The End of February

Just trying out my laptop on battery power only. Its early morning here in the mountains with a warmish springlike rain just before the sunrise. My compatriot's have already stirred and gone to work. Simon is up and awaiting his nearly hour long trip on a bus to school. AHH...ruralia. I am not sure that I could ever really go back to a city, although completely comfortable there too. Especially after living in Summerside and always longing for these mountains of my youth;

Yes I am somewhere South of Wyalusing and Towanda...but not that far in terms of fishing or basic philosophy. My mission today in this warm rain is to use the old fishing map and find some new haunts near here to explore.

I was overjoyed yesterday to find, in a small town near here, a place to buy worms and a car wash. The town is Mount Pleasant Mills. Just South of the famous trout stream, Penn's Creek.

It was sure good to wash off 2 months worth of salt The removal of that surficial outrage is also prophesy. So I am here as it seems until I can complete the circle - the Yellow Breeches of my youth in Huntsdale. Opening day of trout season 49 years after I first walked that stream and took trout with my father. The question remains will I walk alone, as Shel has suggested or shall I go with my son and new friends?

Oh-the battery lasts 15 minutes.

My Favourite Month

Well not really. I haven't written this month here, but I have made audio recordings and a long-hand old style journal entry. Life goes on here in Juniata County. I feel as distant from Harrisburg as I did on the island as the kids are still hard to reach. My working roommates come and go at all hours, but are generally well mannered and respectful. We had one disagreement and I really do think one of them was trying to force me out, in that I have a nice furnished two rooms, good heat, my computer and a big cable TV.

I may be wrong. In any case the landlords young son Simon, 11, is now staying with us. He wanted to get away from his mother in Kentucky. Jason asked if I would help him with his homework. Well its beyond that, I make him breakfast and see him off to school and take him fishing and feed him when he gets home. His father works long hours for the railroad and told me he has little patience.

Some of Simon's friends already refer to me as the "nanny", in an odd twist of fate. But it gives me something to do. Mary says I am being abused. She has a problem that I see now-she has never been loved and sees human caring and protectiveness as some kind of weakness. Unless it is towards her of course. I think she is too cold and too demanding for me. Talk about the classic "Guilt Trip", to coin a phrase. I told her that I am a free spirit and that go where I please. She says that I can't. Don't tell me "can't".

The other reason that I haven't written is that my old PEI computer died. I bought this laptop on Ebay. Most all of my work and images are on line so I didn't lose much.

The good news today was that I heard from Shel. I had wrongly threatened to turn her into the RCMP for what is really a non-issue. I was very upset after an ice-cold email she sent that was just too much. I told her today that I am just glad that she is safe and happy and that I will leave her be. The awful part of it is that if she needed me, I would probably leave right now. Probably. After all she is still my family and shall remain so, I hope that over time we can at least establish a correspondence-that would be wonderful.

That all means that when I crossed the bridge into New Brunswick on December 3rd, that world and really a 20 year cycle came to an end. I have been amazed for all of my internet presence and writings, how few people I hear from, really hundreds whose lives I were in have simply vanished.

I have a few new DVD's I bought-one is the "Edge" with Anthony Hopkin's. The film is very hard for me to watch.

So I wait to decide my next life or Port 'O Call. We'll see as the winter wains and maybe my heart gladdens in a new horizon, always warmed by the fondest of memories-being truly in love. Maybe I will be myself again. Its been 5 years. Some may say longer.

Second Storm

A second snow and ice storm passed quickly by leaving a few inches of snow. It seemed so trivial compared to the storms of last winter on the island. I admit to being a little isolated here among the mountains of my distant past. All here consumed with work, lack of work, relationships or lack thereof. I guess I haven't been very good company as I am somber and a bit reclusive here.

I was up the past few nights thinking of Shel, Mary, my kids, and sister. Joey did send an email. He is upset still over his girlfriend and his hectic schedule. I surely do miss him, but I am putting no pressure on him to drive the almost 40 miles here to visit in addition to his busy life. He suggested that I come down and visit with Lexi this weekend.

Mary and I talked a bit today after nearly a week. She scolded me and warned that Windsor (our crazy pal from the "Wing") said my calls would get less frequent and I would finally disappear. Mary does do the female thing with vague accusations and mild guilt trips, but she misses me and has never tried to manage an "international" friendship before. OK its more than a "friendship".

