…but today, I reported to my classroom for the first time since March 12, 2020. It’s almost time to close up shop for the summer.

As I approached the doorway, I couldn’t help but notice the “Pandemic Cleaning Checklist” that hung on the door. I pulled my mask down so I could anxiously exhale and clearly view the steps our custodians took to make the environment safe. Then, I turned the key and entered.

Everything else was just as we had left it. The setting was eerie, in mildly post-apocalyptic way.

Lucas’ handwriting greeted me from the whiteboard — in bold purple marker, it reminded me of his campaign to be my favorite student.

Our field trip bus request and permission forms peeked out of a yellow folder I had prepared for an upcoming special event I had planned with some of my teacher soul-sisters from other districts.

A few leftover Class of 2020 t-shirt order forms puddled up on a student desk near mine.

I quickly sprayed the markerboard and wiped it clean. I tossed the order forms and the field trip folder into the trash. Many other stacks and bundles followed. I purge. It’s what I do to put the past in the past.

For over six weeks, I have maintained communication and connection strictly through digital means. I have driven past homes, honking and waving at precious friends in their yards and I have briefly chatted with my parents in their driveway when I dropped off supplies.

Folks, it is not the same. You can see the proof in the photo on the left. That woman has had limited real human interaction for the last month.

Do you see the fear in her eyes?
Do see the darkness?

Now look at the face on the right. That face is relaxed, smiling, and glowing. That is the face of a teacher who is back in her element, hitting reset, reflecting, and making plans for the future. It’s the countenance of a woman who spent just a few minutes chatting eye to eye with colleagues in the high school hallways. These images were taken just a couple of healing hours apart. Clearly, face-to-face interaction is a steroid, and we all need a shot.

I am not mourning any longer.
Our students are going to be okay.
We are going to be okay.

We have to allow ourselves to be.

Ready yourself to overcome this.
Plan to put the past in the past.
Prepare to purge the fear.
Get ready to glow!!

I was born into a family of car lovers.  My dad’s dad, was a huge car buff, and though his preacher’s income didn’t give him the opportunity to own the latest and greatest vehicles, he’d still make the annual pilgrimage to the local Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury dealers to check out the newest models and come home with the new brochures.  Yes, there were other car brands, but they might just as well have been manufactured by the devil himself.   Though, he did once tell me he married my Grandma because she came with a Pontiac.  

My dad inherited this same love of vehicles, along with his siblings.  The recent Facebook trend of posting car pictures brought a smile to my face, because my dad actually had a photo album of all the cars he had owned over the years.   As a kid, our Sunday afternoons were often filled with taking drives, oftentimes those drives were down off the mountaintop to the big city of Catskill, NY to drive around the car lots, so we could browse without the pressure of a commission driven salesman.  

It’s really no surprise that my brother and I are both car fans.   Even my uncle on my mom’s side was a car nut.  We were doomed.  Starting out with our collections of Matchbox cars as kids, we both could not wait to get our first set of wheels.   The freedom of owning a car of my own, even if that car wasn’t much to look at, was a freedom worth working for.   Summer nights with the windows down, music blaring, and the twisty mountain roads are still some of my fondest memories.

Now, there’s something I have learned over the years.   Not everybody loves cars the way I do and the way my family has.  Rumor has it, that for some folks, cars are simply transportation.  As hard as that may be to believe, I have witnessed it with my very own eyes.  People buying cars based on things like practicality, fuel mileage, and even reliability.  Three variables that have never once influenced one of my car buying decisions.

Being the curious type, I decided to do some research into this phenomenon.   According to our friends over at Merriam-Webster, Transportation means an act, process, or instance of transporting…which then led me to research the word transport….and here’s where it all became very clear.  

There are two very different definitions for the word transport…

1  : to transfer or convey from one place to another
2  : to carry away with strong and often intensely pleasant emotion

It appears that my family completely skipped over definition 1 and went directly to definition number 2.   …and much to my surprise, there’s an entire population stuck on definition number 1.   Can they be saved?

You see, for me, it’s both the joy of owning a vehicle that strikes an emotional chord deep within my being, and the act of driving that vehicle down a country road or any road for that matter, that carry me away with a strong and often intensely pleasant emotion.

When I was in Kindergarten, I’d ride to school with my dad.   He was a high school English teacher in our one building K-12 school of 500 kids.   My dad drove a Plymouth Roadrunner back in those days.  A muscle car with a 383 cubic inch engine and a cartoon character on the side of it, what could be better.  It was a different time back then, and on more than one occasion, we’d experience a spirited ride home in reaction to one of my dad’s hot rod driving students referring to his pride and joy as a Road Chicken.   On those days, these particular students were schooled in far more than the subject of English.  

I’ve owned quite a few vehicles since my first car purchase.   Some of those purchases were purely emotional, an uncontrollable urge to own a particular vehicle, often influenced by the horsepower rating of the vehicle in question.   Other purchases were made for financial reasons or the necessity of affordable insurance, often a problem brought on by actions taken in a previous vehicle purchased primarily on horsepower ratings.   I can say that never once have I made a purchase based on a consumer reports article.

There are really very few things that are more enjoyable than taking a drive solely for the purpose of taking a drive.  Pulling out of the driveway, with no planned destination, no planned route other than seeking out only backroads, and letting the drive take you where it wants you to go.   Any vehicle, when used in such a manner, can provide great amounts of joy and satisfaction.   Now, I will say that having the right vehicle for the particular ride will certainly increase the grin factor.

But, let’s not forget the pure joy of vehicular ownership.   Purchasing a vehicle is no small feat.  Not only does it require a significant outlay of cash, but even the negotiation and buying process can be overwhelming for some.  For those reasons alone, you should always buy a car that makes you smile in some way…whether that be for the color, the shape, the emblem, or the powerplant hidden beneath the hood.   The best kind of car is one that causes you to turn around and take a second glance as you are walking away from it in the parking lot.

