Still a long way to spring

This is the last full week of January and it will be the first week in February by the time you open the front page of the paper. I have to say, I’m very disappointed in the lack of real snow cover. I do not think I have had more than two or three inches of snow hanging around at a time, despite the fact that the calendar says January is here and almost gone.

That said, I am happy to have been able to travel to Larchmont for the recent funeral of my best man and to Providence the next week for the party in Curt’s honor as he left the EPA at the end of his tenure. Other than the challenge of short days, there were no complications or tricky driving due to winter weather conditions. However, we have February, March and early April hanging over our heads before we get to spring. We know what to expect from pre-spring weather – it will be ice, snow, and cold for the next 60 days.

The lake has regained almost all the water that vanished between Labor Day and New Year’s. I’m sure it will continue to creep up and then it will quickly rise when the storm systems sweep in with a lot of water to fill us up to 863 feet above sea level. It really didn’t take many days in late December and January to bring the edge of the lake back to the normal winter shoreline. Previously, it was about four feet out from the front legs of my north boat hoist.

I keep looking for signs of creature migrations in any direction. I did hear the late-night quacking of a large group close to shore. They swooped in at about 8:30 p.m. and were gone by first light. I didn’t set the alarm to check at 3 or 4 a.m. to see if they had stayed until dawn. I’m probably delinquent in that “I writes’em as I sees ‘em,” and I do not have an organized scheme to build a written record. I suspect there’s someone in town who keeps track in case you get into some high-stakes discussion with wagers higher than 50 cents.

I had lunch with the Wednesday crowd at the round table in the southeast corner at the Hilltop, but we did not seem to discuss any hot topics that I can report on. Sometimes times several topics come up and they are resolved with clear and logical discussion. This was not the case today. Everyone seemed to have some personal chore or thoughts that did not move into connected reasoning within the group. We usually stay away from topics that could ruffle feathers and a ruin a nice lunch. I don’t think we could have gotten into the Mexican boundary wall and resolved it in 20 minutes. However, I don’t think I can slip over to Canada and back without passing through a checkpoint and I don’t think anyone should be able to pass in and out of Mexico to any place along our long southern border without passing through a checkpoint.

It is a good thing that we don’t have a border crossing at Five Mile Point to get to Borodino from Skaneateles or at Mandana to get to New Hope. How inconvenient. This reminds me of the time in my youth when a collection was taken and half a case of beer was purchased.

It was loaded into a Woodie (Ford station wagon) and, without an agreed destination the driver of the Woodie took off with the beer.  Apparently their plan was to lose the rest of us and consume the beer by themselves. We followed in my Packard six cylinder sedan at the maximum speeds that the roads would allow. The chase consumed the next hour and half and the lake was circumnavigated. If we had had border crossings at each side, it would have taken much longer. We finally stopped somewhere near The Colony on East Lake Road and it was decided the night was shot, so the beer was split up and most of us went home, as we had jobs in the morning. I can assure you that since that experience, anything that has my coin invested is passed around close to the point of purchase and I never had to race around the lake to save my investment again.

I had three teen-aged sons in my house and I don’t think there was anything like the Grand Prix of Skaneateles Lake. The old Woodie and the 1940 Packard would not have appealed to my sons for a race. They were survivors from WWII and they would have been considered junkers. I think this event happened in about the summer of 1951 or 52.