I have made and listened to some of my audio recordings. The CBC Compass news show is on via Livestream each night and I admit to it being emotional to watch it. Boomer Gallant is the weather guy. I used to watch him do live weather out my window on Central Street.

Mary said she is still going out to dance with Eva and sometimes Wilbur, but the rest of my "Rock and Roll Girls" no longer go to the Wing. In an odd way I think I broke that group up after my time with Judy Griffin and later more serious time with Mary. The Lady Mary.

I miss that simple place. It was nice being in a real town with people and active social events like our weekly dances. No such thing here that I can see. This is harsher. Chilly compared to all of the people I knew in Summerside. I asked about Manny Gallant and Germain Fougere but they also have disappeared.

So I wait. Stay or go as the old story goes. I told Mary that I was having second thoughts about leaving PEI-that it might have been fine just to visit for Christmas and then to go home. Joey warned me that I may not see much of him. But I had to try.

Shel has disappeared. I even miss her nasty mails-at least I knew she was OK. OH-I could find out everything if I snooped her out. I was thinking since it is almost payday I may hear from her-the pattern since late 2004. At least then she put on a happy tune and it was pleasant to pay for her apartment, phone, food and whatever there. I really thought it my duty then and that she may decide I am an OK guy anyway. That all really hurts-but I had to know the truth no matter what the cost. I think I now do.

Home in Appalachia

Waking up on a sub-zero morning here on the west bank of Susquehanna, among the ancient ridges and the valleys of the mountains beyond Blue Ridge I am home. In my last entry I tried in vain to explain my personal concept of home. Only someone who has spent his life in travels in work and play would understand. I have often joked that I have been in a plane, train, boat, or car going somewhere all of my life. Often I think it began in the now fading memories of trips with my family to Florida, the Canadian Maritimes, and Mexico as a very small child. Being to young to remember much of that in the 1950's I find my powerful memories near the place I am now.

My extended vacation on Prince Edward Island even after a few months in the past seems almost remote. The emotional voice of my Mary there, here accent and semi-inquisitive Eh? bringing me back to mackerel at my wharf in the fall, and her warmth, her cooking and simplicity. This is truly something to miss. After "having it all", I often tell those who may listen about the beauty of simplicity-true freedom sans materialism and the rush for ephemeral success among the harried and strained world.

I will from now on consider this home, the "Oriental House", as my young son might have called it, the "camp".
Son says it is much like Westline, the old inn there. Perhaps this is the southern camp and that the northern. Westline is so far north and west of here it is really beyond Appalachia in some sense. This is remarkably similar to the interior of PEI, without the forever nearby sea. Not so much the French "Up West" there, more like "Out east" near the stunningly beautiful country near East Point and North Lake. There when the weather is right, the Cape Breton highlands can be seen. From the sea the mountains at the end of this chain meet the ocean. That is an unforgettable scene, especially as to my first trip there with my family around 1960, and later trips with wife 2.

My fellow campers here are Jason who is a railroad supervisor. He is suffering a painful divorce in his mid-30's and here we have commonality. The other pair of residents are the "sons of Dixie" as I call them. Seemingly forever travellers from the deep south, they are working temporarily near Harrisburg. The whole crew speak in a charming drawl and show the scars of a less than satisfactory life. The pair are father and son that I suspect are on the trail together out of real need, but there is simple bonding there that is touching. It saddens me as I feel lost as I hear them talking quietly for hours at night in their bunks with a closeness which for years has eluded me for years with my own children. Of course I have my trips with Joey to Arizona's rim, and Westline. Both kids to the fish hatchery in Huntsdale, and my one trip with them to Island Beach Park, New Jersey. It was there I have a photograph of my father on the beach, with me. It was his last trip to that special place before he left us.

There is the single trip I took with my daughter to Pittsburgh in 2006. She was still a little girl then. But no more.

Today is Friday and some locals may gather. We play an odd gambling game at the rustic little bar-much like the Pine Tree Inn of old. We pass a box of dice and lie about our scores and bet a quarter. I guess that's called "liars poker". I am not very good at it.

