Boo Hinkley

Recently my daughter, Joanna, shared a link on my Facebook wall, "New Ghost Tour Hits Covington Haunts." She posted,

"You might be interested in this, although you must promise not to tell me anything about it, or ever mention it in my presence. :)"

American Legacy Tours, a local company, was kicking off a new tour showcasing the haunted side of the Licking River Historic District. Which is where I live, and where Joanna grew up from age 16 until she moved out at age 21. Joanna thinks our house is haunted. Naturally, she doesn't actually want to think about it at all, especially when she comes to visit me. So while she believes this tour would interest me, she has no desire to attend it, hear anything about it, or even know that I attended it.

In 2001 I bought this turn of the century house in this beautiful neighborhood that has been described as being "reminiscent of Charleston or Savannah." I started restoring it, room by room. When we moved in, Joanna had chosen the bedroom in the very top of the house, an attic bedroom where we had decided that, back in the day, the maids had lived. There was a second staircase in the back of the house, one level leading to the attic from the second floor and another directly under it leading from the second floor down to the kitchen. The staircase the maids would have used.

It all started one day when Joanna was home from college (she was a day commuter) in between classes. It was afternoon and she was sitting in the kitchen, having just eaten a late lunch. All was quiet as she sat on a high stool studying at the island table in the middle of the room. Suddenly she heard a loud whisper, "Joanna!" coming from the direction of the back stairwell, not 10 feet away. Her immediate thought was that it was her brother Paul, but instantly remembered that he was in school (Paul is younger and was in high school at the time). The next second, she realized she was indeed very alone. This had not been the distant hiss of the furnace, the hum of the refrigerator, or a sound from the neighbors next door. She was sure it was a voice, a loud whisper, a calling of her own name in this empty house.

Her heart pounding, she stood up, grabbed her purse, her car keys, and her half-finished can of coke, and left the house. She would hang out somewhere else until it was time for her evening class. She would even go to work! (Joanna worked for her father.) Anything was better than staying in that house. Her father told her later as she was leaving work that she could come back anytime she got "scared at Mom's house!"

Joanna told me what happened later on. I surmised that perhaps one day a long time ago, a maid had tripped down the stairs while carrying a load of laundry, or an armful of cleaning supplies. I pointed out that I had almost done that myself once, and commented on the steepness and relative slipperiness of the steps. This poor maid, I ventured, had fallen to her death at the bottom of the steps, perhaps breaking her neck. Ever since, she had been a lost spirit caught in the stairwell, fated to haunt it as a ghost forever more. This would account, I continued, for how cold and drafty it is in that passage. Actually I know that it is cold and drafty in that passage because it is located on an outside wall with no heating vents nearby, and it acts as a sort of cold air return.

You might think this girl has a lively imagination, and is predisposed to jump to unlikely solutions and preternatural causes of sounds in the house. Let me just say, it could possibly be due to her own mother's vivid imagination. For I used to tease my children mercilessly with haunts, spirits, witches and ghost stories.

One day, about a month after moving in, I heard on the news that a fisherman had drown in the Licking River near the bridge to Newport. The bridge is five houses away. The story reported the facts: it was past midnight, two fishermen were fishing from a boat, they had been drinking, one decides for whatever reason to jump into the water, finds that he can't really swim, or is too drunk to swim, the other is too inebriated to save him, and he drowns.

After a respectful two minutes of feeling sorry, I immediately dismiss the tragedy and practically rub my hands together with glee. I cannot wait to tease the kids. At dinner I relate the story to them and end with my own epilogue. The fisherman's name was Boo Hinckley and having violently met his demise practically in our own backyard, he will most probably haunt our house, our yard, or at the very least the riverbank at the bottom of the yard. They look at me with big eyes, then each other, then solemnly down at their plates for a few moments, until the younger one looks up with defiance in his eyes and says, "Huh uh, Mom, you're just teasing!" He spears a piece of meat with his fork and puts it in his mouth, then adds, "You're just trying to scare us. You know there's no such thing as ghosts!" More denial than bravado, I think.

Keep in mind that my two children both skipped two years of grade school upon entering their high school where this was a normal turn of events. So they were only 14 and 16 at the time.

A few weeks later, Paul and I were home at night, and Joanna was gone for the evening. I am the piano accompanist for a church choir and had to attend a rehearsal. Before I left, I stopped in Paul's bedroom where he was doing homework to make sure he would be okay for a few hours and say goodbye. I sat on the edge of his bed and enumerated my usual instructions: Keep the doors locked, don't answer the door, don't answer the phone, don't leave the house, call the church if you need anything. His eyes didn't leave the four-inch thick American Literature book he was reading as he automatically answered, "okay" to each bidding.

