Santa Visits the Shack

 Despite the pandemic and the new Omicron blizzard that’s predicted, we got our family together for Christmas.  I never imagined this holiday season year to be so fraught with uncertainty after two doses of vaccine and the boosters.  We communicated often with our kids and relatives and vowed to all be as safe as possible in the run-up to the holiday.  Everyone got a Covid test before coming to our house on Caton Road.  We just couldn’t bear the thought of Christmas apart.  On Christmas Eve I was in the shack waiting for my kids to arrive, including June, my granddaughter who is having her first Christmas.  She’s ten months old. 

I was about to go into the house when I heard something outside.  I had Jeff Beck’s 1971 album “Rough and Ready” on the turntable.  Christmas music for old rockers.  I hit mute and listened closely.

The sound I heard was like shuffling and stamping and maybe muted bells of some kind. At first, I thought it was my wind chimes, but it had a different tone.  I stepped out onto the shack porch and turned on the outside light.  Just past our pin oak, on my neighbor’s lawn, there was a contraption with animals near it.  I walked over to take a closer look.

Damned if it wasn’t a sleigh with nine reindeer in harness.  The nose of the lead reindeer glowed a soft red.  Their heads were down, nibbling Tammy’s brown lawn.  As they grazed the bells on their leather belly bands jingled softly.

“Hey fellas, where’s the driver of this outfit?”

One of the reindeer hitched nearest the sleigh lifted his head and looked at me with big eyes.  Reindeer aren’t as big as you imagine when you stand next to them.  For all their magical powers, flying around the globe in a single night, they seemed like small ordinary creatures.

I wondered if the reindeer that looked at me was Blitzen.  Rudolph gets all the fame you know, because of the song, the marketing, and all the books.  Prancer was once featured in a movie.  But of the nine, I always liked Blitzen.  Not that there is anything wrong with Dasher, Dancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, or Donner, but Blitzen was mentioned last in Clement Moore’s famous poem about Santa, The Night Before Christmas.  Rooting for the underdog, I think.

As I was scratching the potential Blitzen’s head between his antlers, which he enjoyed immensely, I heard a commotion on Tammy’s roof.  With a streetlight behind him, I saw what had to be Santa’s silhouette come out of her chimney, straddle the ridge, walk to the gable end of the roof, throw a bag to the ground, and shimmy down an old TV aerial tower onto the ground.  Pretty spry for an old guy.  He strode across the lawn towards me.

“HO, H0, H0.  Merry Christmas McClure.”

“HO, HO, HO yourself Santa.  I gotta say, even though I run into you every year, I never expected to see you while you were working.”

“Yeah, well it’s a tad unorthodox but I’m ahead of schedule and I’ve been wanting to see this shack you keep writing about and putting on FaceBook.” 

“Don’t tell me you’re on FaceBook Santa.  Jesus, how many friends must you have anyway?”

“No, I’m not on social media at all.  Neither is Jesus by the way.  But occasionally the elves share what they’re looking at.  They showed me that shack lit up under a big moon.  Couldn’t help but admire this building when I saw it.  But you know, it’s smaller than it looks in the pictures.”

“I thought the same thing about the reindeer.  Say, is this Blitzen here?”

“Yeah, it is.  How’d you know?”

“Well, he’s right up by the sleigh.  I was thinking maybe Moore the poet put them in order as they were hitched, front to back.  He never mentioned Rudolph by the way.”

Santa got close and talked in a low voice.

“Rudolph wasn’t part of the original team, and to tell the truth, we don’t exactly need him.  That “Rudolf with your nose so bright, won’t you guide my sleigh tonight” line was completely made up in the song made famous by Gene Autry.  I don’t need some reindeer to chart my course.  We did without Rudolf for 1700 years or so, then SURPRISE, so many people heard that song and believed in him he shows up at the stable.”

“Sounds like Q.”

“You mean the supposed Q Anon guy?  No, that myth is destructive.  Rudolf here is harmless.  He’s no better or worse than the rest of the reindeer, but that shiny red nose is completely over-rated.”

As if Rudolf recognized his name, he raised his head and blinked his nose at us.  Donner was getting jealous of all the attention Blitzen was getting and started rubbing his antler against my leg.  I stepped away from the reindeer and turned my attention to the guy in red.

“You been doing OK McClure?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess.  The Covid thing has me down, although my family has not been badly affected.”

“How about the writing?  Did you get your book done?”

“It’s drafted, edited, and ready to go but for some reason, I’m stalled out.  Mostly just doing the occasional blog post.  I’m not sure what I’m doing.  Can’t pull the trigger and get it published.”

“Maybe you don’t want the attention.  Going public always invites criticism.  You’d think nobody would be critical of Santa, but I have my detractors you know.  You can’t let it bother you.  You ought to work through that McClure.  You are mortal you know.  Life doesn’t go on forever for you.”

“Will it go on forever for you?”

“As long as people believe in me and what I stand for.  I suppose it could die out, but I have a pretty good lock on the kids.  Frankly, I’m more worried about the health of the human beings on the planet than my own existence.”

“You and me both Santa.  It’s the climate change I fear most.  Do you know what’s weird about being old and mortal?  When I think badly about the future, I’m not always in it.  You’d think that might be a comfort, but I’m somehow more invested in what happens next than I used to be.”

“That shouldn’t be a surprise.  I know why you feel that way, McClure.  You’ve gone from thinking mainly about your own life to imagining the future of others who will live beyond your time.  In fact, that’s one of the reasons I stopped here.  A person very important in your life is going to be on your driveway in about five minutes.”

“Who’s that?”

“Oh, come on McClure.  You’re not getting senile on me, are you?  What’s been the biggest event in your family since last Christmas?  Who’s new among the circle of people you and your wife value most in life?”

“Oh.  You mean June.”

“Duh.”

“And she’s about to be on my driveway?  How do you know?”

“I swear McClure.  Have you been drinking?  Santa knows these things, and you know I know.  I thought perhaps you would introduce me to your granddaughter.  Maybe get a picture?  It’s her first Christmas after all.”