The deadline approaching with Mary for a return, the elusivity of my children, and my sisters problems place my decisions on "place" outside soulful serenity. Yes, where your heart is. But when it is scattered to the winds, all points nearly of any reachable place, I must find root in the solace of memory. But perhaps the constant chase, as my mother asked "what am I running from?", was rooted in the travels she and my father provided before I can remember. Always happier with any new vista and mission, no matter how painful, I now must decide on a home for an extended period. The questions are beyond resolution today. But it is only Friday. The weekend at Turkey Ridge and Ox Mountain, Appalachia.

Mid-Winter Deep Freeze

I note today that the weather here today is almost the same as PEI-but without the constant brutal winds and sea-effect snow. Have been a bit under the weather and perhaps settling after a bit of a virus, but it is almost gone now. Jason made chicken and dumplings for the camp after his grandmothers recipe. It was quite good. Almost like mom's but he uses no vegetables.

An email came from Joey today. He likes his social sciences classes as I did as a young lad. He said he is free Saturday and may come up with his girl and her son, with her parents permission. So be it.

Mary and I talked a while this evening. We have this decision date of February. If I am not back by then we are to "break up". I barely feel I have had enough time to decide if the kids are OK yet. Maybe I didn't mention that I got a call from a headhunter that wanted me in Iraq NOW. They had already started my paperwork for a 14 month deployment. After talking to Mary and my son (who both broke down), I declined the "opportunity".

Miss Mary but I am not leaving here yet. If it takes more time so be it. I am afraid that she could be the right one, but the kids have to come first at this time. I actually think Mary doesn't believe that I am coming home. The entire concept of "home" has become so vague to me at this point its non-resolvable.

I have sacrificed for a sweet embrace for many years only to lose the very foundations of my own being. It will not happen again. You see, its choice between home, and "home home". An elusive definition.

No mail from anyone else in Canada-that one I think now after a last nasty attempt at extortion has given up-my ultimate sentence for not rolling over this time is eternal silence. A German tradition-to be "shunned", or as in the Becker/Konig familiy "to be disowned".

It is railroad ties. That means that one Becker Uncle didn't pay the other Uncles about 10 bucks for railroad ties on the prairie 40 years ago. The debtor Uncle was dis-owned and died alone in a trailer somewhere near Grover, Colorado. Dead of being "shunned". Shel always predicted that fate for me. She has worked hard to accomplish that. Oddly enough I am still on vacation, wondering what it would be like to live life guiltless, admitting no wrong at any time. It might be paradise-until the balloon bursts.

Oriental

So I write again. Here at the base of Turkey mountain I am home. Long last. The wood stove heats and my son and I just ate a 20 inch trout I found under a covered bridge by the house. And the Amish. All around they confirm but do not really satisfy my curiosity of the simple and plain life.

Many unpleasant mails from my distant non wife. Quiet. In the Appalachians we have quiet. Maybe beyond the island. I hope to make a study of this culture.

Joey my son was here today. Only 30 miles north of Harrisburg but a different world. I need time to learn this place and my son, my daughter.

The fact that I caught an amazing trout less than a mile away is telling. The little rural bar on the hill seems sad after the step dancing of my island life. I will wait.

The mountains here abound with game. And soon the warmth will return and I shall fish the streams of youth-and new places.

My dads guns now adorn the wall. Soon to be used again.

Weekend after Christmas 2008

I had better blog a bit while I still have easy Internet access. It would be odd to go back to writing in a clandestine paper book, perhaps never to be seen or read again. Not that these are widely read as to the boring routine of my life, and my painfully journalistic style. So be it. In fact I really do tell most all on line, making my life an open book. My immortality on this world.

Joey called around noon on Saturday morning. I had run out to look at a house in Pinetown Friday morning, and it rained overnight. The house may work out, but the truck hated the cold damp rain and fog and stubbornly refused to start. Joey arrived here around 1 to get me. We loaded the fishing gear and a few things and went back to the Bradley Drive house to spend the weekend. Rhonda had gone to West Chester to be with Ed and we had my old home to ourselves. We ate, talked. Alexis is going through tough but predictable teenage relationship issues, both with her NJ boyfriend and with her needy friends. Joey admitted he was stressed by school, work, his car, and his mother. Thrust into the world without all of the pre-training and support I had, he is scared at times.

