We are awakened again at what seems like a ridiculously early hour, to begin the next leg of our journey. This is actually not so bad as it turns out, because some unexpected sights await down in the kitchen. Though Tyler is not accompanying us on this trip – and in fact, I don't remember whether we even saw him today – downstairs and awake at this predawn or closely to it hour are his wife Debbie and their teenage daughters. Which makes sense, considering this is a school day and all.
Debbie's a somewhat short, attractive, curly to borderline frizzy haired blonde, probably in her late 30s, with a wide, toothy, extremely engaging smile. Most of the time, anyway. Today she's in a little bit more of a no-nonsense mom mode, getting the troops ready for their weekday battle, but this is understandable. Still friendly to us, though, if bustling around the kitchen with extreme efficiency.
The daughters are a different story, however. It's not that they're rude, more that they comically seem to almost not even register our presence whatsoever, or at the very least are one hundred percent unfazed by it. This despite having six random dudes lurking around in close proximity, four or five of which they've never laid eyes upon before, nimbly pivoting around us while they get ready to begin their day.
Jeremy and I are of course checking them out, but for various reasons, it's obvious in advance that nothing is ever, ever a-happenin' on that front. These I would categorize as follows, probably in descending order (or is that overlapping, Vinn diagram style importance?) of magnitude:
a) we are major dorks
b) even if we went to their high school, there's no chance whatsoever they would pay attention to us
c) in Amway speak, these are “upline” females
That last one might sound ridiculous, but there's totally an unspoken code of conduct rule there, where you instinctively understand something like that is never going to happen. These were much more sexist times, I suppose – and maybe it's changed nowadays – but back then, you just knew. And you understand maybe where people get into this mode of comparing Amway to the mob or a cult or something, with these unwritten rules. I'm sure it transpired somewhere, but I certainly never saw such a thing: downline males, teenage kids of members or otherwise, dating upstream. Whereas such a thing in reverse, upline males and downline females, was totally fair game and quite often in play.
It's actually analogous to high school life in general, I suppose, for whereas you often see upperclassmen dudes dating younger chicks, the opposite is an extreme rarity. Granted, this whole notion of making something happen with the ladies is totally mortifying to me at this point anyway. Jeremy does have a girlfriend back home, Paige, whom he talks about every now and then during this trip. I've never seen her, but this still sounds unbelievably exotic to me, and well nigh impossible right about now. Granted, incredibly enough, last year when I was in the 8th grade, I had a high school girl named Joy ask me if I wanted to “go with” her, but I turned her down. My friends were howling with incredulity that I actually said no. This was almost entirely due to a bad case of the nerves, however, and doesn't make me feel like any less of a moron.
Well, so anyway, whichever party leaves first, I don't recall, our half dozen hunters are soon out the door and on our way, off to begin the next phase of our grand adventures. The first of these involves dipping inside a Bangor franchise of McDonald's, for a little breakfast action, which might sound pedestrian, but is quite clearly another of these things that Gary is eager to show us. It easily makes the top two of all the locations I've ever visited, because the entire interior is done up like a hunting lodge, with mounted animal heads on the wall and everything.
Following this, we continue northward toward our actual destination. Up I-95 I would guess, at first, although to be honest this doesn't feel right to me. Mostly because I remember driving through Orono, and it seems like we were in close proximity to the buildings there in town, whereas if on the interstate I don't think we would be. Orono stands out to me mainly because I'd just started reading Stephen King, at the beginning of my freshman year (the high school library has King, whereas our junior high one did not), and he occasionally mentions this town. So I recall passing actual Orono buildings, and thinking about King even in the moment.
Well, whatever the case, either way we are soon traveling up state route 11, toward our next stop, a somewhat early lunch in Ashland. This is both the last major outpost before we venture into camp, but also a convenient meeting spot. As in, Gary and Tyler's parents, who live nearby and have never met the rest of us before, drive into town to join us at this quaint little diner for that early lunch.
Then we're going our separate ways, as this is quite literally the last of civilization the rest of us will see for about a week. Our destination is Libby Camps, an impressive operation owned and operated by yet another Libby brother, Matt, and his wife Ellen. This could be bullshit, but everyone is totally saying at the time, driving into this place and long afterwards, that this camp is so remote, it's fifty miles away from the nearest electricity. I have to admit nothing I saw would contradict such an assessment. And in fact even if you look it up now, on Google Maps or something, Libby Camps it seems does have an Ashland, Maine address...and yet is still an hour and a half away from town.
I do recall that after leaving any semblance of a main road, you're driving through forest for a long, long, long stretch of possibly paved, possibly not lane, at which point you hook a right to continue down another fairly long stretch of similar road into the actual camp. Had you continued onward instead, there is eventually another such lane, leading into camp from the other direction, a basic V formation that presents the extent of your automotive options.
