RUDIMENTS, pt.76
Making Cars
Edie was a woman, about 50 to
my 21, pretty close. She raised
a small flock of about 20 sheep,
amidst her rolling land along the
way, mostly hidden, on, and below,
a bend in the road, in a place called
Big Pond, PA. About 4 miles over,
by geography, from the area I was in.
Big Pond was nothing really, maybe
6 farms and a few run-down homes
and a trailer or two in the weeds, at a,
yes, big pond that was there. The nicely
descriptive place named summed it all
up. We became friends - she was widowed,
or divorced, whatever, I never really asked,
but she lived alone, was strong and harsh
and rugged. In fact, by today's standards
and as I think about it, she could have
been dealing with other women, but I
didn't know anything, nor think about it,
back then out there - lesbian or not, it
wouldn't have seemed to work. Anyway,
she was old by my standards, but we got
on well - sometimes I'd see her over at
Agway, or, in the other direction, east, to
'Burlington, PA, at Kennedy's General
Store, buying feed or supplies. We had a
couple of pigs at this time that we were
raising, so we too needed supplies. Edie
came over a few times too, to the house.
Just cool, old country talk. My wife and
her got on good, and I liked talking local
stuff with her. In the area down from her
house and barns, she also had a nice stand
of maple trees, which she'd tap each March,
for syrup to be made from the sap - maple
syrup is a big undertaking, the trees each
have to be tapped at the right time of year
(when the Spring sap starts flowing), the
timing is important, a pail has to hang from
each tap, they need tending and emptying,
a furnace or boiler-fire unit needs to be
in place, the collected sap boiled, water
content and all vapor'd away, plus it takes
(I forget the ratio) like, perhaps 5 gallons
of sap to boil to one gallon of maple syrup.
Which then has to be ladled and jarred,
in whatever way. And, by the way, these
trees are 'sugar' maples, a variety; not your
regular maple trees. The syrup ends up,
usually, surprisingly expensive, but it is
labor intensive, and, besides, in a very
typical supply and demand thing, they've
got the trees, you don't. It was my first
exposure to any of this - I knew nothing
of syrup or sap collecting. Or sheep, for
that matter. Which were another problem
of their own. Almost a political thing.
I never got to the bottom of it, but the cow
farmers really disliked having the sheep
farmers around them - the sheep were
voracious in leveling the grass-fields they
were put on. They would eat it down very
close-cropped. Cow farmers (I mean to say,
dairy) always got all annoyed at that notion,
dependent as they were on the nice grasses
and things which their cows munched on in
the Summer, grazing, months. But the two
never overlapped, sheep fields and cow fields,
so I couldn't ever figure out the problem,
except that it was just another little testy
thing for these people to carp about. Edie
never much cared, and she wasn't like that
anyway. I never noticed her having the trait
of getting all painful over some dumb,
manufactured issue, as many of these local
folk were prone to doing. Well, who knows,
sometimes you just hit it off with people,
other times not.
-
Just up from Edie's place, maybe 1000 feet
up, higher ground, on the dirt road, was
this decrepit old place in which lived this
wild-man kid, with his family, sort'a, named
Lloyd Perry. There were a few brothers, all
into their 20's. Might'a been the James Gang,
they way they comported themselves. It was
one scary bunch. To be frank, I used to worry
some about Edie being down there solo within
proximity to those maniac guys. She never
seemed to worry though. The only one I ever
got to know was the guy named Lloyd. He
might as well have been, even back then,
one of those paroled murderers that you
see who get back into the crime racket and
end up killing about 10 people on some mad
new killing spree. He'd be talking to you,
and his always active eyes would be selectively,
and separately, it seemed, scanning the scene
- the room , the place, the yard, the field, the
car - whatever situation you were in, for
marauders, or something amiss or anything
going on that he should take immediate action
over. It was pretty disconcerting. They had this
old barn at the top of the rise at the curve in
the road, and the side of that barn, old-wood,
unpainted, was coated, covered, with the
carcasses of the last hundred critters they'd
shot and killed - nailed up. Birds and pheasants,
wings spread open, nailed. Dried-out big things,
and smaller animals too. It was a sight, and,
once more finding myself unfamiliar with
whatever went on in those locations, the local
tradition and meanings. I just observed. But
every time I would drive that ridge and curve -
bam! right into that very strange barn-scene.
I only had one or two run-ins with Lloyd, who
did eventually become a friend, of sorts. He
was tight with the local nut case, Jim Watkins,
and due to a weird confluence of events one
time that I got involved in - involving alcohol,
cake, girls, someone's birthday, and the use of
my house (my wife was away for a week or so,
hospital dealings, medical care, and a local
neighbor lady, Verna Beaman (everyone had
such cool names) was watching our infant
son, for the duration, as well as feeding me,
making sure things were OK, etc.), a nasty
drunk-fight broke out in my living room,
what we called 'living room' anyway, which
then was trashed a bit, and a chair thrown (I
don't mean a folding chair, I mean a 'chair')
my way...oh well, suffice it to say I suffered
some damages, the girls were forced to scurry
off, and these two fools were left in their own
dribble, sleeping it off while I tended to a
bruised and bloodied head and a broken lip.
Two days later, on a late light arranged
meeting, in the woods, about a mile off
on some dirt road behind Willard Brown's
place, the entire same crew met again, and
everyone made up, apologized, checked
injuries, etc. and, as well, forked over some
cash for wrecking my room a bit, and
furnishings. I learned quick not to be so
all-darn-free-and-stupid again.
-
I never really 'met' the older brothers of
Lloyd. Not that I wanted to. There was
a sister too, and all I can say is God
have mercy on her.
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