“Oh Santa, thank you.  That would be the best present in years.”

“June is your best present in years, McClure.  I’ve been monitoring her behavior, and she’s been very good.  And cute as a bug to boot.  You’re a lucky Papa.  I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks again Santa.”

“You’re welcome.  Now get her out here.  I got places to go and things to do.  June’s Mom is unbuckling her from her car seat right now.”

“I’ll text her.”

“The reindeer and all the trappings might scare her and confuse her Mom.  You get June and I’ll get into this shack of yours.  Let’s do this.”

I met Moe by the garage and persuaded her to let me have June for just a minute.  Told her I had something to show her in the shack.  Would only be a minute.  She seemed puzzled but handed her over.  June had a big grin for her Papa like she always does.

When I stepped into the shack Santa was sitting on the futon looking splendid in his red velvet and white fur.  

“Let’s see if this baby girl is going to let Santa hold her,” Santa said.

I put June in his arms, she looked into his eyes, and a moment was born.  Old guys like me are known to cry more easily than when they were young.   I was a little teary-eyed taking the picture but got it done.  Let this serve as the McClure family’s Christmas card to you.

Merry Christmas from the Shack.

2021

Christmas 1995

 My daughter Moe texted me the other day. 

“Hey Dad.  Do you remember that outrageous over the top Christmas letter you sent out with the Christmas cards to the family when we were kids?”

“Yes.”

“What was up with that?”

“I was tired of those braggy once a year letters about everyone’s accomplishments and thought I’d throw a little satire at the relatives.”

“You think you can find it?”

“Yeah.  I think so.  I think I have everything I’ve ever written.”

I must have spent an hour looking through old Word files on my desk top computer in the shack before giving up.  Later I asked Colleen about it.

“I think there are copies in a folder in the filing cabinet.”

“What?  When is the last time you found something I wrote on paper in a manila folder?”

“I don’t know.  But I think I did something with it a long time ago.  It was nuts if I remember.”

Sure enough, I found a manila folder with my wife’s handwriting on the tab ‘McClure Christmas  letter 1995’.  Here it is.  Now digital.  Still over the top, outrageous and nuts.

In 1995 we were an average family living in a little Cape Cod house with one bathroom and a busy schedule.  We got a lot of Christmas cards in the mail those days and a fair number with the year in review letter tucked inside. 

These days we get very few Christmas cards and no letters like that at all.  I think it qualifies as a dying art.  Maybe I helped kill it.  But it was fun to write.  I hope you appreciate, maybe even enjoy it.

 

                                                                                                                   December 17, 1995

Dear Friends,

It has been a whole year since I sat down to write our Christmas letter, and I don’t know where the time went.  It was quite a year here at the McClure household.  1995 started out with a bang on New Year’s Day. 

As you know, we’ve always kept a lot of pets.  Mom and I were sleeping in while the kids were playing in the living room.  Maureen was teaching Petie the parakeet to fly on command, in big swoops across the room.  Dean had Lou, the monitor lizard, out of his cage basking by the fireplace while Sadie our bulldog slept under the coffee table. 

As Petie was completing one of his swoops Lou, warmed up and hungry, launched himself off the floor, grabbed Petie in mid-air, and swallowed him in three quick gulps.  As our children watched, the bulge which was Petie slid down the lizard’s throat. We were awakened by their screams.

As we ran into the room Sadie the bulldog, always resentful of the lizard, rushed across the floor and sunk her jaws into Lou the lizard pinning him down, writhing and hissing.   Dean was screaming because his lizard looked to be in grave danger.  Maureen was hysterical because her parakeet was gone, and Sadie had a set to her jaws that clearly meant business.

Without hesitating, I scooped up the lump of flesh that previously was our three pets and rushed out the door to deliver the wriggling mass to our neighbor Vic the Veterinarian.  My family trailed behind me. 

Vic, a bachelor, was having a quiet Sunday morning in his bathrobe listening to radio church music and reading the paper.  Our kids screamed out the details of the situation.  Realizing the dire predicament of our parakeet, Vic brought out his black bag, gave both the lizard and the bulldog a quick injection of a sedative, and forced a large brass ring into the lizard’s throat.  Within seconds he was holding the unmoving slimy body of Petie in his hand.

With my family huddled around our pets in a New Year’s tableau, we watched as Vic tried to breathe life back into Petie’s wet and compressed little body.  After what seemed an eternity, Petie’s wings began to flutter ever so slightly.  The McClures let out a cheer on that first morning of 1995 in celebration of life itself.  Vic stitched up Lou the lizard’s wounds, dried Petie’s feathers with a hair dryer, and attended to Sadie as she recovered from the doggie downer.  When order was restored, we put the animals back into their cages and took Vic out for breakfast.

The rest of the year was not nearly as eventful.  Let me sum up what’s happening right now with members of the McClure family.

Colleen has left her teaching job at Ottawa High School and is now working for the Clinton administration as an aide to Hillary.  She functions both as liaison to Midwest Democratic party organizations and as a consultant to Hillary on foreign policy.  She was lucky enough to accompany Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea on their recent trip to Ireland and coordinated their visits to pubs in Belfast, Derry, and Dublin.  Although she is in Washington more than we would all like we are quite proud of her.  We just hope Bill is re-elected.  Both Bill and Hillary extend their warmest regards to each of you and the entire McClure extended family. I think you may all now call yourselves “Friends of Bill.”

Maureen is twelve and is training for the Olympics in Atlanta this coming summer.  This has happened quickly and is quite a surprise given that she just this year joined our local swim team, the Ottawa YMCA Dolphins.  She has exceptional talent in the breaststroke, registering state times her first week of practice.  With hard work she quickly moved up into national qualifying times and now finds herself in the company of international qualifying young women.  There is a little girl in Arizona posting faster times and of course a number of Chinese swimmers, but it looks good for Moe at the 1996 Olympic time trials and as a medal winner at the games being held in Atlanta this summer.  We have already purchased seats at the swimming venue and our plane tickets.