My dad bought a lot of cars.   There was always a clever dose of justification given to my mother before each purchase, but the underlying reason was always the fact that he just wanted to buy a new car. It was one of the things that gave him the most joy in life.  When my brother and I followed in his footsteps, this was one area where my dad did not have a parental leg to stand on.   What a glorious thing… youthful foolishness completely immune to parental criticism.

Well, that was until the year Two Thousand and Eleven.   

Ever since my Matchbox car days, I had a dream car. When I was 9 years old, I spent my hard earned allowance money, which was fifty cents a week, on a Porsche 911 Carrera Matchbox car, painted in what may have been the ugliest shade of metallic brown ever to leave an aerosol can.   …but despite the paint color, that’s when it happened.   From that moment on, my vehicular compass pointed directly towards Stuttgart Germany.   Even my second vehicle, a 1978 Volkswagen Scirocco with a mere 68 horsepower, displayed enough of that fine european handling that it only solidified my position that I wanted to own the ultimate German sports car.

My first job out of college was at Eastman Kodak Company.   Though I thoroughly enjoyed my years there, it was at a time where the world no longer needed film and paper to capture a photo.  Given this interesting time, the guarantee of lifetime employment no longer existed, and it only seemed prudent to set aside some money in the event that my relationship with my employer was cut short due to corporate cost cutting efforts.  Fortunately this never occurred, however, I did decide to part ways with Kodak and move to a company with a brighter future.  Shortly after changing jobs, my buddy told me about a very reasonably priced seven year old Porsche Boxster that he had seen on a car lot.  No longer in fear of losing my source of income, I traded my layoff fund for that Porsche Boxster.   Though it still wasn’t the 911 Carrera that I had set my sights on in the mid seventies, it scratched nearly all of the itches, and was an extremely fun vehicle to drive.   If you’ve never driven a Porsche with a flat 6 engine, and experienced the spectacular howl it lets out as the tachometer approaches the redline, you probably would not understand the sheer joy it brings.

I drove that car for the next 5 years, making some modifications to personalize it to my liking, and then a miracle occurred (at least that is how I interpreted it).  Through a series of conversations, I learned of a friend of my brother that was looking for a sports car…and boy, did I have a deal for him.  With a guaranteed sale in hand, I started to scour the classifieds for an affordable used 911.   It did not take too long until I located a very reasonably priced 5 year old 911 Carrera sitting on the showroom floor of a Nissan dealer in Wichita Kansas.  When I shared the news with my dad, something terrible happened, that disapproving tone that I had experienced many times before, was there.  “Why do you need to buy a different car?” he asked.   “Your Boxster is perfect and plenty fast”.   My dad’s hesitation was likely warranted, due to the damage I had once before caused to a high powered sports car in a moment of poor judgement and zealous acceleration.  But, as I had many times before, I filed his caution in the undue parental worrying bucket, and in March 2011, I jumped onto an airplane with my 16 year old son, flew to Kansas, and drove my new-to-me sports car home.   Before I even got to my house, I stopped at my dad’s to show him my dream car.   He looked it over carefully and showed some cautious enthusiasm, but I could tell, he still had not warmed up to the idea.

A couple weeks later, my son and I drove over to visit my dad.  As we were talking, my son said “Grandpa, you should drive Dad’s new car”.  My dad’s health was not the best, but he agreed, and we made our way out to the 911.  My dad took the driver’s seat, I jumped in the passenger seat, and my dad handed me his oxygen tank to hang on to…yes, you just read that correctly   We made our way out of the village, and turned on to a 55 MPH stretch of road that passed through miles and miles of farmland.   As he rowed through the gears, he gave it a heavy dose of throttle, and soon we were approaching twice the posted speed limit as we made our way through the countryside.   I can only assume that if observing the speed limit is lawful, observing it a second time is twice as lawful.    We got to a good turn around point and he broke the rear end of the car free as he once again put the car through its paces.   He looked at me with a great big smile and said “man, this power is addicting”.   It was at that very moment I knew, my dad approved of my latest car purchase. 

You see, a car is far more than mere transportation.  This is something my Grandpa was keenly aware of, my dad was aware of, and I am aware of.   A car is the gateway to adventure, a source of freedom to explore, a generator of smiles, and a moving memory maker.  Some of my best memories are of times riding in a car with friends and family experiencing life on the open road.   

During these days of quarantine, a lot of our normal activities and hobbies are off limits  But, you can still take a ride.   So consider packing up the kids, throw some snacks in a backpack, jump in your transportation vehicle of choice, head out onto the road and turn, in any direction, and just drive and see where it takes you.  You may just realize that your transportation vehicle wants to be far more than transportation, and just wants to “carry you away with a strong and intensely pleasant emotion”.

My Readers… I wrote “The Angry Man – COVID19” with appreciation of personal risk related to the readers of this current and highly emotional discussion. I also considered the temptation of some to classify this article as “Conspiracy theory” which often groups unconventional and unconstrained sharing of ideas.  In the end, I decided to publish this opinion paper that some will agree with and others will not. My hope is that you take the time to read it and that you consider its content with your objectivity (experiences and education you have acquired). My optimism is ever present in individuals and organizations where leadership is constantly critically learning through active measures to acquire knowledge. — Jim

I don’t know about you, but I am starting to get my dander up every time I hear that we need to “Shelter in Place” for the goodness of all humanity. If we don’t follow that instruction, death will happen, and it is a certainty. If it is not you that dies, you will bear the guilt of the “Carrier” or be the cause of another’s demise. And yes, that person, “You” killed, will most likely have been old or have some type of affliction that made their previous life at least a bit more miserable than yours. How dare you! How did we get here? It is like the perpetual optimism I usually enjoyed has left my brain and has been replaced by a cynical and artificially directed member of an ant hill. It may be this home security prison that is getting to me or the ever-building distrust I am gaining by observing the airwaves. Personal and destructive agendas wrapped in a caring tone of voice seem to be exploiting emotional distress for gain. COVID19, I know you are an enemy of the Nation and world, but I believe you pale in comparison to those devious in power using your existence to strengthen themselves. 

