You've Been Warned, Maybe

Up around where I live, and dotting the countryside for a long way around these parts, there are tall poles bearing giant sirens. These are to let us know when if the nuke plant about 20 miles from here goes plooey (although science tells me that it would be somewhat louder, more like kwa-THOOM). We’ll, uh, we’ll hear these sirens, the theory goes, and then we’ll know…when…to start panicking.

Not much of a plan, if you ask me.



We’re more or less upwind of the thing, so there are no guarantees that when the plant goes we’ll be in any real danger (apart from the zombies lurching northward from the site of the blast, thirsting for the untainted blood and radiation-free brains of the living). On the other hand, the Highlands have a tendency to suck air into the valley and hang on to it (specializing in bad air with tiny particles that trigger asthma).

Either way, those sirens are there on their poles, just to let you know that you’re within 20 miles of a clean, safe time bomb energy source. Every few days (it seems) they announce a test. “We’re going to test the sirens,” they say, “so everyone listen for something unfamiliar that sounds like a warning.” There are two sirens within a mile of my house. I’ve found that I tend to cock my head to the side, maybe cup an ear. So for a few days after each announcement my neighbors and I walk around cupped and cocked—sorry, is there something you want to share with the rest of the readers? good, let’s continue—shushing people, listening for a sound we’ve never heard before.

Do this long enough and it provides your nerves with a much-needed stretch. On the downwind side of the plant, the government hands out potassium iodine pills to residents. Apparently once you hear the siren, you can pop a few of these pills and your lymph nodes will take up the potassium iodine instead of the radioactive material drifting your way, thus sparing you from that particular form of cancer. On that side of the river after a warning, they walk around cupped and cocked and nervously rattling pill bottles. At the plant, inspectors find radioactive water in little puddles. Sometimes in the control rooms there are fires.

But a few days pass, and invariably there is not a peep. Not long after we don’t hear something there’ll be a small item on page nine of the paper that says “Sirens Fail Again.” That still doesn’t mean they for-sure didn’t go off. There’s some possibility that they sounded, but that the unfamiliar warning resembled a car door slamming, or someone’s dog barking, or crows bickering over a carcass.

Shh.



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Haliaeetus can wait

Today the children and I drove this big loop, about forty miles, on the trail of eagles; down one side of the river, across, up the other side, across again. We were the only people outside, and that for just a few foolish minutes at a park in Peekskill near the train station. We stood facing the water, looking upriver in the direction of the Worragut and World's End, into the teeth of a hellacious north wind that drove whitecaps into breakers into the shore a hundred feet before us.

Flickr had told me to look there for eagles. Why do I listen to the Internet?

It was an arctic wind, too, twenty degrees, like Skadi’s own air conditioner. In the first minute the kids mounted an enthusiastic assault on the vast Structure-for-Play that's there beside the water, but the lad was hunching into his coat and the lass was crying before very long. My instincts told me that they were learning valuable life lessons through suffering. Except I was also freezing my ass off, so I let them get back in the car. Eagles be damned.

I'm a desperate tour guide on such excursions, rushing to tell my son everything I can about the world, as though there won't be enough time, as though I want to fill him up and leave none of his knowledge to chance. So I babble. Every stray memory, landmark, historical or scientific fact sparked by the landscape comes out. "You remember there we attended the Shad Fest, and the precision skydivers from West Point came down? You met Robert Kennedy there. You were one." He's thinking about air hockey, and how thirsty he is. "That's Breakneck Ridge. I climbed most of it with Uncle Larry once. I couldn't finish because I was too heavy and out of shape. That's Bannerman's Castle, but the island is also called Pollopel." He knows this, knows it was an ammo dump. He's seen it on Google Earth.

We pull over in Cold Spring, looking north through the Wind-Gate between Storm King and Breakneck. Route 218 cuts across Storm King's face. It's the northernmost of the Highland peaks on the west side of the Hudson, to our far right as we face the river from a parking lot near some condos. Strung out to the south are similarly rocky, majestic peaks, directly across the narrow fjord. There are no eagles, but they'd look right against those icy cliffs. We sit there a minute. The little one is sucking her thumb, eyelids heavy.

"What's that, like, path across Storm King?" the boy asks from the back seat. I tell him it's a road. There's a pause. "It looks like a lizard," he says.

"What does?" I turn to see what he's talking about.