Dean will be ten in June and will graduate from Ottawa High School.  Dean as you may know has been certified a genius by the MENSA organization and is being courted by universities throughout the world, including Harvard, Yale, MIT, Oxford, and the Sorbonne in Paris. 

The hardest task for Dean is choosing a field in which to apply his talents.  In addition to a deep love and mastery of foreign languages (6) and literature of all kinds, and considerable talent as a sculptor, along with the potential of becoming a concert clarinetist, he has written several computer models for predicting world population growth on his mainframe computer and has collaborated with surgeons from Johns Hopkins to develop a new procedure for angioplasty.  We just want him to be happy.  All in all, he is a very well-adjusted little ten-year old.

With all the changes and activities my family is involved in I have resigned my position as Director of the Youth Service Bureau.  My main job now is to help Colleen coordinate her schedule, get Maureen to swim practice, and make sure Dean gets enough sleep.  I also take care of our pets, shop, and cook.  In between those tasks I discovered more free time and have just published my fourth best-selling novel under a pen name.  My publisher is quite pleased as am I. The extra income has come in handy.

To wrap up 1995, our family is flying to Paris.  Dean is visiting the campus of the Sorbonne, playing clarinet with the Paris Symphony, and is displaying a number of his  sculptures at the Louvre.  Maureen will swim at an international competition just outside Paris, getting a chance to compete against the Chinese, and Colleen will be doing some advance work for Hillary and Chelsea’s spring tour of European capitals. 

As for me, I’m meeting with a publishing house in Paris which is interested in translating my first novel into French.  I’m also taking a side trip to Morocco where they have begun shooting, on location in Fez, a movie based on my second novel “Travels with Habib.”  It should be playing in a theater near you this fall.  While in Morocco I plan to look at real estate on the Mediterranean coast as a summer home and an investment.  Vic is watching over our pets while we’re away.

So, from all of us in Ottawa to all of you, we wish you a very Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.  We will be spending New Year’s Eve on the banks of the Seine in Paris.  Do drop us a line and let us know what you’re doing with your lives as we hurtle together towards the new millennium. 

Adieu and Bon Voyage.

The McClures

The Garden is History

Measuring the success of a garden isn’t simple.  If it was a farm, it might be.  You’d go by the output: the size of the crop, bushels per acre, or money made.  Those are objective large-scale indicators.  I don’t think that’s what gardeners are after when they buy seeds and plants in the spring and imagine what can be eaten fresh and preserved to be eaten later after frost finally brings growing to an end.  Gardens are smaller in size and scope and more complex.  They’re valued by gardeners in a different way, I think.

If I was simply measuring output, what remains to be enjoyed during the winter, I’d just count the number of jars that came out of the pressure cooker and the bags of vegetables in the freezer.  Here’s what that looks like for this year:

              Jars of Jerk Marinade                                  25         

              Jars of Irish Asian Chili Paste                     13

              Jars of Chilla Sauce                                    12

              Jars of Pickled Peppers                                 6

              Amount of Sriracha Sauce                          TBD

The jerk marinade is a Jamaican sauce whose main ingredient is habanero peppers.  I’ve jiggered the recipes so that amount of ingredients in one batch fill my food processor.   A triple batch filled that number of jars.  Here’s the recipe for a single batch. 

              1 5/8 cup Sunflower oil

              40 Habaneros unseeded

              40 scallions

              30 garlic cloves peeled and smashed

              1 cup thyme leaves (no stalks)

              1 cup fresh ginger peeled and grated

              1/2 cup brown sugar

              4 cups Allspice berries

              3 1/3 T kosher salt

              2.5 tsp black pepper

              Churn till smooth in processor.  Remove to a large bowl, add

              1 cup white vinegar

              2.5 cups freshly squeezed lime juice

The classic way to use this marinade is slathered on chicken wings etc. overnight.  They’re great when grilled over charcoal.  You can also use it as a table sauce by thinning it with soy sauce.  The first time you use it, wash off all the marinade before grilling. Next time, if you think you can handle it, leave the marinade on while grilling.  Either way, it will clear your sinuses.

The chili paste recipe has evolved.  It’s roughly based on a Thai-style paste called Nam Prik or Bird Chili paste. When making it the first time, I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I winged it.  And liked the result a lot.  So, as it stands it’s an Asian chili paste modified by an Irishman.  Thus, Irish Asian Chili paste.  Here’s the recipe for one batch.

              Shallots                                           8 halves

              Lemongrass                                   6 pieces of the white part, 4-5 inches long

              Lime juice                                     1/2 cup.  Fresh squeezed is best.

              Garlic                                            1/2 cup peeled then smashed, or vice versa

              Ginger Root                                   1/4 cup grated

              Worcestershire Sauce                    2 T

              Kosher salt                                    3 T

              Hot Peppers                                  Enough to fill processor.  Use the kind you like. Mix it up.

 Notes on the lemongrass.  I used to grow it in the garden, and the stalks were skinny without a lot of white.  The stuff you buy in any Asian grocery is far superior.  I’ve concluded lemongrass grows better and bigger in South Asia than Illinois. 

You can use this paste conventionally, mixing a hockey puck-sized, 4-ounce lump of paste with coconut milk or broth to make the base for spicy meat and/or vegetable dish.  But my family uses it mostly as a spicy condiment.  It’s versatile.  But you must like heat and spicy flavor to enjoy it.  Irish Asian chili paste has a big kick.

The Chilla sauce is a sweet and sour sauce from my mother’s side of the family, probably of Dutch origin.  We used Chilla sauce on the farm specifically for roast beef.  I never saw the word for this sauce written down so that’s a phonetic spelling.  We had dinners centered around roast beef almost every Sunday of the year on the farm.  Big meals, nice days.  Those meals and the companionship drew my older married siblings and their kids, my nephews and nieces, back home after they moved out.  I make this sauce for us.  It’s McClure/Staubus/Deal comfort food.