Men have created things about COVID19 that tick me off. The initial predictions for infections and mortality changed, a lot. That, followed by changing definitions for how to count the dead and diagnosed are the most perplexing and frustrating in the spotlight for me. I am paying attention to these things like most Americans. How can an epidemiologist go from predicting 2 million to under 60 thousand deaths for the USA within two months with the same considerations of social distancing? To my scientists: that science is not trustworthy and should embarrass the college that graduated you! I am angered since I feel as if we as a Nation are being led like helpless sheep by persons or groups with influence and something to gain which is not in the vast majorities best interest. “They” would sell their soul to improve or secure their position. Is it right to cause panic across the entire realm of what we used to call rationality of society? Can the number of ICUs or hospital staff ever be large enough to keep every patient alive? We are all mortal, right (sorry for the cynicism)? 

On April 16, 2019 the CDC redefined what deaths will be counted as COVID19 deaths. The newest change will now include those patients in the COVID19 cause of death pile if their death is suspected to be associated with COVID19. This is like washing away other mortality causes to a large extent since most who die in ICUs today require breathing assistance and many perish from pneumonia-like symptoms. In fact, hospitals have tracked a specific measure of quality called Hospital Acquired Pneumonia (HAP) for years now wanting to make sure hospitals were not the place pneumonia was acquired because of an unsterile environment. Pneumonia, noted upon admission, impacts many deaths of patients admitted for the top causes of death in the nation. Pneumonia will likely not be listed as the primary cause of death if the bodily systems were already weakened by failing systems (i.e. Heart failure). COVID19 will seemingly now trump other causes of death primary diagnoses even when weak bodily system created a mortal opportunity. Will the COVID19 presumptive diagnosis capture all those previously deemed pneumonia’s and jettison COVID19 in the ranking of primary causes of death? I think it is likely. Being isolated is an expectation while an ICU patient and the intensity ration of staff for care is very high. While we change our diagnostics to add new groups into the COVID19 category we must realize reimbursement for care, vents, etcetera is highly linked to these diagnostics. This environment in our hospital system will lure staff (clinicians and administrators) to target the right diagnosis that leads toward the money. 

Political posturing should make everyone on this planet furious. Budget proposals including right and left wing add-ons without association to defeating COVID19 or helping the public affected by its presence are prevalent. Name calling is quickly the tact of elected leaders versus working to find amicable solutions. Leadership divides along party lines without consideration of debate or credibility of arguments. There is a self-centeredness larger than ever before in history based on “Power.” Federal, State and County Leaders are examined prejudicially or preferentially based on the Republican or Democrat suit they wear. Within our largely two-party system we have forgotten that dignity and respect must be the first choice when being leaders. Listening and evaluating different points of view focused on a topic can elevate a common man to be redefined as a cooperative and learning leader. Many have lost the gift of maturity that enables older folks to show attention without expressing insubordinance through appearance or action. Has it become an impossible task to try to appreciate the stress of a leader trying to make the best decision for all, without critically and immediately looking at the shortfalls of the plan? Blindly following is foolish and insincere loyalty is mutiny. So where does that leave us? I think the politicians are putting us in “their” middle, forcing policies they believe in into the center of COVID19. Isn’t it time their motivations change from reelection to serving even those who do not go to the polls. 

The collective media has become one of my most despised sources of information even though there is virtually no other alternative. They intentionally dramatize singular cases of COVID19 and glorify their coverage in a self-promoting way that is undignified. For instance, the smallest fraction of hospitalized patients who had no comorbidities along with their COVID19 are focused upon. I must believe this is to incite individual fear in the general population hinting, “This could be you”, if you do not abide by the new stay at home rules. Multiple correspondents have used COVID19 to tell their personal story of struggle from home. The most maddening is one from CNN who without a doubt needed to be the main character in the COVID19 story after he contracted the disease. His connection with the Governor of New York, gave him an inside scoop to COVID19, but clearly the concentrated story is of himself. We know he had a fever. We know he claims suffering. We know he had a social isolation argument with his neighbor. Oh, might I add; we know he was not “Sick enough”, at least physically, to be hospitalized. And now, we know he needed to continue “His” story, so he is now following his wife’s COVID19 struggle. This is only one reporter making me ashamed to have watched even one of his pity party newscasts. Sadly, I think some of those reporters, like him, might hope of being hospitalized and taken as close to death as possible for their career developmental story. 

From me, who thought I was the “Angry man” when I started this piece, I am glad I got the words out of my head and onto paper. I can’t believe that I am the only American that has had their “Optimism protection system” weakened by the peripheral annoyances of COVID19. Maybe that should be listed as a new symptom? I will drive on collecting factual and comparative data to make good decisions that are informed by common sense, objectivity and reason. I’ve decided to double-down on not being a thoughtless drone receiving the news or guidance knowing that my outlook and lens play a part in the interpretation and outcome. I am optimistic and so should you be. It looks like a nice day out so I think I am going to go for a run. 

“To Lead is a Privilege, to Think is a Responsibility” – Jim Laterza 

We’ve always had bird feeders and have enjoyed watching many different birds visit our yard. About five years ago, we briefly saw a male Bluebird visit our bird bath. After some research, we determined it was just a “fly by” and that he wasn’t overly impressed with our food and lodging offerings. My wife decided that we needed to add Bluebird houses to our backyard.

Much to our delight, the following spring a Papa Bluebird visited once again. He must have approved of our renovations because a few days later, he brought the decision-maker with him – Mama Bluebird. That first year was very exciting for us as we watched them daily from March through September.

The following spring we upped our game by adding a mealworm feeder to our backyard, not knowing if they would return or not. You would have thought we won the lottery the day we saw a Papa Bluebird sitting on one of the houses. Mama soon followed and our “Bluebird” spring and summer unfolded just as the year before. Mama and Papa’s behavior the second year mirrored the first, so now we understood what “normal” was for raising a family of Bluebirds – and it’s pretty awesome!

