There is beauty in a woods after a snow, when the branches are draped in white. The snow absorbs sound most effectively, so that the soft crush of snowshoes disappears as if into a void. The smallest audio gestures are lost immediately and the louder have no echo. I keep the dog close knowing she will not hear me should she stray too far.
It is said the Inuit have many words for snow, each one differentiating frozen particles of bi-hydrogen oxide based upon its type and quality. In Vermont we simply add adjectives to snow – wet, dry, fluffy, etc. Sugar snow stands alone as a distinct phenomenon. It takes its name because it typically occurs during sugaring season – the cold nights and warm days that makes the maple sap run in the spring.
Sugar snow comes down thick and fast, when the temperature is near freezing, hauling down in large flakes that saturate the air. It is high in moisture, so that it sticks to everything it lands upon. The result is a winter wonderland with everything covered in in a white mantle.
Last night came a sugar snow and the morning walk up the hill was through a quiet beauty. A light breeze came up, causing occasional clumps to fall through the branches creating small cascades. Sugar snow breathes the beauty of winter and the promise of spring in the same breath. It deserves to have its own name.
Our home has a nice well. It doesn’t have massive gallons per minute, but it tastes good, is soft enough, and doesn’t have any nasty chemical contamination. It began surging recently.
It was obvious filling the toilet bowl – water entering faster, slower, faster, slower. It became apparent in the shower and at the kitchen sink. The water source is in Gizzo’s Crucible, House of Horrors, or workshop (depending on your attitude toward a chaotic work space). There was a box on the wall, clicking with each surge, so every few seconds a click.
Yikes! What ever should Gizzo do? Gizzo called Pelch.
Pelch is the kind of guy who seems to know something about everything. He is a wondrous, giving font of information who does not hesitate to come running when called upon. Everyone should know a Pelch-type person – funny, joyful, inquisitive… This one was easy – he answered Gizzo’s email.
Pelch said that he had the same problem, called a friend in the water filtration business who told him that wells are not part of his part of the business, so call Spafford and Sons. ”They put in a new well pump for me and solved the problem.”
Gizzo called and soon BJ and Chase showed up with a new pressure tank.
“Pressure tank? You sure its the pressure tank?”
It seems the big blue bottle has a bladder in it. The bladder makes the water go up into the house from the basement. That compression keeps the well pump from running all the time. The old blue bottle had a hole in the bladder, so the pump was struggling to keep up. Good pump – bad tank.
Here is a picture of BJ & Chase contemplating installing the new pressure tank.
It looked as if the old tank was installed around the time of the Civil War. BJ would try to unscrew something and something would break, so try to unscrew that and the next thing failed. Broken pressure gauge, new capacitor, “T” fitting …. It took three hours for these intrepid young men to complete the task.
We have nice consistent pressure now, no mud in the water, maybe even a teeny tiny bit more pressure. Another positive – Gizzo had to move a pile of rubble in order for the new tank to be installed. Yay! More space in the Crucible. At least until the stuff moved out has to go back in…
Contemplating the abusive use of single use plastic, Gizzo says it must end. Gizzo supports legislation limiting its use. Gizzo is disgusted so many people thoughtlessly use and dispose of plastic. It is everywhere.
Seriously, plastic is made from petroleum, one of the major causes of war. People suffer and die so we may wrap our food in plastic. Money is diverted from use for the common good in order to keep the world safe for oil.
Plastic is a huge environmental catastrophe – harvestng the oil, transporting it, and then turning it to plastic for what – a convenient shopping experience? Plastic clogs our oceans, fills our landfills,and is breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces entering, the food chain. We must stop this madness.
At home we reduce its use as much as possible. Just don’t use it, don’t take it, don’t buy it. We reuse the vegetable bags at the grocery until they are contaminated or wearing out, then they see final service as a “doggy bag” when the canine does her duty. Our garbage bags are the plastic bags that food comes packaged in. Recycle? Reuse? Hell, yes.
Gizzo has long been bothered by the little bits of plastic, the stuff under two inches in any two dimensions, which cannot be recycled. What to do with that?
My solution is to use a milk carton or some other useless container as a collection point for the little bits of plastic otherwise headed for the trash. Once the carton is filled, I’ll seal it up and trash it, sequestering the small bits so they cannot roam free in the environment. (Full disclosure: In Vermont we can avoid milk cartons by buying milk in returnable bottles, but sometimes revert to the carton out of expediency. No one is perfect)
It is a small thing, but if we all do the small things it will help – and we need all the help we can get. Gizzo does not care that masses of people are stupidly unconcerned about single-use plastic. Gizzo does not care that huge corporations like Amazon waste it shipping things in too-big boxes.