I looked at him quietly for a few moments and then glanced around his room. It was then that I noticed the caked mud on the carpet, with red hair embedded in it.

"Paul, where did that come from?" I demanded, hating dirt of any kind tracked into the house.

Paul glanced at the mud, obviously noting it for the first time. "I dunno. What is it?" Back to his story. Probably Edgar Allen Poe.

Then I remembered that I had recently cut Paul's hair outside. And it had since rained. He had probably been out in the yard, stepped through the mud and his own hair trimmings and then brought it all into the house. I gasped out loud, eyes riveted on the mud. That got his attention and he finally looked up from his text book.

"Well it's mud! With red hair in it!" I point out the hair in the dried crumbles of mud and looked up at him, my eyes wide with fear. "Boo Hinckley had red hair! Hair just like yours! I think Boo Hinckley was in your room!"

I knew that at any moment Paul would put two and two together and realize that the hair in the mud was, in fact, his own hair, and that he himself had brought it into the house on his own shoes. But no. Paul just stared at it for a few seconds and then looked up, waiting for me to say, "Just kidding!" And when I didn't, he did instead. "Huh uh, Mom, you're just kidding! You're just trying to scare me!"

I shrugged and said, "I don't know! What else could it be?" I could think of many other things it could be, least of all a dead man's hair clippings in some mud from our yard. As I thought Paul would think as well. But I left it hanging and just turned and left the room saying, "Finish your homework before video games."

I returned to a quiet house. I called Paul's name and heard a muffled answer from upstairs. I went to his bedroom and looked in and saw him huddled in a fetal position on his bed under his blankets.

"Paul, what's wrong!?" I thought he was sick. I rushed in, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled back the covers from around his face. "What's the matter, are you not feeling well?" He was practically in tears.

I waited for him to answer, all the while my own fear mounting. "What's wrong?" I felt his forehead. "Did something happen while I was gone?" He clearly looked like he'd seen a ghost.

"I kept hearing these sounds downstairs. They were like clicks. And they would come and go. And I thought someone was in the house! But I was too scared to go and look. 'Cause of Boo Hinckley!"

I thought, "Kept hearing clicks? What on earth . . . " Then I remembered. My metronome, a device that tocks like a clock and is used for keeping a strict tempo while practicing music, was downstairs on the piano. It was old, left over from my college days at the music conservatory, and was a wind-up version, like you would wind a music box. Earlier in the day I was using it and found that it had been wound too tightly. In an attempt to get it "unstuck", I had left it on, knowing that it would stop and start until it unwound itself completely. It unwound itself for awhile, but then stopped altogether through the dinner hour and until I left the house. And then, almost diabolically, it waited until Paul was alone in the silent house to continue.

I felt so bad! I told Paul that it was only the metronome and tried to explain to him what had happened. He just kept mumbling about clicks and dead fishermen and mud on his carpet. I insisted over and over that I was just kidding and pointed out that it was his own hair in the mud on the carpet. Eventually he straightened up, sat up and got ready for bed. I think I must have offered him a nighttime snack of popcorn and coke or cookies and milk to make up for it all and get him feeling back to normal again. But he wasn't interested!

"Boo Hinckley?" my sister asked a few days later, when I was sheepishly retelling the tale. "Why 'Boo Hinckley', that wasn't really the fisherman's name, was it?"

"No, of course not," I said, "I forget the fisherman's real name. 'Boo' is for Boo Radley in To Kill A Mockingbird. And Hinckley is the name of that guy who shot Reagan, remember?

She just looked at me shaking her head. "You are such a mean mother, how could you traumatize your own children like that?" But she was laughing too.

That Christmas season I decorated the outside of the house in real Victorian style with swags of greenery and white lights from the eaves of the front porch. It looked so pretty from the street with the Christmas tree twinkling in the front window. Then I looked in dismay at the rest of the street. No one else decorated outside! Not one neighbor. Except the building across the street and down one. It was an even bigger fancier Victorian house, but attorneys had turned it into a law office. There was one solemn little string of lights way up in the window of the third-floor attic. This attic room was next to a tower room, which always had a bright light burning in it at night.

One evening my children and I were walking out to the car. I commented on how none of our neighbors hung lights outside. Joanna, who would celebrate Christmas year round if she could, said in disgust, "I know! You would think that with all of these pretty houses people would want to decorate them. And no one does, except that one with the odd straight string of lights up in that window!"