As we have gotten to know our Bluebirds over the years, we have come to truly appreciate how magnificent they are. As mentioned above, a Papa Bluebird visits each spring by himself. This is his scouting run to scope out suitable places to raise a family. Mama usually shows up a few days later, and they basically start “claiming their turf” by sitting on one of our houses. They are not fending off other Bluebirds, but other birds like Starlings and House Sparrows who also look for holes/houses to build nests in – and also have been known to attack Bluebirds.

Claiming their turf can go on for weeks before they even start building a nest. Similar to the boxing analogy of “pound for pound best boxer”, Papa Bluebird is one of the baddest birds on this planet! We’ve seen times when a Starling has trapped Mama in one of the houses, and out of nowhere Papa comes dive bombing the Starling and chases him away. Papa is extremely protective – just ask a few curious squirrels who have gotten a little too close to the house. Papa is always on watch! He’s like a dad at the playground who never takes his eyes off his children as they play with their friends. Papa likes to sit in a few different spots, usually high points where he can keep an eye on the entire backyard.

It’s heartwarming to observe Mama and Papa Bluebird truly being a couple. Much like a husband and wife, they have their different roles but they work as a team and share many responsibilities. During nest building, we watch them both gather pieces of grass and individually disappear through the hole in the birdhouse. We have also seen Papa carry some nest building materials to the birdhouse opening to hand-off to Mama inside.

Bluebirds are very social. They do not mind interactions with people, and at times we think they actually enjoy us being around. Our Bluebird houses allow for the front section to swing open so we can look inside. We don’t look too often, and we always knock on the side of the house first, but we can watch the progress of the nest building with an occasional peek. Watching nest building is fun, but nothing compares to looking inside a house and seeing a little blue egg in the nest! Mama usually lays one egg a day, in the morning, for five or six days. She actually spends time away from the house during the time and we monitor the egg laying in the early evening each day. “Dive bomber” Papa is always watching us from a nearby perch, but somehow knows that he can trust us. Once all the eggs are laid, Mama takes to keeping them warm by sitting on the nest for about two weeks.

We made a big mistake with our birdhouses the first year. We mounted our houses on wooden stakes that looked nice, but were not very sturdy. After Mama laid five eggs that first year, a raccoon (most likely) knocked the entire house down one night and there were no eggs left the next morning. We felt terrible, and quickly put the houses back up on “industrial strength” poles with safeguards to prevent anything from climbing to the house. We were afraid Mama and Papa would go away, but they stayed. The next day they both sat next to each other on the birdbath for a very long time. Their daily routine was sadly no longer required and they were likely a bit puzzled, but it also seemed like they were mourning. Staying close together, not flying all about until they decided to start all over again – which they did, but in a different house in our yard.

Once the baby Bluebirds are hatched, Papa now elevates his protector role and guards the house pretty much all the time – and aggressively chases away any bird or animal that gets close to the house. He also becomes chief cook and bottle washer. As mentioned earlier, we have a mealworm feeder close to the birdhouse. We add mealworms to the feeder in the early morning most days. We don’t bother Mama during this time, but we do get close to fill the feeder. Papa watches us closely. As soon as we start walking away, he will fly to the feeder for a mouthful of mealworms. He collects the mealworms, but he doesn’t eat a single one as he flies to the birdhouse opening for a beak to beak hand-off with Mama so she can feed the babies and herself. This routine continues for the next 10-15 days. As days go on, we’ll see Mama and Papa go into the house and come out with little white sacs in their mouths. They are removing the waste from the babies so the nest stays clean and safe (gives new appreciation for the disposable diapers we used for our three kids :).

Next comes the best part of helping our Bluebird couple raise their family – the babies start to fledge the nest. After 15 days or so, we start seeing the babies start poking their heads out the birdhouse. It’s really fun to watch over a couple days as they get more courageous, you think one is about to go for it – then he or she thinks “not so sure” and pulls back inside. Growing confidence, along with an increasingly crowded house, finally leads to the first fledgling leaving the nest and immediately perching on a nearby tree branch. One by one, they all take the leap of faith over coming days and our backyard is filled with Bluebirds.

After several intense weeks, Mama and Papa finally can relax a bit – although their parenting responsibilities continue. We add more mealworms per day to the feeder to satisfy the growing needs of all the new babies. Some of the babies quickly find their way to the feeder and become fairly independent right away. Others, are more tentative and we watch as Mama or Papa bring them mealworms wherever they may be perched in a tree. Over coming weeks, many of the fledglings stick around and often play together in our birdbath. As their first brood of baby Bluebirds continue to spread their wings, Mama and Papa have already started nest number two and start the entire process all over again

So, during this unprecedented time of uncertainty and fear, we are blessed to have a pocket of normalcy that our family escapes to everyday – right in our backyard. I hope reading our Bluebird adventures provides you with a brief escape as well, and I hope you find comfort in seeking your own pockets of normalcy within your lives.

I love to hike.  I guess when you boil it down, a hike is really just a walk with a little more purpose.  There’s something pure about stepping foot onto a trail with an intended destination. Oftentimes, that destination rises above a valley floor reaching towards the heavens in such a way that you can actually see it from where you stand.  Other times, your only indication of your destination is a point listed on a wooden sign with a number indicating how many miles you have to go to reach it. What I also love about a hike is that it is an experience relatively unchanged and undestroyed by technology.  Sure, we may now carry a GPS instead of a compass, and a cell phone instead of an old Kodak Instamatic camera, and our clothes may have fancier properties that the marketing types use to convince us of their worth, but it’s still a hike and the experience is still the same.  I often hike the same trails my grandfather hiked 50 years ago, and I picture him on those trails, and realize that the emotions I am feeling at that exact moment are likely very similar to those he felt decades earlier. If I were forced to give up all my hobbies, I think hiking and music would be the last two I’d hang on to…and if it really came to a final choice, I’d likely choose hiking, cuz I could always sing while out on the trail.