Thankfully, Mom finally wrote down an ingredient list and rudimentary instructions.  She had to think about it, as she carried most of her recipes around in her head.  She had a hard time figuring what to write as a cook time, as she claimed to go by the color. She cryptically told me the sauce must turn from bright red to brownish.  I’ve since determined that’s about two hours.  Here’s that recipe.

              1 quart tomatoes

              1 cup vinegar

              1 pepper cut fine (type undetermined.  Mom no doubt used a green bell.  I use a Jalapeno.)

              ½ cup sugar

              1 tsp cinnamon

              1.2 tsp cloves (ground I’ve found out)

              2 medium onions cut fine

              1 tsp salt

              Cook two hours

The quick-pickled peppers came about this year simply due to a bumper crop of peppers.  My daughter’s partner, June’s Dad, has been bringing around various “quick pickled” vegetables; kohlrabi, cucumbers, onions, peppers.  I tried it with hot peppers.  Here’s the brine recipe.  It’s amazingly simple.

              1 ½ cup distilled white vinegar

              3/4 cup water

              2 T Honey

              4 T Kosher Salt

              1 clove of smashed garlic per jar

              3 peppercorns per jar

              Fresh peppers/vegetables of your choice

              Thinly slice peppers and vegetables.  Place in jars with garlic and peppercorns.  Heat liquid to               near-boiling.  Remove, pour over peppers and veggies.  Cool.  Place lid on the jar and                          refrigerate. 

Quick pickled veggies last up to three months refrigerated, which is plenty of time because they are always eaten before that.  I think you can pickle damned near anything in that little brine brew, but I’ve chosen to thinly slice up hot peppers with onion and carrot.  I put a variety in the jar for color, along with other herbs and spices of your choice.  Get creative.  Orange Habaneros, green Serranos, red Jalapenos, and a few sweet Jimmy Nardellos or Sheep Nose peppers for balance.  It’s up to you.  I love that mix especially on hot dogs and sausages, but you can add it to anything.   Great in an omelet too.  

The Sriracha is a work in progress.  It’s my first try.  So far, I have a double batch of thin sauce that could be put in a shaker bottle.  What I’m after is a sauce the consistency of ketchup I can put in a squeeze bottle.  The distinctive thing about this sauce is that it's fermented.  Makes me wonder what   the Irish Asian would be like fermented.   In any case, I have a quadruple batch still bubbling away in a big glass jar in the basement.   Thanks to Konni Rodighier for sharing the recipe below.

              1 lb. unseeded stemmed red Jalapenos (aka Fresnos)      (16 big ones)

              ½ pound unseeded stemmed red Serranos                        (20 more or less)

              4 cloves of garlic peeled

              3 T brown sugar

              1 T kosher salt

              1/3 cup water

              ½ cup distilled white vinegar

Step 1

Chop peppers, retain seeds and membranes and place them into a food processor or blender with garlic, brown sugar, salt, and water.  Pulse several times to start.  Blend until smooth.

Step 2

Transfer puree into a large glass container(pitcher or big jar0.  Cover container with plastic wrap and place in a cool dark location (think basement) for 3-5 days, stirring once a day.  The mixture will bubble and ferment.  Scrape down the sides during each stirring.  Rewrap after every stirring.

Step 3

Pour fermented mixture into blender or food processor with vinegar.  Blend until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer into a saucepan, pushing as much of the pulp as possible through the strainer into the sauce.  Discard remaining pulp, seeds, and skin left in the strainer. 

Step 4

Heat sauce to a boil, stirring often until reduced to desire thickness, 5-10 minutes.  Skim foam if desired.

Step 5

Remove saucepan from heat and let the sauce cool to room temperature.  The sauce will thicken a little when cooled.  Transfer sauce to jars or bottles and refrigerate.

Cook’s note: I flipped the amount of Serranos and Jalapenos looking for a spicier blend.  It’s a bit hotter than the squeeze bottle you buy in the store.  I call it Wallace Township Rooster Sauce.

In addition to those jars, I have 5 quarts of simple tomato sauce from the San Marzanos.  In the freezer are 10-quart bags of peeled plum tomatoes and 10 bags of a specific mix of frozen peppers good in chili; Poblanos, Serranos, Jimmy Nardellos, and Sheep Nose pimiento.  They’re ready for winter cooking. 

So that’s the output as defined by jars in the cupboard and bags in the freezer.  But the garden gave my family and me so much more than that.  How many BLT’s did we have when the tomatoes came ripe?  Too many to count.  And tomatoes and peppers for salads over and over.  And fresh-picked tomatoes peeled and blended with peppers, olive oil, garlic, and salt for a same-day pasta sauce that you can’t beat. That’s what a garden can give you. 

My long row was six miles from my house in full sun with water nearby.  It gave me, sometimes my wife and kids, an excuse to get out of the house and drive into the country.  We saw sunsets, approaching storms, an unobscured horizon, every type of cloud.  It brought us closer to something big that you don’t get in town.   That itself made the garden worthwhile. 

Last summer, during a full-blown pandemic with no vaccine, those garden trips were more solitary and even more essential.  This year was more relaxed and social.  But these two years convinced me I need that garden even if I don’t bring a single vegetable home. 

But that won’t happen.  There is always that wonderful straight from the garden summer eating. 

I planted two kinds of Kale, broad-leafed Red Russian and Dino with the long spear-like dark green leaves.  I planted four of each.  It’s too much.  I couldn’t keep up with it all.  How many Kale salads can one small family eat?  I found I liked the Dino Kale much more.  Next year I’ll skip the Red Russian.

The broccoli never made the kind of heads you expect from the produce counter at your grocer.  It was good but there wasn’t a lot of it for such a big plant.  My Brussels Sprouts are still out there.  I’ll cut them next week for Thanksgiving.  For most of the summer, I thought they were failing, and then they came on strong in the fall.  They like cold weather, even frost.  Heads not quite as big as retail grocery sprouts but they’re very tasty. 