He's talking about the entire ten-mile swath of the visible Highlands on the west bank of the river. He explains, starting with the head, Storm King, and its slash of a mouth, then the Crow's Nest forming the back, Target Point a forelimb. The ridge declining southward is a tail where it descends toward West Point. Of course it's obvious, once he points it out. Lizard, check.

We have different frames of reference, different senses of scale. He has no problem with a ten-mile-wide canvas. There's nothing so giant that it can't be made into something familiar and small. He's unspoiled by any notion of his own insignificance. On that we agree; he and his sister are the central objects in our landscape. Their small forms bear Jupiter's gravity and the encoded wisdom of generations. How can I possibly teach them anything?

Later, at home, he asks me if a crocodile is as big as a school bus. "No," I lie, knowing that some salt-water crocodiles are longer than the bus he takes to kindergarten. He clarifies. "No," he says. "Not end to end. I mean, could a crocodile eat a schoolbus."

Ah. "No," I tell him. "Absolutely not."


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The Eagles Are Coming! The Eagles Are Coming!

Actually, they’re already here, at least two of them, over down there by Camp Smith. The other morning, one, a juvenile I think, was wheeling low over the water where you cross the Jan Peek Bridge. Stopped at the light, I looked around for others and saw a burly, white-headed grownup perched on a tree on the slope just above the road, so that it was about fifty feet over the crowd of cars stopped three ways at the light. As far as I could see, I was the only driver craning my neck forward and up, and the otherwise secret juxtaposition of the mighty symbol of American dominance with the scrum of commuters wishing they didn’t have to go contribute to the wellbeing of the homeland this one day, was funny.


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Impspulse Control

They say you should never go shopping when you're hungry, and I say you should never make large, hard-to-retract decisions during the holiday season. Or on a Sunday night. That's when the hunger is there, for me -- nothing but devils on my shoulders and an additional small one on my head having Cheetos, all of them suggesting new life paths, new detours, Big Changes. None of them looking at a spreadsheet with monthly expenses on it or this year's healthcare spending or the Ten Year Vision or any such thing.

No, they're more likely to be trading ideas about opening a brewery or visiting the Arctic or finishing a novel--and not just FINISHING a novel, but sitting down tomorrow and doing NOTHING ELSE until it's done. And I would believe them, it would be Art, it would be me following my passion, except that the devils only come visit when nothing else seems like a good idea. Where are they when I'm having my raisin bran before work, or while I'm paying the bills or getting the kids up in the morning? They're not around then, when convincing me would take effort, take commitment. They're the worst kind of foul-weather friends--the kind who goad you into breaking something the day after you get dumped and who drive away when the cops come, or who cheer you up with vodka but only till your money runs out.

So instead of listening to that kind of horseshit, I'm spending an hour a day before work assembling a glass sphere, copper tubing, electrodes, a bait pan and a bamboo cage hung from a silver wire to create a trap for the little fuckers. And every holiday season and every Sunday night I'm going to hang it near the cat box and put a few Deferred Hopes and Momentary Discomforts into the bait pan and wait. When one of the little red guys flits down onto that soggy mass, ZAP.

Once I've stunned a few and have the cage full, into the river they'll go, and I can go back to methodically finishing my writing projects.



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The Great Reveal

It seems very long ago—a long, long time ago—that I wrote of the Big Concealment, and now we've come again to the Great Reveal. When the bones of the land are laid bare, and the first snowfalls limn (come ON, you've got to love "limn") earth's contours. You can see your neighbor's house and the smoke from his chimney, but it doesn't make you want to move, à la Daniel Boone...no, it makes you want to split wood and twist newspaper and make a fire your own self, settle in with a book.

The fog lifts from the highlands in the morning and as it does you can see through the trees at the edge of the road, across the river, to the rocks on the hills on the far bank etched in snow.

In the afternoon, of course, it's all hid, because the time's all screwy. And also the windows at the coffee shop down the street steam up. On Fridays there's live music there and open mic nights and poetry and steamed milk, and all that humanity clumping up turns the thing into a single soft white lightbulb, electric and steamy as you drive past, home.


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Just in case

There's snow on my windshield this morning, so I thought I'd post early in case I get home late and am too beat. And because I had to dash out and get a turkey cutlet for the lad's school project (don't ask -- we also had to get monkey blood), I can only do this, from when we planted trees:





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Crossing that bridge (when I come to it)

If there's one thing that can make you think about your place in the universe, and also death, and also your very own, inevitable (but far off! we hope!) death, it's...take a guess what I'm going to say. Okay, don't guess. Commuting.