"Oh, don't you know about those lights up there?" I asked. "There's a story behind that."

"No, what?" they both asked.

"Well, you know that's a law firm, right? It seems there is this little retarded boy who accidentally shot his parents and killed them. So the attorneys thought instead of locking him up in juvenile detention, since he's mentally retarded, they would keep him there instead. See the light in the tower room? That's where his nurse stays. So I guess she thought it would be nice if he had a little Christmas decoration. Even if it is pathetic."

"Nuh uh, Mom! You're just making that up, that's not really true!" said Paul, always the more vocal.

"No, it is true! Why would I make up a story like that?"

Because you are an evil mother. Because you are always making up frightening tales to spook your children silly. Because you are so cruel that you delight in scaring them half to death. Lots of reasons. But instead Joanna, nowadays a research analyst, wanted facts and reliable sources.

"How do you know there's a little boy up there? Who told you?"

Without missing a beat, I replied, "Tom Schneider did."

This shut them up. Tom Schneider is a friend of mine who had been a Covington Criminal Detective and now was a US Marshall at the federal courthouse across town. He knew everything there was to know about the legal goings-on around Covington.

But Paul, who not so long ago had been hoodwinked by the Boo Hinckley tale, caught up to me as Joanna lingered and stared up at the dark window with its feeble little string of lights.

"Mom, you're really just spooking us again, aren't you?" he pleaded.

I smiled, "Yes, Paul. It's not really true, I just made it up."

But we left Joanna in the dark. Until a few days later when I noticed that every time we walked past the house, she would glance up at the window as if hoping to catch a glimpse of this pitiful little boy, locked in an attic room with a nurse in attendance, with who knew what kind of future in store for him. Or maybe she was making sure that she never saw him, thereby supporting her own theory that Mom was once again just trying to scare the living daylights out of her.

"Joanna, that story about the little boy, you know? It's not really true, I just made it up, " I confessed.

"Mom! Why do you do that!?" she was actually mad. "I really believed you when you mentioned that about Tom Schneider!"

"I know, I'm sorry." I really was.

Months later I was in a Bar & Grill with a bunch of friends comparing ghost stories. I told everyone that my kids were afraid of ghosts. Then I related some of the stories. They all laughed, but one man said emphatically, "Well, no wonder they're scared when they have Lizzie Borden for a mother!"

A few years later, I was reading the October issue of "Old House Journal" magazine and saw with delight that it had a section devoted to readers' accounts of their own ghost stories from their own old house experiences. It was before dinner and both Joanna and Paul were home, so I thought it would be great fun to entertain us all by reading the stories aloud. Of course I did.

I read through four or five and everyone seemed to be enjoying them so I started the next.

"Dear OHJ, we live in Youngstown, Ohio, and own a turn of the century four square design house located in town. It is red brick with a front porch and some stained glass in the front. The interior has hard wood floors, ceramic fireplaces, and has two staircases, one in the front of the house and one that goes down into the kitchen."

"STOP!" says Joanna suddenly. "Don't read anymore!"

"But why? This sounds exactly like our house! It will be fun!"

"I know it sounds like our house! That's my point! Remember the maid? And the back staircase? Don't read any more, I won't listen! Put it away!!"

Of course I was more curious then ever to find out what happened on this couple's back stairwell. But seeing the fright in Joanna's face, I quietly turned the page and asked if it was okay to go on with a different story.

"You and Paul can if you want. But I don't want to hear any more."

"Okay, here is one from Maine. Far, far away, I'll read that one."

I started in on the next story and was only mildly surprised when Joanna stood up and left the kitchen. I'm sure she didn't go to her attic bedroom. Or even Paul's room which faced the attic stairwell. I'm not sure where she went.

She probably went to work.

A Trilogy of Bird Tales

I went off to Maine the week of Labor Day, as I have been doing these past few years to visit my friend Ann. Ann owns a snug and comfortable little camp (summer cabin) on East Pond in the Belgrade Lakes Region. (The sunset pictured on the header of this blog was taken from her dock.)


Vacationing in Maine is my chance to do a lot of lake kayaking, some interesting hiking, enjoy my annual dose of listening to the loons calling, and catch up with Ann and her family.






Best of all, I get to lounge on the dock and not expect myself to do anything else. Coffee on the dock in the morning watching the fog lift and the wildlife scurry into their day is essential.












And then wine on the dock in the evening while witnessing some of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen is each day's highlight.



