Gary's of course talking just about non-stop while piloting us through these adventures. Somewhere near where we make that right hand turn onto the lane, he's telling us about one time Debbie and the girls were driving back here by themselves, and the car broke down right at such and such spot. There's talk about what a “cool customer” Debbie is, that they never freaked out, merely hung out in that car in the freezing cold for umpteen hours until somebody else came along.
And then we have finally arrived, at this frozen enclave in the middle of nowhere. I have probably seen pictures of it already, because Mom and Dad have been here before, alongside countless business associates/friends. It backs up against a huge lake, in fact, which presents the only other option for arrival, unless maybe you're insane enough to hike here on foot or something: it's quite commonplace to fly a little airplane in here and land upon that lake. Also, somewhat nearby, well within walking distance, I've heard about a spot referred to as Echo Lake or something where the landscape is such that if you shout something at the top of your lungs, it will reverberate for a while, gradually seem to fade...then come rocketing back at you, progressively louder, a short while later.
Given all these developments, just getting here and beyond, it's somewhat comical to think now that the actual hunting itself seems almost an afterthought. The way it works up here at the time is that you buy one purpose license and are free to blast away at basically anything which crosses your path. Still, the most peculiar species we encounter up here in the wild and woolly north is possibly your garden variety New England human, with their initially indecipherable accents. Somehow the Libbys themselves have escaped this fate, I'm not sure how, but many of the other lodgers we cross paths with make for fascinating case studies. Dad and I are mighty confounded by who knows who many days, in the early going, to hear these guys talk about having shot such and such quantity of patchitch, questions posed to each other along these lines, lamentations about the ones that got away. It takes a while, settling into the rhythms and phrasings of their dialect, before we realize they are talking about a partridge. Similarly, though most of us are hunting with thirty aught six rifles, this is referred to by just about everyone else outside our party as a thirty outta six.
Regarding this gun that I'm assigned, I wouldn't say I'm terrified to use it or anything, more that I'm in dutiful, note taking mode. I realize it's a big deal for Dad to trust me enough to follow some fairly simple safety instructions, and I don't want to blow it. Besides, as a young lad growing up in what passes as the comparably laughable “countryside” of Ohio, I've already experienced the predictable escalation of weaponry these past few years. For Christmas '85, ten year old me received this sweet BB gun from my Uncle Gene, one with a compass embedded in the stock, which I've gotten quite a bit of use of over the years, the highlight possibly when one neighbor kid shot another classmate in the leg with it, intentionally. Though I guffawed mightily over that one, occurring as it did in our back yard, my parents were a little less impressed. In more recent times, another neighbor, my good friend Matt Montanya, was given an automatic BB gun, shaped like an Uzi, with Co2 cartridgeh ses fueling the rapidfire mayhem. He and my brother Daniel and I couldn't wait to take turns testing that puppy out. Somewhere in between, Gene also thought it was a good idea to give Daniel and me slingshots, much to consternation of our neighbors.
But yeah, clearly this is a different, much more serious deal. I like to think I'm mature enough to handle it, however. So a bunch of us are standing at this target range, off to the side of the main building, where Dad is crouched down beside me, going over and reiterating certain key points, while demonstrating various features of the gun. I have it pointed straight up in the air, per his instructions. Nonetheless, his eyes just about pop out of his head at one point, when some shooter strolls up beside us and blasts away at the nearest target, as he initially believes that my gun went off.
The six of us are all rooming in one fairly roomy wooden cabin, equipped with bunk beds and a woodburning stove, enough blankets and sleeping bags to stay reasonably warm despite the blustery weather outside. These cabins line a clearing facing the main lodge, well within trudging distance of it, with the massive forest at our backs.
Hot breakfast is served by Ellen every morning, though it requires getting up at some ridiculously early hour, either 5am or possibly even 4, and if you miss it, then it's cereal or toast or something, or if you're lucky maybe picking through the leftovers. The six of us make it just once, on the very first morning – beyond that, even our fearless leader Gary can't get himself out of bed that early, and so we are likewise off the hook.
Ellen makes her own jelly, which is pretty good, yet for some odd reason I prefer the Smucker's they also have on hand. And not only that but, owing to some inscrutably baffling motivation, somehow feel the need to tell her as much. Not as some kind of sarcastic shtick, either, more that she asked me, and I told her, a complete lack of tact that is totally lost on me now, all these decades later. I can tell she's shocked, and will not stop ribbing me about it, with variations on the nickname “Ohio boy” and scoffing at the Smucker's. Only later will I learn that this world famous brand is actually made not that far from us, back home, so although she probably thinks that's a connection, it's actually only a coincidence.