I grew up with a psychotic, abusive step-mother, my father was king of the three martini lunch & most of the time when he was there, he really wasn’t. Not a nurturing situation.
I was fortunate to fall in with a misfit high school rock band, despite the fact that I didn’t play an instrument. I became the wanna be, hanger on friend who would gather bits and pieces of equipnment and record the band, creating pop up studios when someone’s parents went out of town. Robert, Stewart, Toad, Ben and others would lend a sympathetic ear and offer lodging during the frequent times I would run away from “home.”
The day I turned 18 I left for good. Pillo took me in and I shared his bedroom, sleeping on the couch for the few months remaining until I graduated high school. We bought a 64 Chevy wagon, got a cat (hiya Fred), and set the car up with what we needed to hit the road. We stopped when we hit the ocean in Los Angeles, staying with his brother Sam and making jewelry for him.
It was a formative time, both of us running from dysfunctional families; me from an overbearing lunatic micromanaging a colonial museum of a home, him from a dysfunctional alcoholic mother largely absent from the mayhem of a giant house filled with children raising themselves. We talked of all things, wandering together through astrology, astral projections and music. We found agreement in music (at least some of it) but parted ways on the more mystical subjects.
What we had through our disagreements was an unshakable faith in each other, unshakable mutual support, and an ability to communicate. We shared many joys and many trials. Hours were spent in discussion and debate, sitting together, smoking cigarettes, hashing out the nature of reality and how to deal with it.
We went swimming in the St. Croix river between Wisconsin and Minnesota. The current took Ben and he called for help. I swam toward him and when I got there he did what I learned most people do when they are fearful of drowning; he climbed on top of me, scrambling to get out of the water. I took a breath and went under. Fortunately I touched bottom & could push off toward the shore. Take a breath, go under, push. Rinse and repeat. We got lucky that day, Ben & I.
Then there was the time we were stranded in Montana for a weekend with a leaking radiator, broke, with nothing but cat food, Tang and peanut butter. He got money wired from from Sam on Monday, bought solder and a propane torch, then he found that leak and plugged it. We made the run across the desert at night to avoid overheating, and slammed into the lights of Reno just before dawn. Ben had a mechanical aptitude that wasn’t obvious at first, but bloomed throughout his life, fixing old televisions, toasters and who knows what all.
LA was a great experience. We spent many nights talking and tripping, listening to music, working and wandering. By fall we both knew it was not for us and we returned to the Motor City. More philosophy ensued and it became clear that we had very different agendas, very different approaches to life, but we remained close.
That Chevy wagon had a big empty tub under the floor in the back where the third seat option would go. It was very handy for carrying cargo and leave space in the bed for a mattress. That way one could drive while the other slept. Once we filled it full of people to go to a drive in movie. Ben curled up in the tub to get in free.
He bought a Karmann Ghia, planning another road trip west from Detroit. It had bad brakes and he needed to get it to our slum-shack rental to fix it for the trip. “Sure, I’ll get it there,” I said. It was a wild ride because it really had no brakes, but I got it there. He fixed it, then off he went, “Abandoning it out west,” as Dylan sang. Eventually he returned.
We had a house in Oak Park, sharing it with several others, working at a Tulsa Gas station. The staff included many of our friends. Toad, Von Loon, Bruno, Stew… eventually the entire staff consisted of our high school rock & roll family and various other sympathetic high school chums. I was working with Ben on one shift & I can still see him sitting on the safe, swinging his legs, bouncing his feet rhythmically, “John, I think I’m in love with your sister.”
Somewhere in there we shared a house near I-75 in Madison Heights. I was working in a bike shop & Ben began to paint. He said that it was better to paint than to be in a band because, “You don’t have to rely on anyone else to make art. You don’t have to put up with someone else’s bullshit.” I could see what he was going to put on canvas as he did it. We had a strong connection.
Brenda didn’t have any love interest in Ben at first, but she went west with him platonically to escape Detroit. She had been trying to escape for years and finally did once she graduated high school. It took awhile, but eventually that platonic orbit became a union of two & they bought 40 acres of trees on the dark side of a mountain near Sandpoint, Idaho. They homesteaded, built a house that was not so good, built another up the hill from it and put a goat in the old one. Then a bear got the goat.