This year I came away with three new stories, all about different birds. (Surprise, surprise)








Loons

My absolute favorite bird in Maine is the Common Loon. This duck-like bird with a distinctively-shaped black head, red eyes, and black and white checkered back has won my heart over, time and again. They carry their young on their back. The call of a loon echoing across a lake is a sound not to be missed in this lifetime. They actually have several calls, the four basic are the yodel, tremolo, hoot, and wail. The wail is the most hauntingly beautiful, used mostly at night to keep in contact with other loons, and can be heard for miles.

While kayaking on two different lakes in the first few days, I found that the loons seemed to be gathering in packs of 12 or so. Maybe they were laying plans for migration, mustering family and friends, deciding who was going where, and when, etc. Or maybe they were just being sociable before the big flight and having end of summer lake parties. When I kayak and get anywhere near a loon, I silently stalk it. Being a very elusive bird, though, just when you think you are quietly gliding close enough for a great picture, they dive under the surface leaving you stupidly scanning 360 degrees of empty water until 30 or more seconds later, when they cunningly surface somewhere far away. In other words, loons are always swimming away from you.
















One evening as Ann and I were watching a sunset which we thought wasn't going to amount to much, but ended up being astoundingly beautiful as the clouds and light morphed it continuously into different color palettes, we noticed a dozen loons offshore about 100 yards. Even though they were so far away, I took a picture since I was snapping shots with wild abandon at the changing light.

Then one of us started a long and funny narrative, which took our attention away from everything except the story at hand, and set us both laughing, giggling, and, as Ann later insisted, cackling.

I think cackle is a strong and unnecessarily demeaning description. Cackle conjures images of witches chanting around boiling cauldrons. With warts on their noses. But I digress, what happened next is the point. The loons, as one body, turned and started swimming toward us!

Remember the tremolo? This call is described as sounding like "insane laughter" with eight to ten notes voiced rapidly and is indicative of agitation or fear. Did the loons think we were other loons needing solace or protection? Were they saying, "Calm down. It'll be okay, the flight isn't so bad. You know we can't stay in this place which now is a veritable Eden but in two months will be a frozen winter wonderland." Or were we disturbing their festivities? "Check out these humans, trying to trick us into thinking they are loons in trouble! How dare they mock us with their false SOS tremolo?"

Sea Gull

One bright and lazy afternoon we spent on the dock drinking gin and tonics and going for the occasional swim. Ann and I brought the Scrabble game down and were immersed in a game.

If you are a Scrabble player, you may well ask at this point, "Scrabble on the dock? What if the tiles fall through into the water?" Which in fact I did ask Ann, since my own mother direly warns against Scrabble on the deck at home for the same reason: tiles lost forever under the deck. Then Ann reminded me that wood floats!

Rick, her brother-in-law and my friend, was fishing. We were concentrating deeply on the game because the close score rendered it completely competitive. Imagine being totally lazy, soaking in the hot sun, yet being so concentrated on this game of words, and having maybe a little alcohol buzz going on all at once!

Rick idly commented about a sea gull he was watching out on the water that had caught a fish so big, it couldn't get it up out of the water to carry it away. We all looked out across the dazzling lake to watch this gull flailing, wings flapping, but its feet seemingly stuck as if glued to a hidden perch. Another gull, perhaps the wife, floated nearby. "Hahrold, I told ya it was too big, but do ya evah listen ta me? I told ya, don't dive for that one, how will ya evah get it home? But ya had to anyway, I shoulda known I was wastin' my breath!" After watching for a few moments, I turned back to the game. Where, oh where, was I going to unload this Q having no U? The game was nearing the end, I had to get rid of it, but hopefully pick up enough points, Ann was edging ahead!

About 10 minutes later, Rick pointed out that the bird was still struggling. Perhaps it was even caught on something. Ann and I snapped to and squinted out over the water again. Now our complete interest was aroused! A bird in trouble!

"Maybe it needs help! It's probably exhausted if it's been struggling all this time."

"Yeah, if it's been out there this long, it probably is caught up in something, maybe even some fishing line or something!" I frowned at Rick as if it was possibly even his fault.

"We need to help it!"

"Okay, what will we need? Some gloves. Something to cut the line, a knife or something."

Ann said, "I have gloves."

Rick wasn't caught up in the increasing crisis. He was sitting calmly, watching his line in the water, and in no mood to go anywhere or do anything. "You need to help us!" I said.

"What do you want me to do?!"

"I don't know, just help!"

He said he had to go up to his truck for gloves, and then to the bathroom and then he'd be down. By this time Ann had already run up to camp and back with gloves and I had found a knife in his tackle box. We pulled the kayaks down the bank and into the lake and were off.