I need to show them all the love and support I can-too little too late, to be sure. But required of me as much as anything Ever has been, and probably much more. Some of Joey's friends came to jam in the basement. I had live music for a bit. Guitars and drums experimentally as only lonely teenage boys play. It brought back memories of those years. They are good kids. We watched Star Trek and I think those young men were surprised. They got it, at least some of it. We were all up to late. Sunday, everyone planned to go to the Colonial Park Mall. I wanted to go fishing, and it was 60 degrees, but Joey wanted to meet his girl and her son there. So we went there, ate mall teriyaki chicken, and socialized. Alexis and I went off to shop as she wanted to get a sexy outfit for her trip this week to New Jersey. I must admit some unusual and new emotions taking my 16 year out for a skimpy red dress and VERY high heel black shoes. Lord, she must be 6 foot three in them. She has lost weight and is so skinny she could easily compare to the ultra thin models everyone oohs about. I am concerned, but at this juncture can only give all of my support and advice when I can, or invited too. It is a new world. But not altogether unfamiliar.

I felt out of sync at the mall. The culture, people, glitter odd to me. This bustling glamorous place so reversed from our sad little mostly empty mall in Summerside. As a prisoner newly released to the real world after years in a solitary cell I was. The quiet quaintness of my other "home". The manners, the soft lilt of my Mary's island accented voice. I might have been scared, as if in a bad dream state that comes during a fever. Bright unhappy images of excess and loss, then the dark, restless sleep after a waking sweaty feverish flash of images.

The time is moving past so swiftly now its visceral. I feel the moments clicking by, like an old camera.

We were all tired after the mall day. I watched "Iron Man" with the kids at home and we had pizza. I felt fed, loved, and relaxed. Maybe even as the kids agreed for the first Christmas in many years.

This morning we got up late again. I sensed tension in Joey as it was the day to pick mom at the train station and clean before her return. I could feel the fear. But he made time to get gas, stop in Dauphin for worms and head on out to Clark's Creek. It was cool, sunny, and serene in our woods. I had forgotten my boots and heavy winter shirt. My feet were wet and cold and I loved it. Joey has been trying to film our adventures, but the camera battery is intermittent. We fished an hour or so. I caught a fall fish and a small wild brook trout a la Thundershower Run-Westline. Joey's reel fell off his rod (my rod of 35 years, now his) and he was a bit upset. We took a time dragging the stream, successfully, with a stick for the reel. An old Mitchell 408. I wasn't leaving that antique gem at the bottom of the creek, even if as it seems, we are the only fisherman ever there.

We went back home and I fried the small trout in butter and the three of us shared it. That was good.

Finally, I helped Joey clean up as Alexis got ready for work at her costume-shop mall job. She thinks she may get fired. She has been late and they are unhappy. I told her to find another job. She has to work as mom won't share any of the child support money with her. The girl hardly eats and has to buy her own clothes-you see, that is why I resisted support payments all those years. Yes, exactly.


Joey brought me back and all was OK here on Canterbury drive. My hostess announced that "the police are coming". I asked, "for me?, jokingly. No she said. During her cruise (last week and then some), someone broke into her safe and stole 5000 in cash and her morphine supply. I felt bad for the officer. The young ex-marine took the report, searched my room, shook my hand and left. It really was a bit much. Obviously, the kid who "takes care" of her who had all the keys would be my suspect. I always knew something was wrong after the "pot pie" incident and the trip to New York and the gas money caper.


All is calm now and it will be good to go to the other house-the serenity peace and welcome boredom of Pinetown. We will see.


I talked to Mary for a long time. She was emotional, sweet, upset and lonely. But strong. Strong as pain loss and faith make a strong woman. She is counting the seconds until I walk into the Wing, her house, or her arms. I honestly told her I just don't know if and when. Both children are asking me to stay here, this home, this universe. I must wait and see if it is still valuable to them after they return to school work, and the relationships.
For me the decision is do I make the sacrifice of a chance with a truly great lady on the island to be here. I sure sacrificed everything for Shel, not without pain , as I thought it was the right thing to do, and eventually we would all be a family again.



I must stabilize here and hope the decision on whom to hurt will appear. Perhaps its time for me to be there for them on their terms. But what of my Mary, and my island. That could be my most and final chance at peace and love in paradise. But what of the hearts of my own blood? I hope time tells me the truth this time.