Dinners we do unfailingly make, though, which are held at far more agreeable hours. These are also much more elaborate affairs with everyone in attendance gathered along both sides this long table in the middle of the lodge, a warm amber glow suffusing the room thanks in no small part to the fireplace just around the corner, behind us and centrally located but facing the other half of the room. It's during the first of these dinners, following a long day trudging around the wilderness as a pack, that I receive a life lesson from Gary that I will admit has always stuck with me to some extent.
“My legs will probably hurt tomorrow, as much as we walked today,” I casually observe, not just to him, but the rest of our posse within earshot.
Gary's seated to my immediate left and fires back, pointed yet friendly enough, “if you think like that, they probably will.”
“No, I'm just saying,” I reply, with a sheepish chuckle, “they're probably gonna hurt, as much as walked.”
He glances over at me with a determined look and reiterates, “and I'm just saying: if you think like that, they probably will.”
One night only, lobster is served, although I would swear that for whatever reason it's just our small group and Matt and Ellen, at a smaller table in the kitchen – so maybe this was some kind of secret handshake, inner circle type deal. It's my first time ever trying lobster, and I love the taste, no less the ritual involved with cracking it open and the drawn butter and everything, an experience that will always also stick with me. Still, even at the time I'm thinking this kind of feels like a lot of work, and haven't trifled with it much since.
You might say the same about hunting. Though the first excursion involved all six of us roving around as a group, for the most part we go our separate ways. The typical setup is that Dad will deposit me somewhere on my own, relatively closer to camp, as the rest of them continue farther out, picking their eventual spots. I prefer to remain in the sizable crook of the V shaped lanes, because to my mind, it's just about impossible to get lost between them. One morning, I'm just chilling there with my gun, and suddenly realize it might be showtime, because I hear some clomping around in the near distance, and soon enough see this light brown, four legged creature bounding into my midst, just about the right shape, size, and height. Yup, I think this just might be a deer! I get as far as raising my rifle but not exactly lining up for a shot because, this rare burst of heart pumping exhilaration soon wilts, when I realize that...nope, this is just the camp dog, Rudy, the shaggy haired but quite affable and adorable dumbass that he is. Cursing his presence under my breath, I watch him cheerfully bound across my path without even realizing I'm there, before he disappears out of sight.
Dad does in fact get lost one day, which he openly admits, meaning that this is by no means a small consideration to dismiss out of hand. Daylight is just about gone and he hasn't even started back toward camp, so turned around is he, figuratively – we think, anyway – halfway to Canada by this point. Luckily enough, he somehow happens across another pack of hunters, and tags along with them for the return voyage. Yet on still another outing, he is the only person from our cabin to bag a single creature, the entire week, in this case just a rabbit. Returning to camp just before dinner, he decides to bury it in the snow just outside the front door, before joining us. Much to his eternal consternation, however, by the time he returns, said rabbit is gone – Rudy found the thing, dug it up, and enjoyed quite the dinner himself.
I don't recall it really snowing while we're up here, but it is cold. So cold that by the end of our stay, Jeremy and I are barely even making token efforts at hunting. One morning Dad deposits me at a different spot, in the middle of the V, and tells me that if I decide to head back or anything, to leave a note in the snow. I've already decided, basically before he's even finished this sentence, that as soon as these dudes are over the bend in the horizon, I'm leaving a note and bailing. Sure enough, the instant they disappear, though I might “tough” it out for a few minutes just to make sure nobody's checking up on me or anything, I use my glove covered right hand to write WENT BACK in the deep white flakes before me, and hightail it back to the lodge. There are plenty of reading materials on hand, a warm, crackling fire, spectacular views from the windows if I'm really feeling nostalgic for those good ol' rustic days I just left behind, and Ellen's hanging around, tidying up, making food and small talk in somewhat equal doses, often with a top 40 radio station playing courtesy of – like many other conveniences – their generators.
And most days, Jeremy is on the scene not too long after me. Lets just say we play a lot of cribbage up here, on a board situated right beside a broad window with one of those aforementioned spectacular views. This is when he does most of his talking about his girlfriend, Paige, and otherwise we don't have a ton to discuss, beyond comparing and contrasting high school life in our different districts.
Matt is more the gruff outdoorsy type, which means Tyler is situated squarely between him and Gary, personality trait wise, and we never see much of the guy, as he tends to breeze in and out of scenes only briefly, says little even when he is present. Therefore that lobster dinner is far and away our most extensive interaction with him. These days with the cribbage, which I never played and knew nothing about before arrival here, will not revisit much in all the years since, it's pretty much just Ellen and us two teenage guys hanging out, for hours in this spacious lodge, with maybe the occasional hunter drifting through in passing now and then, until everyone else returns for good around dinner time.