Specifically, this week a deck-truss bridge I cross every day, as mentioned earlier, was found to have cracks in its underbits, serious enough that they needed to be fixed immediately. Another bridge of this type recently fell into the Mississippi River. Mine, a lovely red (not rusty, but more like a burgundy color) arch, crosses the Popolopen Creek Gorge. Narrower than the Mississippi. But a longer drop.

The state decided not to close the bridge, and I decided that bridge collapses are pretty rare and that the fear of death was a dumb reason to add thirty minutes to my commute, and I've been crossing it since. In fact, I stopped yesterday, crossed back over, got out, and took that picture from it (scroll down). Because it won't fall.

But every time I drive over it, guess what I think about. Okay, don't guess. Collapsing.

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Written 9/11/06

The day was diamond-clear, warm where there was sun and cool where there wasn't. No clouds. That was then, and that was today too. This morning my route took me onto a boat across the river, facing into the sun where it rose over the mountain. On the far shore, I entered my train and we followed the waterway south.

The hijackers had done this too; from the north this river is a signpost to the metropolis at its mouth. It gave the city life with its downward flow and betrayed it by revealing its location to its enemies that day. They navigated by its winding path and sped over its waters to strike.

My watch revealed that I would arrive at the station at the same moment the first plane reached its target, and as I looked at landmarks passing, I could only imagine the jetliners coursing over the wavelets on that clear day. Past the nuke plant. Over the bridges. Through the highlands. Despoilers.

Stepping off the train at the terminal I heard an announcement that it was 8:46. Traffic slowed and stopped. A hush fell. A minute. Mostly silent, mostly still, we stood. Reflected. Waited, perhaps, for the next beat of that fell drum. Missed people. Missed the innocent tides and clear waters of that diamondlike morning which seems so long ago now.

And the minute passed, and we went on into our city.


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Look out, goats, I'm on the move

Each day my commute takes me over something we apparently call the "Goat Trail," a snaky portion of NYS Route 6 that bounds its way around Anthony's Nose and south above the east bank of the Hudson, rising and falling and lurpling and slappelling (those are specific types of curving manoeuvres) as it heads down toward Peekskill. I was surprised to note that everyone calls it the Goat Trail—when I tell people from around here that I work in Westchester, they all ask whether I take the Tappan Zee or the Goat Trail.

I take, of course, the Goat Trail.

Had I known that my eventual route was to be called the Goat Trail, I would have quit my job in New York much earlier and just started commuting over it anyway, with the job as a secondary consideration.

Someone else's photo. That's the Goat Trail to the right of the bridge, blarkling up the mountain:



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The Meeting I Made

Truly friends, have things changed. Among the many ills brought about by commuting is the fragmentation of communities that disproportionately depend on long commutes for their economy. Where I live, where the average commute runs someplace in the 90-minute range (which usually means New York City), there's really no way that anyone wants to come home after such a slog and figure out how to attend the library board meeting, the school night, the church concert, etc. As County Planning Commissioner David Church put it:
"People just can't make the commitment," says Church, who notes that many towns — and his department — schedule meetings later and later, hoping for better attendance. All that time commuting is a big reason why volunteer fire departments and ambulance corps from Blooming Grove to Bloomingburg are hurting for members. "Communities lack the connectedness. It's less of a democracy."


That was my lot for the last four years. Last month, I changed jobs, and changed commutes....

And this evening, at a very civilized 7:30, my wife and I sat down in the Hamptonburgh Town Hall to hear the Orange County Water Authority's presentation on the regional impacts of climate change. The keynote speaker was Dr. Patrick Kinney of Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, who summarized a recent report on climate change projections for the northeast. The host was Simon Gruber, head of the Water Authority and on every local green's rolodex. And I had the pleasure of saying hello to Mr. Church, who continually advocates for smart development in the county.

It was precisely the meeting I wanted to attend, to feel like part of the space up here, to listen to people who knew something about the air I breathe and the water I drink and who understand how to keep those things working properly. But it was time that allowed it.


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A Different Take

The new commute takes me (by car) over the river on the Bear Mountain Bridge, then into the wild roads of northern Westchester. It's interesting; there are ways to go that don't involve big highways and multilane clogs. This morning, with a little extra time, I pulled into a scenic overlook not far from the bridge and wondered if my former train was passing below. There were signs of eagles.