Operation Save the Gull paddled quickly and efficiently across the water and then glided up slowly and silently to the bird. I think the wife had flown away by now. As we gently sidled up to him I started making soothing noises while asking Ann, what should we do now? One of us don gloves and try to pick him up? And maybe the other one of us can see what the problem is and possibly cut him loose?

The gull looked at us in disbelief for a few seconds and then quietly lifted his wings and flew away. He hadn't been caught in any branches, there was no fishing line tangled in his feet. Ann and I looked at each other and shrugged and headed back for the dock and our Scrabble game. Rick was just coming out of the house.

Back at the dock we watched the sea gull circling back over his fish. Perhaps he still had hopes of getting his super-sized dinner. If only the humans wouldn't interfere.

The Great Horned Owl

Ann couldn't wait to ask me about some owl hooting sounds she had recently heard at night. After I arrived at camp on the first day, I hadn't been sitting on the dock an hour before she gasped, her eyes growing big and said, "Oh! I need to ask you about a bird I thought I heard!"

I love that I have somehow become the leading authority among my family and circles of friends on bird call identification, as if I'm some kind of ornithologist. People will say, "Oh, we were out hiking in Utah, and we heard this bird and wish you had been there!" Or they will type in an email: What kind of bird goes TWEET TWEET tweedle dee dee? Once at my mom's house, my sister pointed to a pretty bird on a tree outside and asked me what it was. I couldn't see it and couldn't readily get to the window, and it wasn't singing, so she described it. I said, "I'm not sure, but if it's climbing down the tree trunk, upside down, it is probably a white-breasted nuthatch. My brother looked at me, impressed, and forever after, believed that I knew all there was to know about birds, their habitats, mating practices, diet, and migration.

Ann continued, "There are five hoots in all. Three and then two." She demonstrated, "Hoo hoo hoo, hoooo hoooo."

"Hmmm, that certainly sounds like it could be an owl," I offered. Her husband, Mike, said, "There were no hoots at all. I think it was some kind of mammal."

Oh dear. Now we had confusing data. Ann looked at me knowingly and shook her head. I could read her thoughts. "Pay no attention to him. We'll listen for it later tonight, and you will see!"

Ann and I had the week to ourselves and one evening after a late supper we had started a cozy fire and settled in for some reading. I could hear loons calling across the lake and was thinking how perfect everything was when Ann started. "There it is!! Did you hear that?"

I looked at her, puzzled. Yes, that certainly wasn't a loon, but since I hadn't been listening for it, nothing registered.

Then, "There it is again! See? Five hoots!"

That time I had heard it. "It is an owl! Let's go outside so we can hear it better!" I was up and out of the house in seconds. Ann was searching for her shoes, as her dog Lucy has a habit of moving one around the house, thereby separating them. It was dark as pitch outside, and I remembered that it was a new moon. I heard the owl calling from far away and then a second owl way down the lake in the opposite direction answered him. Ann came out with a flashlight. "Turn that off," I warned, as if an owl couldn't tell we were there anyway. We crept down the gravel road listening to the two owls, the one getting closer to us all the time. "I think it's a Barred Owl!" I whisper. "Because their song goes. . .wait, wait, no! It's a Great Horned Owl," I hissed triumphantly. "Listen to it! It's saying, 'Who's awake, me too! Who's awake? Me too.'" When the owl got as close as we thought it could, we still couldn't see it because of all the tall trees. It was just out of sight behind that big tall one in her neighbor's yard.

The next night I heard it first. We were putting away the Scrabble game and I had been listening because Ann noted the time the evening before--9:30--and it was getting to be that time. And right then, as if it was a cuckoo clock, the owl hooted out its call, "Who's awake? Me too!"

"There it is!" I called, and grabbed my fleece (it was drizzling outside) and a flashlight, and again was out the door in moments. I crept down the dark road, the raindrops in the pine trees making more sound than my feet on the gravel. Ann caught up and we ended up underneath the same tall trees as the night before. We heard the call and answer of the two owls, one from far down the lake and our owl coming closer until it ended up hidden away again out of sight but just above us! We waited and watched anyway, and were finally rewarded with the sight of him flying across an opening in the night sky. These owls have a wingspan of 40-60 inches! Everything was hazy with clouds and fog, though, so we couldn't see him clearly.

The following day, we were out in kayaks and I was studying the trees on the shore. "Ann," I said, "Maybe tonight before the owl comes, we should get in the kayaks and paddle offshore just to around this spot! I think the owl sits in that dead tree there and that's why we can't see it from the road, it's blocked by all those other tall trees." Ann agreed and we laid some plans.