The peppers were prolific.  I don’t exactly know what makes a good year for peppers, but this summer appeared to be perfect.  I picked peppers all summer and they just kept coming.  I planted nine types: Serrano, Habanero, Cayenne, Jalapeno, Poblano, Sheep Nose Pimiento, Lunchbox, Shishito, and Jimmy Nardello.  Of those nine, I’ll plant seven again.  The Shishitos grew like crazy but they’re bland.  I knew they wouldn’t have a lot of heat, but I didn’t expect the lack of flavor. The Cayenne grew far fewer peppers than the Serrano and are not markedly different in taste.   I’ll skip both the Shishito and Cayenne.    

By far my best tomatoes were the plum tomatoes, which were nearly half the total tomatoes planted.  I went with a single variety, the two-chambered San Marzano, and wasn’t disappointed.  They grew like crazy and were plump and sweet.  But surprisingly, the slicers-Early Girls, Beefsteaks, Jet Stars, and the tomato cousin tomatillos never got to the size I expected.  I have no idea why one type of tomato would thrive while others were sub-par.  I have to figure that out before next year.  But I’ll be planting San Marzanos again.  Maybe more. 

The onions were, by and large, a bust.  We ate some as scallions, but the mature onions were small and unremarkable in taste.  Perhaps I’m not cut out to raise onions.  Why should they be so different than garlic?  Maybe I’ll give it another try. 

What was lost in onions was made up by potatoes.  We have never harvested such a big crop.  Every variety, reds, cobblers, fingerlings, even the quirky purple potatoes, were plentiful and tasty.  Some question the value of growing potatoes when they are so cheap in the store.  To them, I say taste a fresh homegrown potato and talk to me again.  I have a bunch in the basement waiting, with the dirt still on them, to be eaten.  Gives me a sense of security

Back home in my small house garden the Asparagus came in quickly and didn’t last long enough.  I need to plant more roots.  I haven’t dug the Horseradish, but you know Horseradish.  You can’t kill it.  It will be fine down there underground whenever I get around to using it.  The herbs had a good year in pots on the back steps.  I had enough flat-leafed Italian parsley and Basil to choke a horse.  Still need to grow more Thyme for the jerk marinade but it takes so much I doubt I will.  The rosemary had a great year.  I’m wintering a pot of it over in the house, so it gets a head start next spring. 

And that’s the garden report for 2021.   

Problems with the Buick

 I had a small problem with the Buick while filling it up at Thorntons the other day.

I always use my credit card to pay outside.  Doing so forces me to interact with the gas pump.  Feels a little silly.  Black print on a small gray screen asks for my zip code, which I provide, and asks me three questions every damn time, to which I always respond by pushing the NO arrow.

              Are you a Refreshing Rewards Club Member?        NO - I belong to too many things now.

              Would you like to join and save $.03 blah blah        NO – I don’t care

              Would you like a receipt?                                          NO – I got them for years. Never wrong. 

I just want the gas.  Maybe a hot dog.  I’m always aware, standing out there between the Buick and the gas pump, how close I am to the jumbo wieners turning slowly on the roller grill inside the station, shiny with fat, with soft warm buns in the drawer beneath them, and the fresh condiments next to the grill.

It was quite a blow, during the pandemic, when Thorntons went to foil packets only for condiments.  Mustard and ketchup in packets, pitiful dehydrated onions in some chemical soup in a packet, and sludgy packets of relish.  Want a hot dog with the works?  Here you go, take it or leave it.  I declined.  I understood their health concerns, but it was a huge loss.

To their credit, Thortons is slowly bringing fresh condiments back. They sell a lot of hot dogs at their Ottawa store by I-80, which means the dogs and condiments move fast and stay fresh.  Currently they have four little bins with spoons and clear plastic covers containing chopped white onions, sauerkraut, jalapeno peppers, and sweet pickle relish.  Yet to make an appearance are sport peppers, dill pickle spears, and celery salt.  Added to their current condiment buffet is an array of squeeze bottle condiments: yellow mustard, spicy brown mustard, Sriracha, ketchup, and mayo.  The wieners may cook on a roller grill, but Thorntons is the hot dog condiment king.

I skipped the hot dog that day.  I was nearly empty and would no doubt spend plenty on the gas alone.  After getting the gas pumping, I checked the Buick’s oil.  I don’t check it every time because the Buick has never used oil.  It’s a 2006 Lucerne with a 3.8-liter engine and 156,000 miles.  It still runs like a top.  I probably check the oil every other time I fill up.   

I popped the release, pushed up the hood, and put a wooden stick between the hood and the grill.  The pneumatic arm that keeps the hood up wore out.  Happened sometime last winter.  I found a stick the perfect length.  It fits neatly hidden in a tray up by the windshield.  I always planned to get that fixed.

That V-6 Buick engine sits sideways under the hood.  The dipstick is right in front, bright yellow plastic that’s easy to see and grab.

When I pulled the circle handle the dipstick came out hard like it was stuck.  I wiped it off with a blue paper towel I keep tucked under a metal strap towards the headlight.  But when I went to put it back in, it wouldn’t go.  It was stopped by something.  I’ve been driving cars and tractors for sixty years and that’s never happened.  Couldn’t check the oil.  Dipstick wouldn’t go in.  I stuck the point of my pocketknife in the tube that receives the dipstick and found nothing. I used the flashlight on my phone to try to see down into the hole but didn’t see anything.

“I’ll be damned,” I said.

Don’t know if I said it out loud or to myself.  When you’re by yourself a lot you lose track.  I threw the dipstick into the Buick on the passenger side, held up the hood, removed the stick, tucked it into its place, and let the hood slam shut.  My tank was full ($43.00 and some change).  When I started up the Buick its check engine light came on.  I drove away perplexed. 

I called Jim Boe’s independent gas station downtown.  They feature non-descript gas and Firestone Tires.  Jim is gone now you know, but family is carrying on.  They know the Buick pretty well.  A woman answered the phone.