Life just feels more exhausting in these parts. And weariness surely plays a major part in why we're even able to drop off at night, usually almost instantly, despite it not being all that late by the time we make it back to our cabin. Warm enough to survive, but not exactly toasty. And you can even hear the lake freezing outside, as it makes this continual pinging sound. One night however I do wake up, probably after midnight, and can hear Dad and Jay conversing in low voices. It seems like for some weird reason Jay actually preferred crashing on the floor, in a sleeping bag, instead of a bunk – albeit closer to the fire than any of us, and maybe not all that weird in retrospect. He's telling Dad about his checkered past, experimenting with various drugs and so on, details about such, and Dad's basically just acting as therapist, listening to him talk.
He says he's put all this behind him now, however, and does come across as level-headed, straightened out character. In fact I think he's a pretty cool cat, overall. During the long ride back home, he even gives me this Louis L'Amour paperback he just finished reading, recommended to him by Gary, a copy that I still have in my possession. I don't recall much of our drive home, not really, apart from one other, somewhat incongruous detail. After countless hours listening to our driver talk, interspersed with the endless L'Amour audiobooks as background noise, a short distance away from Wadsworth, he actually switches gears in shocking fashion and puts on a modern top 40-ish type FM station himself. We're unwinding the pieces of our trip more or less in reverse order of acquiring them, meaning we already deposited Jay at the truck stop in Hubbard. Soon enough, at Gary's house, basically as he's mid-extended-spiel telling us all about that kid he adopted years ago, we will bid him farewell, climb into our own vehicle for the drive back to Lexington.
Somewhere shortly before getting off the interstate near Gary's house, though, I have always recalled that Jeff Healey's Angel Eyes was on the radio. It's one of those odd details that sticks in your brain for seemingly no reason, leaving you to eternally wonder how this meaningless fact made the grade while you forgot many, many much more important things. Only as I started writing this, though, did it dawn on me that maybe the reason this fact stood out was buried in my subconscious all along (apart from the weirdness of Gary listening to the radio in the first place): wait a second...yes...that's right...wasn't Jeff Healey himself a central figure in...the movie Road House...starring Ben Gazzara as this slimy shyster? Why yes he was...hmm...what do you know...
As a souvenir, dad bought me this sweet, light blue tee shirt, with Libby Camps and this figure of I think a fish jumping off of it – literally – in this puffy lettering that stood out from the material. Naturally, I could hardly resist wearing the thing, my first day back at school. Maybe it's a sign of how anonymous I am that almost nobody bats an eyelash or asks me about it, though a fairly garish and hard to miss artifact. Certainly not my equally weird, closest friends, who are about as off the wall as I am, and display not much interest even when I'm giving them brief, bulletpoint details about the trip. I can never tell if this frequently received reaction is due to their own off-kilter personalities, my lacking descriptive style, or both.
Only one kid really displays much interest, which is some dude I've basically never interacted with before, sitting behind me in Miss Noggle's English class, Jim Hildebrand. He sees the shirt and perks right up, asking for details, particularly enthusiastic over the parts about guns. Is most curious of all about what type of weaponry I was using up there, anyway.
“Thirty aught six,” I coolly inform him, hoping to sound knowledgeable yet nonplussed – also that he doesn't ask me too many questions beyond this, considering I only fired the thing that one day at the target range.
He purses his lips and repeats, “thirty aught six,” nodding favorably. This seal of approval confirms it for me, too, that this had been a totally respectable firearm, and I can repeat such facts with confidence if given the opportunity again. Also that, I must admit, it makes me feel like maybe just a smidgen more like an adult. Or at least a reasonably average teenage boy.
Recommended Book of the Week:
Guarding What Remains by Ida Smith
Elenor is spunky and creative. But can she save her family when hardships threaten to destroy them?
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A powerful story of pain, love, guilt, redemption, and one family’s resilience in the face of insurmountable odds.
After a cruel act by strangers forces the Cruthers to move from their North Idaho dairy farm to the big city, each family member must come to grips with a strange hard life. As stores close and jobs evaporate, Eleanor and her family struggle to survive while each member’s personality, dreams, and fears threaten to pull them apart.
With descriptions that make the Great Depression come to life, Ida Smith gives you a front-row seat next to Eleanor Cruthers and her family during their trials and triumphs. Experience the physical and emotional hardships, harassment, and collective hope, as their world falls apart.
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If you liked Kristin Hannah’s The Four Winds, Christina Baker Kline’s Orphan Train, and Elizabeth Hardinger’s All the Forgivenesses, you’ll enjoy Guarding What Remains. Buy Now!