The two of us had done night time paddles before and one night we were surrounded by loons wailing and calling as we laid back in our kayaks, floating on the lake, and looking up at the stars. That was a magical experience!

By the time the appointed hour came, a nocturnal excursion on the water wasn't as appealing. Instead I pointed out that perhaps from her neighbor's deck, we would have a clear view of the tree in question. Ann's neighbors weren't there that summer and she was certain it would be fine. So we put on fleeces, took flashlights, and scurried down to our "blind" before the owls came.

We did indeed have a perfect view of the tree. That evening, the sky was clear and the stars were brightly shining with no moon to compete with. I was in my element, anticipating the owl coming closer and closer, making his way down the lake shore, calling to his friend to plan their meetup, and then landing in the bare branches above giving us the perfect view. He would be so clear we would be able to see his "horns" or the tufts of feathers on his head!

9:30 came and went. 9:45, 10:00. Ann got tired and went back. And just as she did, the owls came. I was ready and watching, excited and barely breathing, knowing any moment he would fly into view. But he never did. He somehow circled around, as if he knew we were there, which in my realistic mind, I'm sure he did. Out of sight he answered his mate and then was gone. I gave up and went back to the cabin. Later we heard them again, in fact we thought we heard maybe 4 or 5. But the excitement had worn off--I must not be a true birder, after all. And later still, at 3 in the morning, I heard them very clearly, very close, right over the house! I tried to rouse myself. I should get up, get dressed, silently creep out of the house and down the road. But the bed was warm and I was too sleepy. "The owls know this," I thought. "They're no dummies." Maybe tomorrow night.

"Who's awake?"

"Not . . . me . . . zzzzzzzzz"

Le Tour de l'Ile de Montreal

My daughter moved with her boyfriend to Vermont just about five years ago now. The two of us keep in very close touch and it is great fun to hear from her about everything: the restoring of the house they bought; the Vermont weather and seasonal changes; the new sports they are able to embrace, like cross-country skiing; and the local culture and traditional goings on, like foraging for "fiddleheads" in the early spring.

Fiddleheads are the tightly coiled frond tips of ferns that emerge from the newly warmed soil in early May. They resemble the head of a violin, or the fiddle peg head. Back in the day they were a welcome fresh food for Vermonters in spring when root cellars had been all but depleted. The tradition lives on because it is still a favorite activity to go walking over hill and dale to hunt for fiddleheads in the woods, ditches, or edges of back yards. You can also find them in the grocery! Many agree they taste like a cross between asparagus and young spinach. I've tasted them and I like them, but it's all in how they are prepared, of course.


Now don't those look inviting?


One Monday morning in early June (their first June in Vermont) Joanna and I were instant messaging. She told me all about participating in a bicycle race up in Montreal the previous day--the Tour de l'Ile. She explained that it means "the tour of the island" because Montreal really is an island, surrounded on all sides by the two rivers that flow past it, one being the St. Lawrence. She described the race's beginning as a "sea of bicycles" and explained how the course meandered around the beautiful city. But the best part was at the end when they got a free bottle of milk for their efforts! Her enthusiasm was contagious. "I want to do that!" I typed out, being more than a little envious. "Next year, I want to do it with you!" I even wanted the bottle of milk at the end.

So the next year I traveled up to Vermont with my bicycle on the roof of my car. I spent a fantastic week with Joanna and Seth and capped it off by heading north to Montreal with them on the first Sunday in June to take part in the 50K Tour de l'Ile. This is the largest and final event of the week long Montreal Bike Fest. It is very unique; it is not in every city where the streets are closed for a full day so that 30,000+ people of all ages can ride around on their bicycles. And the bikes! It is like a specialty store with every imaginable design of bicycle ever made.

The trajectory takes you everywhere around the city, so it is truly a tour. Unfortunately, you can't take your eyes off of the rear tire of the cyclist in front of you, for fear of making one wrong move and creating a 100-bike pileup. I looked up every now and then but wouldn't hazard more than a glance at the historic landmarks sailing by. People pull up lawn chairs on the sidewalks with their morning coffee wearing coats and muffled to their noses because it is still COLD in Montreal. They cheer you on, and hold up signs that read "Courage!" (I can actually decipher that French word.) Families hang out on balconies blasting music for your enjoyment or providing other types of entertainment (like belly dancing). Tour officials dressed like mimes and sporting clown noses yell French at you through megaphones, warning you of an upcoming hazard. Since none of us understand French, we can only guess at their emphatic instructions, but usually figure it out when we hit a stretch of gravel, or go down a big hill and through a tunnel, or careen around a hairpin curve, or bump over uneven railroad tracks.