“Hey, I have a funny problem with my 2006 Buick.  I can’t get the dipstick to go back in.  Is that something the guys in the shop can help me with?”

“I don’t know.  Let me check.”

It was an old landline phone.  I heard it clunk as she put it on the counter and while she was gone the murmur of people talking.  You don’t hear that much anymore.

“Yeah, they say come in anytime.”

I had things to do.  Believe it or not, retired people do get busy.  I went in the next day.  That same woman was behind the counter.

“I’m the guy that called the other day with the dipstick problem.”

She laughed. 

“We have just the guy to help you.”

A young guy, big with a full red beard came out and smiled.  He was holding something like a long ice pic with a crook on the end.

“I think I know what’s wrong with that dipstick.”

We walked out to the drive.  I popped the hood release and propped open the hood with the stick.  He didn’t say a word.

‘You got it still?  The old dipstick?”

I pulled it out from the passenger side.  He took one look at it and knew what was wrong.

“There’s a little collar on these now with an O ring.  Started putting them in when they came out with Check Engine lights.  Even a little drop in oil pressure makes the light come on.  See this?  Your collar is gone.  It’s probably down in that tube blocking your dipstick from going in.”’

“I’ll be damned.  I’ve been driving all these years and never heard of that.”

“It happens.  I had one yesterday.  Dipstick handles are plastic after all, and right next to that hot engine block.  Guess it only lasts so long.  This Buick’s a 2006 right?  I’d say 15 years is maybe the limit.  With any luck I can fish it out and get you going again.”

He went down into the Buick’s dipstick hole, I guess you’d call it, with the tool he had in his hand.  It looked homemade.  He pulled it out.

“There’s your O ring.”

Little black circle on the end of his finger. He handed it t me and went back in.  After some shifting and prying around, he appeared to get an angle on something, and drug it back up. Handed me a small yellow plastic crescent.

“There’s half that collar.  Let me see if I can get the other half.  If not, it will more than likely just fall into your oil pan and come out at your next oil change.  Better if I can grab it though.”

In a minute or so he came out with the other half.

“There you go.  Your dipstick technically would still work, but your Check Engine light would always be on, and you’d just figure it was that bad dipstick.  You ought to get a good one.  We keep a few in the back off wrecks and stuff.  Let me see if I can fix you up.”

He was gone a few minutes and then returned.

“No luck.  But they got them at NAPA.  Probably in stock.  Won’t cost you much.”

“Wow.  Thanks very much.  What do I owe you?”

“Nothin’.  Think of us when you need tires.”

“That’s very nice of you.  Thanks again.”

He smiled.

“Say, what do you know about this arm with the cylinder supposed to keep the hood up?”

“Same deal.  They wear out too.  When we work on old cars with bad cylinders like that, we just use vise grips.  Clamp ‘em right here.”

He showed me the spot.

“Works fine.  You can buy those at NAPA too if you want.  Cost you a little more than the dipstick though.  Easy to replace. You can do it yourself.”

He showed me how.  Two screws.  Easy peasy.

“Sure you don’t want anything for this?  You‘re giving me not only free labor but free advice too.”

“No.  Really.  That’s why we’re here.”

 

A new dipstick and hood support were $59.00 at NAPA.  I haven’t gotten around to fixing the hood deal, but I will soon.  I considered getting a cheap pair of vise grips and keeping them in the same place as the stick but that’s not right.  I like to keep the Buick in relatively good shape.  That car has been good to me, and I want to be good to it.  I figure the pandemic added at least a year if not more to the useful life of the Buick.  I barely drove it.  And while I know we’re going through a bad time still with COVID and this Delta variant, it’ll get better.  Has to.  We can’t lose hope. 

After I put that new part on the hood, I’m going to do some serious clean-up on the Buick.  The garden has been hard on it.  I got a lot of dirt in the trunk, and more on the floorboards.  A good vacuuming would do a world of good.  All the vinyl, sidewalls of the tires too,  could use a good wipe down with Armor All. 

The Buick and I haven’t been on a solo road trip since 2018.  I can’t believe it’s been that long. Those road trips in retirement take me back to when I traveled in the ’70s.  I was mainly hitchhiking then, and that’s apparently over.  But there is something about being on the road with time on my hands and all my thoughts to myself that pulls on me.  I have some maintenance issues of my own I need to take care of before I head out.  But I’m anxious to get out there again.  It makes me feel free.

I better see how much tread the Buick has on those tires.

Heading North

 COVID has changed even the simplest of things.  Like the annual guys’ fishing trip to Canada.  What’s simpler than going fishing?   Assemble the group, get the deposits, book a cabin on a lake, buy food, check your equipment, pack up and go, right? 

Wrong.  Last summer, pre-vaccine, the border never opened.  Gary Robinson broke a 30-year string of planning and enjoying group trips to Canada.  He thought the same thing might happen this year, but the Canadian government opened the border on August 9^th.  He quickly put a plan together and we crossed on August 27. But that crossing was completely different.

Most of us remember a time when you could cross into Canada by simply showing your American driver’s license.  9/11 changed all that.  Passports have been mandatory for twenty years, but this year brought several new wrinkles.

The ArriveCan computer app for starters.  It’s like pre-registering to enter Canada combined with providing health information.  The guys in the group helped each other figure it out by multi-texting on our smartphones.  We scanned the strip on our passport, provided photos of our vaccine card, a crossing date, emergency contact information, where we would stay, where we would quarantine if necessary.  Not easy but then again not hard if you have rudimentary computer skills.

Key to the process was proof of a negative COVID test within 72 hours of crossing into Canada.  We all took the drive-through test at Walgreens on the same day and crossed our fingers.  All good.  We took off the next day in two vehicles, one towing a trailer with all our gear.

It was a long trip, 15 hours, but shorter than previous years.  We’ve been driving to Red Lake, Ontario, and flying north onto Job Lake in a bush plane equipped with pontoons.  Job Lake is inaccessible by road and has just one cabin on the lake.  For that reason, the fishing is wonderful, and the privacy is exquisite.  No phone or internet capability.  We are connected to our camp owner by a satellite phone only used for emergencies.