We didn’t see much of each other after that. I went west for their wedding, went again for my brother’s wedding and went a third time for a few weeks in winter where we had a great visit, talking about their 55 Chevy truck, a 2-speed kick back Schwinn and Ben’s attempt to create a carburetor that would deliver over 100 miles per gallon. I got to bond with their daughter, Keri. It was a time I will always treasure.
They said I could come anytime and build a house on their land. That generous offer kept me sane through many trials. Just knowing that I had the option of disappearing into the Idaho woods was enough to prevent any thoughts of suicide in those dark days. I am grateful they helped me to survive.
We never reconnected after that. They had a son, then they drifted apart. I could say that I lost him in the divorce, but that’s not quite accurate. Time, distance, and other interests interceded as so often happens between people. We grew apart.
I heard stories about him from time to time, stories that were hard to reconcile with the Ben I knew. I’m glad I have the memories I have, without being encumbered by the details of the actions he took later in life. I always felt he had a dark inner torment, but I never pushed him for the details. I simply enjoyed the Ben he presented, and I’m fortunate to have journeyed with him into adulthood.
A couple of years ago we had our ceiling caulked, sealed and insulated. It made a huge difference in the comfort of our home. Good thing – the odds that we live here long enough to pay for the work, even with a low-interest energy efficiency loan, is slim indeed. The good news it that we met Mike D from Sisler Builders who did the work.
Last year I contacted him about the ceiling in our living room. Not their responsibility and of course, with a busy lifestyle, I neglected taking further action. Besides, we installed a wood stove in the sunroom this fall and the only time I saw the living room was to turn out a light on the way to bed.
Today while toasting bagels a drop of water fell on my head. Sadly, I was standing in the kitchen.
I tremble at the thought of soaking the insulation which was installed just a few years ago. My gut feeling is we need a new roof. We have the receipt for our 40 years guarantee shingles installed 20 years ago, but that may only be good to start a fire.
I wrote to Mike. We shall see what is next in our grand adventure of home ownership.
Writing in a journal is a thing I’ve not been successful doing in the past. I’d have given up long ago but for the influence of my daughters. Annie has journaled, and I mean this seriously, since before she could write. I can still see her sitting on the floor of the basement in Hyde Park filling pages of a notebook with lines of squiggles at age three. She is the most active journalist I know.
Julie introduced me to bullet journaling, which I never did well, but it was enough to allow me to write short bits, random thoughts, without concern for form or structure. It allowed me to write without revision. It has devolved into a book of lists, things to remember, complete and cross off. It is a “to-do” list in book form.
My friend John Cohn writes a blog. I’m not sure his motivation, but he seems to do it regularly, if not every day. He ends each post saying good night to his son Sam, who was tragically killed at a young age. Death has a way not only of changing things, but of motivating as well.
My best friend in the 1970s, Ben Silverman, fell in love with my sister Brenda. The two of them ended up in North Idaho by 1980, got married, had two children. They bought 40 acres on the dark side of a mountain and became homesteaders, cobbling together a life and a house. After a time, they divorced, Brenda staying on the property and Ben moving on, eventually to nearby Oregon.
He took up with other women, eventually one with a young daughter. Here’s where the story may become tinged with fiction. My understanding is that he and the woman split up, but the daughter stayed with Ben for a time. 10 years later, she accused him of rape and he was arrested.
That was last November. Yesterday he did not show up for the first day of his jury trial. He committed suicide.
Since then I have fluctuated between sadness and happy memories, anger and understanding. Ive reached out to Brenda and his daughter Keri, with whom I have a connection if not a relationship. They are in shock. I’m not much help, thousands of miles away, communicating by text.
I don’t know how he died. I think he was unwilling to publically stand to account for his actions, one of the subtexts of his life. I see it as a self-imposed death penalty – he knew he was guilty and decided to check out rather than spend most, if not all of the rest of his life in prison.
I’m left with random memories I haven’t thought of in years, most of them good. We were friends through high school, travelled cross-country together twice. I fished him out of the St. Croix River. We shared experiences amazing and mundane.
We lived together for a few years. For a time I supported him as he began to paint, something which became a focus of his life and which he became very good at doing.
He was a friend, a brother, a brother-in-law and a bastard. I don’t miss him, but I carry him in my heart. I’m mad for how he treated my sister. He was manipulative right to the end of his life.
Well, okI’ve felt the need to write lately and so here’s a jumping off point. It remains to be seen how long it will last.
Gizzo Bike Works 