Every 8 miles or so they have a sponsored rest area with vendors and food and entertainment. And portalets with lines longer than you can see. You could finish the tour in the amount of time it takes you to get through these lines. There is also entertainment at these rest areas--circus-like shows with balancing acts and jugglers.

So we rode until we reached the famous Montreal Olympic (1976) Stadium, with its famous inclined tower popping up and over from the base. But no, we weren't finished yet--up and around the whole stadium for good measure and then we reached the end. I expected big gates with signs announcing that "you are finished". But the only clue that I was actually at the finish line was an old man sitting in a lawn chair wearing a french alpine hat who was wearily waving a black and white checkered flag and apathetically mumbling, "Bravo!" We must have been impinging on his nap time. Or mid-day drink perhaps.

So I completed le Tour de l'Ile de Montreal 2008, my big dream come true. And I went back the following year, and the next year I returned with my son Paul in tow because after all the hubbub from Joanna and me, he wanted to check it out himself.

But unfortunately, 2010 was the year of the big cold rain. Packing up our bikes early that morning, we optimistically did not bring heavy rain gear. On the drive up to Montreal we thoroughly expected the clouds to part and the sun to shine. When we arrived and unloaded the bikes and readied ourselves for the fun, we knew the rain would cease at any time and warmer air would ensue. But it wasn't to be. Courageously (where is that sign when you really need it?) we slogged through the city streets to arrive at the starting line. Completely drenched before it even began, we waited our turn, got our bibs, and then funneled into the stream of cyclists starting off. The sidewalks were empty of merry-makers, the balconies abandoned with closed and shuttered doors. After a mere 8 miles we stopped at the first rest area and apprised the situation. The tour felt deserted. The balancing acts were performing; but the circus music, normally festive and frolicking, sounded eerily foreboding in the chilly blowing rain and gloomy skies. My feet felt like ice blocks, my hands were numb with cold, Joanna had no raincoat. We thought maybe we could race straight through and be finished in an hour. But I didn't like the sound of rushing along rain-slicked streets. In the end we decided to "abandon". We rode to a convenient mart and took cover and bought hot drinks while Seth chivalrously went for the car.

We made fun of ourselves ceaselessly about abandoning the tour. Warm and only slightly damp, we headed for a vegetarian restaurant where Paul knew one of the employees (a band friend he had met in NYC while on tour). All was not lost. After all, we were in Montreal! We were warm, eating deliciously hot food, Paul was happy, and we were still having fun.

On the drive home, even though we continued to poke fun at our lack of courage, we played a ridiculously hilarious game of 20 questions and had more fun.




This is me having fun!







Here is Paul having more fun!





And here is Joanna having fun too! She loves 20 questions! While it was her turn, besides answering "yes" and "no", she also included quite a few "I don't knows". I'm not even sure she knew for certain the full name of the person she was thinking of. I ended up guessing it anyway, at least what the woman was famous for (it was Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross.) We all found this so hysterically funny that we didn't mind in the least.




And here is Seth, also having fun! (See? It's still raining!) Looking back on this day, I think we were all so vastly relieved that we didn't have to finish that race in the numbing rain (with the exception probably of Seth) that we were giddy with relief.

Today, Le Tour de l'Ile de Montreal 2011 happened without me. Seth and Joanna are now married (Apr. 16) and are planning their summer honeymoon. No time or extra money for Montreal this year. I went on a commemorative ride at home in Kentucky to mark the day, and am looking forward to the Tour in 2012!

Scarlet Beauty

When I retire, I plan on becoming a birder. You know, those people who wander the woods and lake sides with binoculars and cameras slung around their necks; a day pack or vest with 17 outer pockets containing bird identification books, birding logs, maps of birding trails, rain gear, and lunch. They are looking for those few elusive birds not yet on their list, or that one perfect picture that may win a bird photo contest. At first glance they look a little nuts. They seem to be walking very slowly and aimlessly and you wonder if they are an Alzheimer's patient escaped from some home. And then you see the essential birding gear.