There are a lot of great hikes in the Catskill Mountains.   Many offer challenging climbs, or great distances, or nice views, or cool things to check out along the way.  The Overlook Mountain and Echo Lake hike is one that checks off every box and should definitely be on your “hikes I need to do in the Catskills” list.

Before I go much further, you will see that there are a lot of hike articles out there on the interwebs with detailed mile markers, special instructions, GPS tracks, tips and tricks to guarantee your hiking success, and much much more.   This will clearly not be one of them. Think of this more like story time with Mr. Rogers, minus the cardigan, stuffed animals, and trolley.

The trailhead for Overlook Mountain is on Meads Mountain Road, about 3 miles outside of the village of Woodstock, NY (the actual town…not to be confused with the site of the epic musical festival that took place in 1969).   The great thing about this particular hike, is that depending on your energy level, you can either make the full trek over Overlook Mountain to Echo Lake and make it a 9+ mile hike, or just climb Overlook Mountain, making it about a 5 mile hike. 

The Overlook Mountain summit is at 3,140’ and is home to one of the Catskill Mountain Fire towers.   The climb to the summit is steady, gaining about 700’ per mile, but since it follows a service road the whole way, it is not a very technical hike.  One of the real treats of this hike comes at about the 2 mile mark, the site of the Overlook Mountain House. The mountain house went through several iterations of being built, burning down, and being rebuilt from the early 1800’s through the early 1900’s.  The current ruins were never actually completed (per advanced research on wikipedia) and became the property of New York State in the 1940’s, suffering one final fire in the 1960’s. However, due to its concrete construction, there’s a lot of structure still standing providing some great photo ops.  If you’re interested in more details of questionable accuracy, do a google search on the Overlook Mountain House…there’s a lot to read out there.

Getting back to the hiking, rumor has it, that the next 3 miles or so are home to literally hundreds of Timber Rattlesnakes.  We were hiking on a crisp fall day, and did not have the privilege of seeing any along or on the trail, but the posted warning signs would indicate that the rumors hold some truth.  So, if snakes cause you any stress in life, especially poisonous snakes, this may not be the hike for you. The climb after leaving the mountain house site remains steady to the point where you can continue on to the summit and the fire tower, or head towards Echo Lake.  The day we hiked it, we chose to go to Echo Lake first and leave the fire tower for the way back.

As you head to Echo Lake, the trail descends at a pretty good clip and you lose most of the elevation you gained.  At this point, the trail is a typical Catskill Mountain single track. After a couple miles, you arrive at Echo Lake.   There is a lean-to and a few primitive campsites, and a trail around the lake. As you walk around the trail, there are several downed trees, the handiwork of beavers…and a dam at the outlet end of the lake, also the handiwork of beavers.  Oh, and in case you were wondering, if you let out a yell or even a yodel, you will hear an echo that usually resembles the thing you originally yelled or yodeled. I can’t tell you that Echo Lake received its name based on the reverberating effect at the lake, but if it did, I can honestly say it would not be a lie.

At this point, you have to back track the trail you just came down, and head back up to the junction of the Overlook Mountain trail.  The final ascent to the Overlook Mountain summit is steady, but a little more gradual at this point. As you reach the top, you’ll see the fire tower.   We were hiking later in the season, so the observation deck was not open, but you could still climb just shy of that point….and despite the rickety steps, and the strong wind, the views from the tower were well worth the climb.   One thing about this particular hike, perhaps due to the proximity to Woodstock, or the non technical nature of the climb, is there are quite a few people. So, don’t be surprised if the summit is a bit crowded.

The hike back to the trailhead parking is once again a non technical stroll down the access road, but with 7 miles on your legs by this point, an easier descent to end your hike may be a good thing.

If you do the whole hike, you will have ended up logging 9.4 miles and climbing just a tick under 2,400’.   Though a relatively good workout for an afternoon hike, the great sights along the way really make this one of the more enjoyable hikes in the Catskill mountains.  No, this one won’t count towards the Catskill Mountain 3500’ peak list, but sometimes, it’s just fun to take a hike for the sake of taking a hike.  

A quick trip into the village of Woodstock to check out some of the local shops and grab a coffee is a great way to end a day on the trails and complete the Catskill Mountain experience.

If you’re in the Catskills and looking for an approachable hike that provides all the best a hike can provide, I would highly recommend the Overlook Mountain and Echo Lake hike.   Great climbs, spectacular views, and really neat points of interest make it a tough one to beat.

Yeah, I really like hiking… and if you try this one, you may just find that you might like hiking too!

Today we all need a break from the endless news cycle so I thought it may be a great idea to write this temporary distraction piece to spur a laugh or two. So, here it goes. 

If I want to head back in time a bit it only takes a second or two for me. You only need to mention the “CB” Radio. That is the Citizen’s Band (CB) Radio for those who may not have been a user or even around in the 1970’s and 1980’s. The CB preceded most all other mobile communication and it was a method our “Big Rig Drivers”, local Pick up owners, volunteer firemen and just about anyone (who was cool) would use to talk to others from their vehicle. They would mount it under their dash and it would open up their world of public conversation at a distance. It was not secure communication by any means and everything you said to a friend through your microphone could be listened to by anyone on that channel. 

Those connected had large “Whip” antennas on their cars or trucks and replicated the same with bigger antennas on their homes. The mobile whip antenna was a thing of beauty symbolizing the muscle under the hood (or dash in this case). You were a connected member of society who likely could respond faster than anyone else to any chaos known to man or beast. This could be a car accident, a fire or simply an overlooked get together that you had only stumbled upon by hearing it on the CB. A “Home base station” was recognizable by the huge triangular shaped frame antenna that seemed like it could reach out to another planet. I’m not sure, but this could be a variant theory of where the phrase “Bigger is better” came from. It seemed like the big and bad CB operators had antenna’s on poles that extended hundreds of feet into the sky and dwarfed their homes. Sadly, I do not think the antenna range was ever tested so it’s likely that bigger might have only represented a more obnoxious disruption to the horizon. 