Typically, we drive to International Falls, Minnesota the first night and cross the border into Fort Frances, Ontario the next morning.  But sleeping off eight more hours of our ticking 72-hour COVID test clock spooked us.  We booked a room in Fort Frances knowing we’d feel better when we successfully made it into Canada.  We crossed at 6:00 p.m.

The border official was friendly.  We produced actual passports, vaccine cards, and written copies of our COVID tests, all of which she looked at carefully.  I have a hunch all that information was already on her computer screen, but she checked it anyway and passed us through.  As U.S. citizens, we take our ability to travel freely throughout the world so lightly.  It’s a huge privilege, having access to nearly every nation on the planet, and not just our neighbors to the North.

It’s hard to say what was different about Fort Frances, Ontario after two years had passed.  Like all border towns, the community’s economy is based on those crossing back and forth.  There was a new and nifty cannabis shop so close to the border I think I could have hit a golf ball onto U.S. soil using a sand wedge.  It was busy.  But the town, in general, was not.  The local economy looked to be hard hit by the border closure.

At the Super 8 motel, the counter staff seemed to have been waiting for us.  I think they were smiling but we never saw their mouths.  Staff were strictly masked all the time. Canadians take preventative health measures more seriously than us.  The lobby was largely empty to prevent groups from gathering.  In the dining room, chairs were upside down on the tables and there was no breakfast service.  Brown paper bags were promised for the morning.    

We celebrated our escape from the U.S. that night at a beer and pizza joint close to the motel.  We encountered a long wait for service, not due to a crush of hungry diners, but because tables inside were shut down to provide safe distance between diners.  Our server seemed new.  Could be Canada is experiencing the same slow return to full employment as us.

Typically, the next morning before leaving for the trip into the Northwoods we would stop for one last prized provision.  Our group does serious bacon business in Canada.  You can still get butcher shop bacon up there wrapped in that thick brown waxed paper.  We buy ten pounds for the trip, and some guys buy more to bring home on the way out.  We used to buy it in Red Lake but lost that connection.  Thankfully, we found Einar’s, a tiny convenience store in Fort Frances with a butcher and wonderful thick Canadian bacon.   

I don’t know why bacon is better in Canada, but it is.  Einar slices our bacon from a freshly cured pork belly.  We’ve seen him do it in the store.   Oscar Mayer is no match for Einar’s bacon.  One of our first lunches on the lake is BLT’s with homegrown Illinois tomatoes and Einar’s bacon, and it's built into almost every breakfast.

Trouble was, we had crossed late Friday night and Einar is closed on weekends.  Gary phoned Einar prior to leaving and he promised to bring the bacon to the Super 8 so it was there for us Saturday morning.  It was.  I think Einar needed the business.    

The economics of the resort business changed our trip.  At its best, Northern Ontario’s fishing season is short.  It opens in mid-May and closes in early September.  Fly-in fishing is more expensive, and resorts that provide it face greater costs.  Contracting with pilots, gearing up planes, arranging for a season that could start no sooner than August 9^th, which gave them no more than five or six weeks of bookings, just didn’t add up.  We couldn’t find a fly-in option, to our regular lake or any other.  We were grounded.

So we chose big Lake Wabaskang, three hours North of the border and right around the corner from Perrault Falls.   In past years we would meet lots of southbound U.S. vehicles towing boats heading home on Saturday having finished their trips.  This year, traffic in both directions was light.

At Perrault Falls we turned off the road to Red Lake and followed a gravel trail 50 yards to a small parking lot on a lake.  It was the far south shore of Lake Wabaskang.  Dave, the owner of Peffley’s resort, pulled up shortly after we arrived in an old 21’ fiberglass speed boat with a big Yamaha outboard.  Most of the seats had been pulled out.  We loaded our gear into it.    

“I can only take half of you, so we’re going to have to make two trips.  The lake is really low.  If I put on too much weight, I can’t make it over the rocks in the shallows.  Besides that, I’m waiting on two more guys from Indiana.  They got stuck on the border.  The rest of their group got here yesterday.”     

Our group was headed to the north end of Lake Wabaskang, which covers 15,000 acres and has 105 miles of shoreline. We let the younger guys go ahead so they could get a head start unloading the gear.  I was selected for the second trip.  The boat pulled out and left us on the dock.  Occasionally you could hear a vehicle on the road.  Seemed odd to hear traffic on the lake we were going to fish. 

While we waited the guys from Indiana showed up. They carried a few bags and boxes from their car to the dock and we began to talk.

“Heard you had some trouble at the border.”

“I guess you could call it trouble, yeah.  Big damned confusing mess is what it was.  We didn’t think they were going to let us in.”

“What happened?”

“They said the information on that Canadian computer app didn’t match up with our papers.  Made us pull out of line and re-do it.  Gave us a Wi-Fi code and a password.  I don’t know shit about Wi-Fi.  I tried to tell ‘em that.” 

The other guy chimed in.

“A young guy in a car in line saw what was going on and came over to help us.  Started punching stuff into Jerry’s cell phone.   Got to some point and asked us what our email addresses were.  I knew mine but Jerry didn’t know his.”

Jerry threw up his hands and looked defeated.

“My wife does all that internet stuff.  I don’t pay any attention to it.  She told me I was all set.”

The digital age can be cruel to old guys who checked out of it long ago.  Jerry’s friend picked up the story.

“He don’t know his wife’s number.  So anyway, we got back in line and tried to explain our problem, but they weren’t having it and sent us back to the American side until we got it figured out.”

Jerry hung his head and his friend continued. 

“We lost a day.  My COVID test ran more than 72 hours but thankfully they took my temperature and stuff and didn’t make me take another one.  It was a mess.  But we’re here now.”

“Yep.  And it’s a nice day.”