See? Signs, of eagles.

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You Set Me Up

Because I don't talk enough about my commute, I've decided to take one photo per day of one of its best features. I suspect I'll get a maximum of 12 shots of ol' Storm King, as that commute ends on Wednesday. But here you go, click for the Flickr set:



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Introducing: Storm King Adventure Tours

Not far from where I live, a new business opened up this spring. As of last night, they've got a website. Welcome SKAT. Do you like kayaking? Do you like Hudson River Valley Kayaking Tours? Do you like Hudson River Valley Hiking and Mountain Biking Adventure Tours? Do you like how subtly I'm putting keywords about kayak tours and kayaking and hiking and mountain biking into this post and linking it to Storm King Adventure Tours? Do you think I'm some kind of traffic pimp? Well.

Storm King Adventure Tours, the Orange County New York mid-Hudson region's best outdoor adventure tour outfitter, is a really cool place if you like the outdoors. There's lots of open space in this area, and they capitalize on it. Check 'em out if you get up this way. And yes, yes, please tell them I sent you.

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Shad!

Okay, this one you can eat. Alosa sapidissima (“the tastiest herring”) begin their spawning run up the rivers of the east coast when the water hits 40 degrees or so, which means that early spring becomes shad time. Shad!

Subject of John McPhee’s Founding Fish, storied savior of the revolutionaries at Valley Forge, mascot of the Hudson River revival, society dish on Park Avenue and at countless riverfront parties, Thoreauvian metaphor, favorite of sport and commercial fishermen alike, the long-suffering and noble shad is, first and foremost, really really yummy. It’s like no other fish I’ve ever had; baked, its flesh rises and opens up, revealing incredibly rich flavors (no doubt the result of a high fat content in the skin, and hey a little butter never hurt anyone) that work exceptionally well with lemon juice and a few capers. Its roe, well — “whug,” as a wise person once said. I’ve only cooked shad roe twice, both times dredged in a little seasoned cornmeal and pan-fried, and again with the butter and capers and lemon juice, which, you know, hlurm. You have some — and you don’t need much, just two ounces maybe — and you’ve done everything your tastebuds might reasonably have requested of you, and then some. You can pray to this mighty fish, but don’t forget to eat it, too.

The catches declined for long years and then recovered vigorously in, I think, the late 90s and early 00s. Apparently they were on the downswing again around 03; not sure of current status, although my fish guys seemed to have no problem getting it the last two years. If you’re on the east coast (and in some areas of the west coast, where introduced populations have taken hold in some Pacific-draining rivers), hie thee to your fishmonger and ask for it by name. To my Loire Valley readers, I think you can get it too, but I don’t know its name there. Here? Shad!

Note: get bones removed professionally.

I mention this because early today I glanced out the window of the train to see a solitary fisherman at one end of a long string of floats stretched perpendicular to the tide. There was mist on the glassy river and there were low clouds above the valley. The brume over the western hills was pink-tinged in its upper reaches. And somewhere downstream perhaps, the silver-sided legions of intrepid oceangoers were heading home.

To my home, anyway. Yum.


Recipies.

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Frigidaire

1) The Newburgh-Beacon ferry's out again. Propellers dinged and bent from the ice. They're getting the boat fixed tomorrow, but will probably cancel the run until the ice clears.

2) The ground around our house -- all of it -- is coated by a thick layer of slick frozen snow. It's as hard as concrete and as slippery as a Calphalon lawyer.


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Seeing the Shadow

Dennis the Skunk trundled purposefully along the bank of the Quassaick. The days of warm weather had lured him out of the den, that first scent of spring knocking at the doors and calling him forth. Winter’s not gone, he thought as the dusk descended, but it had rained, and the rain was working its way into the soil and loosening the grip of the cold. The water was high. Dennis left tracks in the sand near the creek mouth where it opened into the Hudson.

Upstream, unheard, a chunk of ice broke free from the bank, carrying with it a four-inch-thick tree limb with a cruelly hooked and broken fork. Dennis, nose-deep in a hollow carved out by the stream, looking for something tender to eat, didn’t see it coming. It caught him by the hind leg and swept him into the flood. He swam for a moment, but was lost. All that night a vicious wind blew, and the day dawned frigid.

Tonight, as our ferry crossed from Beacon to Newburgh, half a mile from either shore, the unmistakable aroma of skunk took over the cabin.



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