There was a wave of television shows that spurred the popularity of CBs including Movin’ On, BJ and the Bear or the big screen movies entitled, Smokey and the Bandit, Breaker – Breaker and Convoy to name a few. A new language was born where Smokies were the police, Billy Goat meant Old Timer and 10-4 was a resounding understanding and agreement of the facts you just stated. These influences were deep for a young kid looking for an adventurous life where the good guys always won and everyone was just “Cool.” To participate, you must understand that every CB user needed a handle. That handle was his or her name to be known by when speaking into the handheld microphone for the airwaves. I recall the day I was listening to hear some “Big Rig” talk and I picked up a skipping signal from the stratosphere echoing a southern drawl voice all the way from Louisiana. It was not what the trucker said, it was the fact that I could hear it. I lived in upstate New York so you might be able to imagine the glee of a 10-year-old equal to discovering a precious gem in the backyard or contacting aliens. The man on the other end of the CB was “Snake Eyes.” I thought that was the best handle I had ever heard and thought it clearly represented a serpent able to strike with a potent venom at any moment. Little did I know at my age it likely represented rolling two die with a single mark on each. At that moment I created my name and took on my handle, “Puny Eyes.” 

Puny Eyes sounded almost as cool as Snake Eyes. After all, it included “Eyes” and that in itself would catch random listeners attention. I am not sure where I got the “Puny” part of the handle, but the definitions I retrieved in later years betrayed “Cool.” Puny is small or sickly. Wow, small, sickly eyes! That description does not represent someone who you would want to talk to on the CB radio or how I wanted to be described. I didn’t have a deep voice at that age and community trust was better, but that name should have likely been adjusted. Besides, my eyes were normal sized and I was not unusually small or sickly. Parents who let their kids use the CB might have restricted its use these days with the thought of “Puny Eyes” being at the other side of the conversation. Today, most kids would be restricted from going to “that internet site” if they had a desire to chat. 

During my CB-years I had a childhood friend whose handle was Red Fox. He had chosen his name modifying his dad’s handle, Gray Fox. I appreciated that, but his handle was not unique or interesting enough and did not come close to my Snake Eyes inspiration. My handle rolled off the tongue. Not considering my thoughtful reflections of today I stuck with Puny Eyes! Red Fox and I chatted about “stuff” probably twice per week for a year or two. It was a great outlet and likely entertained the open airwaves with our innocent topics. It is interesting to compare then and now. What if the phone of today was open communication? I’m pretty sure that the privacy police would be on us pretty quick, but what an interesting conscience keeper. Although the CB radio created only a false sense of anonymity, users kept a sense of honesty and cleanliness in their conversation. Obviously, I listened with my untarnished youthful ears and may have saw the world rosier than it was, but that is the memory that stuck in my head. The reach of my CB radio seemed continental and maybe limitless, but no fear was ever produced by its use. It was just pure joy. 

Breaker, breaker, this is Puny Eyes signing off with some lessons of fearlessness, decency, courtesy and respect taught to me through my CB radio in the good ol’ days! Thanks for listening in and hope this “Break” took you away from the stress of today for a bit! 

“Reflect and Laugh to Refresh your Spirit” 

and then …

“Do Your Job” the best way you can 

Jim Laterza

In the turbulent sixties, spies were in demand. There was that war going on over in ‘Nam, anti-war protests across the U.S., and the civil rights movement in the south. My new, young spy friend had been deployed to Eastern Europe, keeping an eye on Soviet activity. I was a bit in awe.

Much later, I was working for a global software development company that sent consultants around the world. The project that I was working on was domestic. But one of my close associates and friends there had come out of military intelligence. He was gathering and analyzing data electronically, from strategic hot spots around the world. My cousin Les was doing the same thing on the ground in South Korea.

A few years later, working for the same company, I encountered two more CIA agents. They were an odd pair. He was short, overweight, balding, and bespectacled. She was a tough one, a real piece of work. She had a manly manner, and rode her Harley to work. They had been working together for years. An unmarried married couple, deployed by the CIA to do interrogations of vietcong, in Vietnam. The company I worked for was headquartered near the Pentagon, and provided cover for CIA operatives. I can tell you this, if you ever encounter a short, overweight, balding, and bespectacled man, tell him what he wants to know. If you don’t, he will cut off your tongue!

It seems they’re everywhere. And they just can’t be trusted!  I thought I could trust Paul. We had been friends in our youth. We went to church youth activities. But, wouldn’t you know it, he married my girlfriend! I guess you can do that if you work for the NSA.

But still the messages came in, unrelenting, unsettling, disquieting.  It is not easy to watch as things spiral out of your control.  Another hand on the rudder, another voice shouting as your ship tacks to and fro without you even being aboard.  It is the lack of control that drives you crazy.  This is action that you yourself have confidently undertaken more times than you can count.  You are good at it.  The results certain.  Dependable.  Pleasing.

“No Sara,” I cry again as the fatal text comes in.  Each previous text was a small incision, a mere papercut.  But this last is a slash to the juggler.  I winced when Sara had substituted another brand of hot dogs for my beloved Ball Park Beef Franks.  I whimpered when the Kraft deluxe mac and cheese was replaced with the store brand basic.  I cried when the chicken breasts were refunded, and I wept unashamedly when the family pack of T-bone steaks suffered the same fate, the fact that the Dinty Moore stew had survived unscathed being meager solace.  But now I am inconsolable. Devastated.  Stricken with a sadness the depth of which I may never escape.  I hold the phone in my hand.  The text stares back at me.  Tauntingly.  Remorseless.  The loss too painful to countenance, I look away.  The Breyers cherry vanilla ice cream has been refunded.  Life no longer has meaning.

And then the phone chimes again with one final, incongruously cheery message.  “Fry’s is on the way!!”  And now I am left to make the decision.  How much do you tip a woman whom you have never met, who may be saving your life, but has destroyed your will to fight on?

