollywood was serious about their message in an insane package. This movie was destined for greatness, but gathered the attention of J. Edgar Hoover and somehow disappeared from the box office.

 I have recently located my universal antagonist. Before I say what that is, I will mention that in the past, I have identified a direct connection between how cluttered my garage was and my ability to carry out large and important projects with my vehicles, in my yard, or inside my house. It has been the vapor lock on my ambition and self-esteem. I know this sounds silly, but there really is a demoralizing effect about it.

This week, while Donna was on a family trip, I set up certain rules of my own design for my sons to follow. The most renegade, maverick, and provocative idea was to empty the dishwasher when the dishes are dry. Because the unit is empty, we can put dirty dishes in it now that we are done with them.

I know I sound ridiculous, but I have a right to be elated. We have developed a bad habit from when our kids were babies. When the dishwasher was done, we left the clean dishes in it while we added dirty dishes to the sink, in various stages of rinsing and non-rinsing.  So when I am in Market Basket, there is still a glimmer within my soul to be creative and make something for dinner that makes you feel thankful to be alive to experience tastes.

The reality is, you get home and have to carry in the things you bought (5 minutes), put everything away (15 minutes), empty the dishwasher (12 minutes), rinse, sand, and chisel the crap off the dishes in the sink and load into the dishwasher (18 minutes), then wash anything that might not have fit into the dishwasher. It is this soul-sucking series of events that reduces me to the creative excellence of producing a bowl of Lucky Charms. It’s degrading!

This week, employing all the soft, sweet, loving direction of Hitler, I convinced my sons to NEVER PUT ANYTHING INTO THE SINK when they are done with it. It was difficult, but with my fine resolve to be annoyingly persistent, they did well. The most outstanding side effect was that my ambition to cook was not stolen from me.  We made Korean-topped burgers, hand-cut fries cooked in cast iron, chicken-broccoli casserole, Asian dumplings, and spinach-artichoke dip. Not only did I put everything in the dishwasher after use, but I think I actually looked forward to running and unloading it, making everything new again.

I know that the days ahead will be difficult, but the payoff is immense.

You try to appear to fit in but not too much, because then you don’t.

It is funny how airports can bring the humanity of humanity to the surface, but also pretend that it is not really there. There is a feeling of aloneness while being immersed in a sea of other people. I feel other people’s emotions without even trying, so this is a very serious thing I experience. It can be hard to sort out, but just like everything else I remember that each of them has their own brand of trivial stress. The trivialness is temporary because when sitting in an airport waiting for a flight, certain daily concerns peel away like an onion skin. This is because mortality gets sprinkled onto our essence like a deep savory spice. It’s just enough to make you appreciate you daily life.

I can’t tell you how many times I have looked around at the people at my departure gate and thought, “if this were the series LOST, what roles would each of us take should we end up on that island." Searching faces, I perceive where they fit into the story. This is what happens when you accidentally add too much seasoning, and I am ALL about this.

Yeah, the lines intersect all over the place for me. I passed up a wonderful breakfast buffet at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel for an airport breakfast. At the airport bar an almost 60 year old woman pounding down margaritas talking with the younger woman, and then later 2 men. Even though she says that she is on an upside down schedule today, hence the drinking, I can feel that this is only said for her to fool herself about fooling us. The breakfast consisted of 1/3 random yellow rubbery strips containing no actual food product, but having a hint of genuine fake egg taste.

That was Nashville. This is Baltimore. This airport has many times been a connector in my travels. I thoroughly got myself over the idea that I was going to get anything beyond a mediocre famous Maryland crab cake in this airport. Tried the Silver Diner's crab cake sliders last Sunday. They fell very short of how I remember them. 

 If you want to know who has the best food according to airport patrons, it is the one with the line that is far too long for my “used to Vermont/New Hampshire butt to be standing in.... by which I mean ChickFilet.

I walked all of BWI and in the end, reluctantly and silently kicking and screaming in my head, ordered from the Asian food counter..........that had no line. (No Actual Line, No Actual Food). 3 cream cheese wontons that surprisingly did not have cream cheese in them despite the words being in the name. 1 atrocious chicken egg roll that has me fearing for my life.

But the reason for this post is that woman. Somehow she is the impossible girl of air travel. I’ve seen her on many flights over the years. She has dirty blonde short straight hair. Maybe 102 pounds. She has a tan face and is definitely in her 50s although she could pass for mid 40s. She acts like she flies all the time. She pays no attention to anyone and at times you may think that she is talking to you or someone else, only to realize she is talking on the phone. Even if everyone were to vanish from the planet Twilight Zone style, she probably would not notice.

Who is she? It’s like this. When I was truck driving I would use the CB radio to navigate the challenges that awaited me out there on the highways. There was ALWAYS this voice, a booming mans voice with a strong and bold southern accent. I swear, no matter where it was, it was always the SAME GUY! Chicago, Connecticut, Texas, Pittsburgh. It did not matter, it was him and he was everywhere. She was like that, everywhere!

Somehow the perpetual air traveler woman has managed to smuggle an entire meal onto the plane and is eating it while she still talks on the phone into her headset. She does not care if her brazen attitude annoys or offends you, she owns everything here.

Until next time, impossible air traveler girl.

About Memory Pegs: The Dukes

It started out on a winter night in January of 1979. The preview just before the show, the Dukes of Hazzard looked very gritty and dark.  I was at my Grandma's house on that night and there was sort of an air of, "should this be on?" Black and White TV and all.