We heard a boat in the distance.  Soon we were on the way to the fishing camp.  Jerry and his friend from Indiana were long-time acquaintances of Dave.  They hadn’t seen each other for two years and caught up during the trip.

At one point, when Dave throttled down and was scraping rocks in a narrow channel, Jerry inquired about one of their friends who had arrived in camp the day before.

“How many times has Bob fallen down?”

Dave laughed.

“None that I know, but he stumbled clear across the kitchen the other night when we came to visit.  He pulled on the door to let us in, it stuck, he let go of the knob, started pedaling backward, and couldn’t catch himself.  And it’s taking him a long time to get to and from the dock.”

The average age of your typical American fisherman in Canada is not going down.

We arrived at the opposite end of the lake where a cluster of a dozen or more buildings was built on a high rock bluff overlooking the lake. Peffley’s Wilderness Camp has a small protected cove with good solid docks.  Parked in the slips are more than a dozen nice 14’ aluminum fishing boats with new Yamaha electric start 20 hp motors.

Dave tied up on the dock and drove a four-wheeler with a two-wheel trailer down to the lake.  We loaded our stuff onto it to haul to the cabin.  Actually two cabins.  One slept six and a tiny one close by slept two.  Gary and his son took the tiny place.  It sat at a strange angle.

So did the bigger cabin.  If you dropped something off the kitchen table, it rolled clear to the door.   We made up for a lack of electrical outlets with extension cords.  The asphalt shingles were curling up on the roof.  The cabins need a lot of work.

Electricity at Peffley’s is powered by two Diesel generators.  Dave has another fiberglass boat equipped with a 100-gallon tank he uses to haul fuel across the lake to keep the lights on.  He takes good care of the place, cleaning the fishing boats and filling the gas tanks each day.  He makes sure minnows are brought in for bait.  He keeps the fish house, where fish are cleaned and filleted, clean and tidy.  We weren’t used to the comforts, running toilets, a fish house, someone to tend to the boats. 

Many operators of remote camps have invested in solar panels and battery systems on their cabins which provide electricity for the fishermen and pump water to the cabin.  Once those systems are in place, the cost to maintain them can be negligible.  I wondered to myself what it cost Dave to fill that big diesel tank and to keep the generators going for a season. 

Dave lives in Indiana in the off-season.  He bought the camp 16 years ago from its previous owner after fishing it summer after summer.  He’s in his mid-60’s I’d say.  He and his wife are going it alone this summer.

“We shortened the week by a day because we just can’t get one set of guests out, another in, and clean the cabins all on a Saturday.”

“So, usually you have help?”

“Yeah.  We bring in a couple in the middle of May and they stay all summer.  We provide housing of course and much of their food.  We’ve had good luck with Newfies.  The last Newfie couple we had worked six summers straight.”

“Newfies?”

“Canadians from Newfoundland.  Don’t ask me why they work in Ontario so far from home, but it works for them.  Nice people, hardworking.  But you can’t attract those kinds of workers for a five-week season.”

Gary’s booking was last minute.  He had brought a group there many years ago and called Dave on the chance he had an opening.  Many fishing camps on lakes in high demand are typically fully booked for years.  Not so during the pandemic.

“We were damned glad to get your call,” Dave told Gary.  “Sort of put the cap on this sliver of a summer’s business.”

Dave’s wife brought dessert over to our cabin twice, and Dave shared some ceviche he made from Walleye.  We reciprocated by mixing them cocktails.  They’re nice people.

“I thought maybe with the Americans unable to cross the border that Canadians would take up the slack and book the weeks the Americans didn’t use.”

“Nope,” Dave replied.  “It’s not like that.  I think upwards of 85% of the camps are run by guys like me, Americans who visited these lakes, dreamed of owning a resort, and found a way.  And our guests, I’d say 95% of all the fishermen, are American.  Canadians can nearly always find good fishing close to home.  They don’t need to rent boats and cabins for a week.  When the Americans couldn’t come, the resort business crashed.  If it wasn’t for some government help, we’d be out of business by now.”

“Used to be it was all word of mouth.  Most of my guests are from Indiana.  They tell people back home about the place and I get a ton of repeat business.  Most have kept their same weeks for years.  But it’s changing.  What we really need is younger fishermen, and we haven’t gotten them yet.”

We were surprised Dave was able to purchase the camp outright. The more remote fly-in lakes allow only long-term leases for outfitters.  Lake Wabaskang had other private parcels of land tucked here and there, though we saw little activity at their docks.  The other boats we encountered on the lake seemed to all be from Dave’s resort.

Despite the differences with our fly-in lake, Lake Wabaskang had plenty of similarities.  The one I yearned for the most was the quiet.

I consider it quiet in the shack but if I listen closely, I hear vehicles on Route 80, the overhead fan, planes from Skydive Chicago, any number of background noises we hear in our communities but typically filter out.  But on the north end of that giant lake, on flat water ringed by trees and away from towns, deep calm silence wraps around you like a blanket. 

 And on clear nights, the absence of ambient light makes the sky come completely alive; the bright highway of stars that makes up the Milky Way, the constellations.  There are smartphone apps now that you can use to point out the sky.  They outline the constellation you are looking at on the little screen, bringing it to life.

That’s another feature of Dave’s camp.  For the entire trip, we were rarely if ever shut out of an internet connection.  I stayed away from my phone as much as possible, using it mainly as a camera, and tried to ignore my friends who were talking about breaking news.  I was looking forward to being off the grid entirely. Different year, different trip. 

But no matter what men build around those big Canadian lakes some things remain constant.  Lake Wabaskang is a great fishery.  It has depth and variety, good flow in at its shallow north end and out the south at Perrault Falls.  It produces primarily Northern and Walleye Pike, many of them big and healthy.  We made the trip to fish, to be in the company of good friends, and experience the beauty of the Canadian Shield.  Mission accomplished.

Thanks to Gary Robinson for making the trip happen again this year under difficult circumstances, and for thirty years before that.  He has provided a great experience for many of us for a long time.  Give that man a fish.