There are some places in life that never leave us, even when we leave them.  What transpires in these temples of our formation lingers like an indian summer over the rest of our life.  The memories and experiences imprint on our very soul and provide the standard by which we measure goodness, love, right, wrong, joy.  None of these places have marble tiled foyers or soaring columns.  They are rarely pristine, often worn, and always well lived in.  While not mecca, they are certainly worthy of a pilgrimage when seeking a renewal of spirit.  We have all knelt at these altars, humbled by their influence, grateful for their refuge.  They are the sites of our most precious memories and most meaningful relationships.  More often than not, we find our way back to them on the scent of fresh baked rolls, or the sound of katydids on a summer evening, instantly transported to the safety and comfort of home.  It is the place our self-confidence is nurtured.  It is where who we are is created.

For me this was my grandmother’s dining room table.  It was the gathering place for the whole community.  The coffee was always on, and more often than not, there was some fresh-baked treat or other available as accompaniment.  The door was never locked.  Even when my grandmother and my aunt weren’t home, they left the doors open in case company stopped by.  They prioritized family, whether by blood or proximity, above all else.  Those relationships were what they lived for, and the number of people whose live’s they touched was an indication of how desperately needed their kind of love was. 

A typical night would see anywhere from four or five to twenty people crowded into the small dining room. There was a lot of laughter, and some tears too.  Folks didn’t always agree.  Healthy debate was plentiful, and often colorful.  You knew better than to express your opinion if you didn’t have the knowledge and experience to defend it.  More than anything else, though there was relationship.  Personal interaction.  Eye contact.  True concern for one another and an attempt to understand even if agreement was unlikely.

It’s what I miss most about my formative years.  I didn’t realize then how quickly that type of interaction was going to fade from the world.  The more “advanced” we have gotten, the further we have traveled from a place where discourse leads to compassion and disagreement does not equal disrespect.  Blame is now more important than resolution and redemption is unheard of.  Everyone’s voice has equal volume when there is nothing to compete against, and isolation gives a sense of bravado far greater than any that would be displayed face to face. 

I am as guilty as anyone of succumbing to our digital age.  For years our dinner table has had as many electronic devices present as people, if it serves as a gathering place at all.  The same is true of every room in the house.  I’m embarrassed by the number of virtual tethers in my home.  The formative years for my kids have been dominated by social media and streaming entertainment instead of real experiences and real relationships.  In an effort to give them the newest, coolest, and best of what our society offers, I have deprived them of what’s most important.  Engagement.  We text from the same room, share memes, YouTube videos, and communicate in a shorthand as likely to include a GIF as a complete sentence with punctuation.  A family desperately oblivious to our need for a reset and reconnect. 

And now here we are, a couple of weeks into limited interaction with the outside world and things are starting to change.  Social Distancing has lead to dinner at home instead of in a crowded, noisy restaurant becoming our new normal.  That, accompanied by a strict no electronics at the dinner table policy, excluding the one we use to Zoom for an extended family Taco Tuesday, has led to conversation, collaboration, cohesiveness.  We have discovered there isn’t much on social media when everyone else is home just like you are.  We have discovered that there is only so much T.V. anyone can stomach before searching for a book, or a game, or better yet, seeking out a conversation.  Our house has started to resemble the home I grew up in.  Sad that it has taken a government order to get us here.  Funny that “Social Distancing” has resulted in reclamation of some of the closest relationships anyone should have.  Not how I would have hoped for a culture shift but I’ll take the victory when there aren’t too many of those going around. 

Will we be able to maintain this when the social freeze thaws?  Only time will tell, but right now my back patio feels a lot like my grandmother’s table used to.  If we get lucky, future days will see it  filled with family, both by blood and by proximity, that need that place where they feel safe. Where they can find a little bit of themselves in the person sitting across the fire pit from them on a fall evening.  Where they discover what being a person is all about from someone that has lived long enough to become one.  And maybe, just maybe, it will be the setting for the conversations and memories that linger like an Indian summer over the rest of their lives. 

With the framing complete, it was now time to get this sugar shack weathertight. (To read about the framing, check out part I of our project)

Metal roofing is the traditional roofing choice for sugar shacks…and I was certainly not going to stray from tradition.  This was the part of my project I worried about the most. Metal roofing requires a perfectly square roof and getting the panels running straight right from the get go.  My only other metal roofing experience was a tiny wood shed and to say that turned out as desired would be an untruth of epic proportion. With a lot of roofing to install, and both my daylight hours, and the hours my buddy Adam could help me running short, the pressure was on, but after much sweating, fretting, and occasional frustration…the metal roof was in place, and aside from a couple screws that were not seated completely, it was and still is leak free.

Typically this was the point in a building project where I’d be so focused on getting done, that it would take the fun out of it.  But, I kept focusing on some words that my dad told me during one of my earlier building projects. He said “don’t wish for it to be over, the building is the fun part, enjoy it”.   With those words ringing in my head, and a grin on my face, I was ready to tackle the next phase of construction.

Again, sticking with tradition, I wanted my sugar shack to be clothed in board and batten siding.   For those that don’t know, this is a type of siding where wide boards (called boards ) are installed vertically, and narrow strips of lumber (called battens) are placed over the gap between the boards.  I ordered some rough cut hemlock from a local lumber company. I soon learned that rough cut 1”x12”x16’ boards, that were in a full sized tree only days earlier, are heavy, very heavy. Working against weather, and often losing, I worked quickly to get these soggy planks hanging on my building.   With temperatures down into the teens, if I was going to get this thing closed in, I was going to have to keep working.

When I first picked the spot to build my building, from a casual glance, the ground looked relatively level.  Perhaps I was standing with one foot in a hole, because it wasn’t until I started framing that I realized there was about a 12” drop in grade from right to left.  I took a momentary break from siding, to haul 10 tons of crusher run to bring the grade to level. Before starting this project, I had purchased the smallest Kubota tractor and a front end loader to go with it.   I believe with this one task the tractor paid for itself….to this day, the woman who shares my last name, disagrees.