It did not take long for this show to be the family fun Friday night, sort of a Brady Bunch caliber of a deep South show with complications. The antagonist, Boss Hogg, was just as persistent as any villan in the old 1966 Batman series. Mad Magazine aptly pointed out that the plot lines consisted of Boss and Roscoe planting moonshine in the General Lee for episodes 3,5,7,9,12,15,18,21,23 of any given season.

 First peg: That statement from Mad has defaulted my mind lifelong to the expected length of a television season, by which I mean, 23 episodes,  period. I also have to say there is an image in my head from that same magazine in which the Duke boys go to California. Even funnier they are united with Ponch and Jon from Chips (the motorcycle cop show on primetime back in those days) and while in a major California highway traffic jam the Duke boys show Ponch and John how to get through traffic by using dynamite armed arrows to blow cars out of the way so that they could get through.

Somewhere between 256 and 321 "General Lee" cars were created and mostly destroyed during the series. Less than 20 in various states of disrepair still exist, according to IMDB. I remember reading a story in a magazine back around 1982 in which they got so desperate for Dodge Chargers that they started putting notes on people's windshields at shopping centers offering to buy them from the owners.

The Dukes of Hazzard was a fun ride through the teenage years. When we were fourteen years old riding our bikes and making jumps it was customary to yell yeehaa!!!!  as we flew through the air with our bikes. Because of this I can still recall in the summer of 1979, the poor little girl next door named Brenda would get spanked by her mom because she would not stop yelling yeehaa! Being the age that we were we thought this was pretty funny.

My friend Nick and I used to sort of poke fun at how television pop culture had sort of infiltrated our own personal history. But as we move forward into time, it  has become even crazier where social media has trivialized or shall I say glorified trivialization. So music and television is woven into who we are when we make references. Our goal is to not be so cliche because everything is cliche now.

I've come to realize that experiences like the Dukes of Hazzard is nothing more than impact on us from a temporary family situation built to generate money.  Somehow this  ended up becoming endeared to us. For the actors as well whom had built relationships among those people that will never go away. Whether it is the Dukes or my recent reading about one of my all-time favorite shows, Northern Exposure, the people that were involved saw it during those days as a job. And now for all of them it represents one of the most amazing experiences ever. A privilege. The best days of their lives.

What the heck am I talking about this for? Because, yes it may be a way for someone to sell paraphernalia in this case Ben Jones, AKA Cooter Davenport. But the fact that after eating dinner last night, I walked two doors down and so enjoyed looking at the General Lee and all of the other vehicles and pieces and souvenirs and pictures that were in this  museum, it became  more evivident that this was much larger than I had expected it to be. My visit was really about paying respect to an amazing moment in time and how it impacted the people that actually worked in it. But I also paid tribute to the effect it had on each and every one of us. The Dukes of Hazzard was going to be a quick and temporary fill in show for 9 weeks. "A three hour tour" if you will.

I have an associative memory, which means different things (acting as memory pegs) cause me to remember other things and in many cases they are not even related to each other. So there are many things but the show represents that take me back to moments when I was 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and so forth. And if something can do that, if you can be brought back for just a moment for just one memory, you might remember something else you have not thought of since then.

 The human mind is wonderful and allowing yourself an indulgence like this can open up doors to memories that seemed to be gone like lost photographs that you wish you could see one more time.  But, are you ready? This is where it gets interesting. It's different for each of us! I actually learned today from a very amazing woman named Poppy Crum that this is a very big thing!  We all have very different experiences coming from the same information. Not only cultural differences but the fundamentals are shaping who we are and how we interpret our environment.  We are constantly changing. We experience things differently from one person to the next. What does this little memory gem bring back for you?

This post got a bit deeper than I expected. Fascinating.

Bromley Mountain AT/LT September Hike

November Mt Ascutney Walk

December Mt Ascutney Walk

Char Siu Recipe Testing

I love Char Siu!  That delicious boneless roast pork that you get in the finer Chinese restaurants. The cheap takeout restaurants try to make their own version which is known as boneless spareribs, but the real deal is mouthwatering life experience. You can make this at home. There are recipes on the Internet and on YouTube that will show you how to make the most wonderful  Char Siu ever.

 For the past couple of years I have been making a recipe that is posted on YouTube by Ci Ci Li.  It is a simple easy to make recipe and the young lady in the video explains how to do it very well. I have brought the results of this recipe to work a couple of times and people have just crazed how wonderful it is.

I decided to try another recipe this week by Mike from Strictly Dumpling. His YouTube channel does a wonderful job of selling the excitement that a meal can give you he is very animated and he makes you want to make what he is making, which is a very nice talent.

The recipe can be found at: https://youtu.be/VH0X7cDJIqw

This was a hit in my house, many thanks to Mike!

Tennessee Vacation

Breakfast Banchan Stir fried Potatoes

On Mount Ascutney

First Overnight on Vermont's Long Trail

Hedgehog Mountain Hike July 29, 2018

Stuff I Cook...Flank Steak Pinwheels

so I was trying to decide what to cook.  In the fridge I hade a flank steak I 5awed a few days ago. Naturally I was thinking Asian. I wanted to see what others might marinade bier flank steak in. One person was boasting a genuine Carne Asada. While it literally means “grilled meat” it is a  a Mexican and Central American dish of grilled and sliced beef, usually arrachera, sirloin steak, tenderloin steak or rib steak, that is charred enough so as to bring the char into the flavor.

But I then stumbled upon a quick YouTube video of Katie Brown the craft girl on public tv.She was making flank steak pinwheels. I decided to try them. She was using basil but I wasn’t listening and bought baby spinach.

Saturday night kind of mess....

J