Yes, that's what I want to be! But later on in life when I am a senior with not much else to do. Too old to backpack, too old to road bike, too old to run. But for now I am a birder by sound. I have memorized three cds worth of birdsong in order to identify birds by ear. I am a musician so it is not a difficult nor tedious task to memorize melodies and rhythms. I cannot tell you how many times I have listened to these birdsong audios, the narrator giving you helpful hints and "handles" for memorizing the vocalizations. My turn of the century house has taken up a lot of my time in restoration in the last 10 years, so when I spend a whole day smoothing drywall mud on plaster walls, it is a good time to put on the cds and master a dozen more bird songs. One day I was mudding a wall as my college-age daughter left for school, different woodpecker calls resonating around the room with the narrator (who she thinks is a goof) pointing out the differences in their songs. When she came home three or four hours later and I was still at it (the mudding and the bird calls) she looked at me incredulously and said, "How can you not be insane?"

So I have a start on some day becoming one of those demented birders! Most home repair people listen to music or AM radio talk shows. I listen to birding cds.

It all pays off. When I am out on a run, I know what kind of birds are singing all around me. When I am on a hike I think it is fun to count how many different species I can identify by sound. You often times can't see these birds, anyway. They are hidden away up in the tree branches, so it's good to know their song. When I am backpacking in the remote wilderness is when it's really exciting because I hear birds that only dwell in the deep woodland habitat. Or on a dusty hot afternoon when I feel like I am the only person on the trail for miles around, I can strike up a call and response bird conversation with a red-eyed vireo. He sings through the heat of the afternoon when other birds are resting and is good company as I pretend like we're talking.

I've also been known to rudely interrupt conversations with friends to point out, "Do you know that is a rufous-sided towhee singing away up in that tree there?" Some people are impressed or at least mildly interested but some are not!

My favorite birds are in the thrush family. The mockingbird is the perfect mimicker. Listening to it, I can identify all the different birds he is mimicking. The brown thrush as well. And then the wood thrush sings my very favorite bird call of all! His song is like a pan pipe playing high up in the tallest trees of the deepest forest; melodious, clear and sweet. I associate the beautiful wood thrush song with the shady cool air of the woods and intoxicating smell of soft pine needle carpets and the wood-smelling forest floor. The veery's song is one of the most magical and ethereal of all. He actually sings two notes at once, in a descending flutey spiral of echoing notes. Both of these birds have the power to stop me in my tracks. Whether I am biking on the bike path or hiking on a woodsy trail in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I have to pause and listen--it's too good to miss. Listening to these two birds is like a balm for the soul.

This morning I experienced another example of being so glad that I know my birdsong. I was in my backyard sipping coffee, cup in hand, hair wet from the shower, perusing my gardens to see which seeds were sprouting and in general inspecting all the vegetables, herbs and flowers. My mind was miles away from birdsong. And then I heard a familiar chirping pattern. My mind zeroed in on the notes and my birdsong memory kicked in. That sounds like a robin with a sore throat! Which bird in the robin family is that? One sounds like a robin who has had singing lessons! But one sounds raspy, like this! Which one is which? Not the rose-breasted grosbeak. Not the oriole. Tanager! It's a tanager. But which tanager? I tore my eyes away from studying teeny green spikes poking up through the black soil wondering if they were the lavender seeds I planted and looked up in the tall tall old mulberry tree from which the quiet hoarse-voice robin's chirps were coming. All I saw was a bright red cardinal. "Not you," I quietly told the cardinal. "I know your half-dozen songs by heart, you don't chirp like a robin and you have a much louder song." I scanned the branches for other birds, but could find no others perching there, only birds flitting to and fro looking for breakfast or tending their nests. And then the "cardinal" sang again. Robin chirps! Gravelly and quiet, just like the tanager. But...but...this bird is bright red! Scarlet! The scarlet tanager! Stay there, bird, I'm going inside for my book.

I stole into the house for my birding book which is always handy on top of the refrigerator and went back outside in seconds. I found the page and looked back up into the tree. The bird was so high up I didn't notice before that it had no crested head or black-masked face. And now the bird is turning sideways, and the bright red color has all but disappeared. That's because scarlet tanagers have black wings and tail. Okay, but listen for the bird call note, different from the birdsong. There it is! A soft "chick, burrrr!" That's it then. A scarlet tanager in the backyard of my city house.

What a nice gift on a beautiful morning. A visit from a bird I don't normally see here. If I hadn't identified this birdsong while I was immersed in garden inspection, I never would have looked up just then. Or indeed, even if I had looked up, I would have spotted a cardinal and not thought much of it.

Hmmmm. Which begs the question when am I senior enough to get the birding binoculars and stash them with the birding book on top of the fridge? And then enter the scarlet tanager into my birding log, and journal about it in my birding journal? Then I might as well buy the vest with the 17 pockets. . .