With the grade leveled, I finished up the siding and worked through all the trim details, battens, and building all my doors.  I had seen a pretty neat window setup using barn sashes and a tilt-in design that I used for all my windows. I had also seen a clever design for the cupola doors that would allow them to open upward and keep the weather out while boiling.  The trickiest part of that task was figuring out the pulley placement so that a grown man could actually provide enough force to open said cupola doors; with some trial and error, I got that all figured out.

I don’t know why, because it’s certainly not the norm, but I wanted a wooden plank floor in my sugar shack.   This posed a bit of a problem because wood fired syrup evaporators can be a fire hazard with a wooden floor underneath them.  There are ways to protect the wood, but none of them seemed as safe as I thought they should be. I decided that I wanted to put a large paver hearth under the evaporator area.  To keep moisture at bay, promote good drainage, and to ensure a level base, I put down 4” of gravel on top of the crusher run. I framed the floor with pressure treated 4”x4” sleepers.  I boxed in the area where the pavers would be installed, filled that area with paver base, leveling sand, and then placed the pavers so that they would sit level with the wood flooring. I put a vapor barrier on top of the sleepers and for flooring, and installed 1”x10” pine for floor boards.   The end result was the old timey barn look and feel with a fireproof hearth area. I was thrilled with how it turned out …and I had finished this last bit of construction 4 months to the day from when I started.

While I was building,  I had ordered a 2’x3’ hobby sized Evaporator from Mason Evaporators in Maine.   Unfortunately it arrived a little too late to use for the 2019 season. Without the pressure to get set up for boiling, I took a break for a few months and spent some time taking care of other projects that had been neglected during the build.

The next thing on the to-do list was to get the stack through the roof and connected to the evaporator.   I did not have the heart to put a hole in my new metal roof, or enough chimney assembling experience to convince myself that I needed to install the stack myself, so I reached out to Crocker’s Hardware in Leroy, NY to do the honors.  What would have taken me days of fret, worry, and potential catastrophic results, was done in a day’s time. If I were to do this part over again, I would either have framed the roof so the stack could go straight up, or would have placed the hearth off center, but I did neither of those things, and ended up with a slight bend in the stack. It did not seem to effect performance of the evaporator.

With a particularly wet spring and early summer, I had to wait for a long enough dry stretch to get some stain on the siding.   I picked up a pro-sumer grade sprayer, and in the course of a day, was able to get two coats of stain protecting the hemlock siding.  Based on some input from a friend with a lot of rough lumber experience, I ended up using Flood CWF-UV5 Transparent Stain for my finish.

The other task I decided to hire was getting the electrical run from the house to the shack.  A 50 AMP service would be the best choice to meet the power needs of the shack. To save some money, I signed up to trenching the 100 yards from the house to the shack and lay the wire.  While the trench was open, I ran some direct burial ethernet cable so that I could eventually have internet in the shack. I’m not sure if the money I saved was worth the trenching time, but I did unearth a random kitchen spoon from my backyard, which provided some moments of head scratching as to how such an item would find its way there.  A mystery still unsolved to this very day. The electrician hooked everything up, and with the panel box in place, I took it from there and ran all the lighting and outlet circuits in the shack.  

It was about at this point where I completely lost sight of the shack part of this project, and turned it into an exercise in carpentry creativity.   The overpriced galvanized barn lights and metal clad wiring should have been the first indication that I was taking things too far, but sometimes these things are lost on me.

For those not that close to the maple syrup process, a lot of sugarers use Reverse Osmosis (RO) to remove a large amount of water from the sap before boiling.   Not only does this save time, but saves on fuel cost to run the evaporator. I don’t currently have a Reverse Osmosis setup, but knowing that someday I might want that, and knowing I wanted some running water in shack, I built a small 3’x8’ insulated and heated closet that could house a 65 gallon fresh water barrel, small water heater, on demand water pump…and eventually my RO setup.   I closed the closet in with leftover siding materials. I built a beefy open cabinet to hold a stainless steel wash tub and had some soapstone countertop sections cut out of a remnant from the local stone shop. I installed this next to the utility closet and ran a drain from the sink out to a gray water well about 15’ away from the building.

Now that all the ‘essentials’ were in place, it was time to think about the optional features that would come in handy once the shack was in use.   I was definitely going to need some shelves for storage and additional work surfaces. I built an overhead shelf to hold sap buckets. My buddy gave me an old metal workbench that needed some fresh paint and a new work top.  A night in the workshop with some leftover framing materials took care of that. I put a narrow shelf above the sink area and turned that into a mini maple museum, decorated with old syrup tins, sap buckets, and other maple memorabilia.  I was looking for a place for people to sit when they were hanging out during the sugaring season. A common suggestion on the forums was a picnic table. I still had some of the scaffolding materials that I used for framing the roof. Despite the screw holes and foot prints, these made for a great picnic table.   The last thing I needed to build was a platform to hold my sap barrels. I build that out of pressure treated materials and set it up under the overhang section of the building.

At this point, having completely blown my original budget, construction was complete and all that was left to do was to wait out the winter and think about the day the sap would start running…. 

I had finally done it.   After years of scheming and dreaming, I finally put hammer to nail and built myself an honest to goodness sugar shack.   The extra touches, though not at all necessary really add to the look and feel of the building.

And for those wondering, the sap did finally start to run, and I tapped 25 trees and was able to make about 6 gallons of delicious maple syrup.  Everything in the shack worked out really well, from the evaporator, to all the work surfaces, to the running water and even the cupola doors.   

These days, when I look out over the back yard while enjoying my morning coffee, it almost looks like a scene from New England.   The extra touches and extra dollars that went along with them were definitely worth it. I’ve done a lot of building over the years, but I can honestly say that nothing was as fun and as rewarding as my old timey sugar shack.

Resources used in this phase of construction:

Armor Building Supply - Metal Roofing

Crocker's Ace Hardware - Chimney Install

Jay E. Potter Lumber Company - Rough Cut Hemlock

M.C.M. Natural Stone - Soapstone Countertops

Mason Custom Welding - Maple Syrup Evaporator