All At Once

This man's best friend. Moose River, New York. August 15, 2015.

It's just me and I feel cruddy and have missed work and have zero to add except to cough and have earaches and watch whatever "film noir" is and try to sleep and avoid going outside (not both at once) and hate the universe and not hate the universe and feel bad about having nothing to say and put up a picture from a few years ago. 

-MJ

Winter Beater #1

A Wilson bellies up to the bar. Moose River, New York, August 17, 2015.

 


Back when I was about...three years younger than I am now, pretty much, there was a phrase my friends would throw around like dynamite when one of us got a really rotten set of wheels: nice winter beater!

No matter that I almost never bought a winter beater, much preferring for most of my life to drive year-round "beaters", the words from the past have stuck in my head to such an extent that they make me smile rather than cringe. Nice to have some distance between now and what seems from today's vantage point to have been foolishness. And yes; I said "seems". But you get the point.

I have nothing much to talk about regarding actual day-to-day goings on at The Settlement because like many winters lately (too many) I have not been there for months.  Early to mid-November was as long as work and weather allowed me to be there. And please tell me you understand I've only been away in a physical sense; my heart and mind and soul are from that place and seek return at all times, by any method of travel.

And now, unless we have a monster late-March blizzard (which happens infrequently but often and forcefully enough to make qualifications of timing not only relevant but necessary), the opening of my Moose River year (again; the physical presence type of opening) is within four weeks. Less than 30 days.

But I can feel the longing for the place building in me.  It's quiet-ish right now and doesn't drive my thoughts quite to the levels they will be driven to soon. After all, the weather hasn't been bad but it hasn't been overly cooperative with my inner hope of a long-term trend which will warm things up enough so that four weeks turns into two or one or a week ago. And since I now and for two decades have measured winter by when Moose River is accessible, that means it is still winter inside me as well as out. The warmth is not here yet, but it's coming.

And so, I offer winter beaters.  This one, anyway.  I suspect there will be more.


-MJ

The Man In The Middle

This post may very well have nothing at all to do with Moose River, New York; neither the former town which still tries its best to remain alive nor the flowing waters which roll past knowing (maybe) they are that town's namesake and reason for being will be mentioned more often here than almost anything else will. This will not, I think, be a post to draw genealogists and researchers and fans of nature photography, nor do I expect it will be popular among anyone who doesn't feel linked however tangentially to the aforementioned groups. In other words: if you're looking to get something meaningful out of this, you might have to dig a bit.

And yet, given what the term "Adirondack-y" (hyphenated or otherwise) implies in my heart and my soul and not least in my sense of absurd humor and appreciation of juxtapositions and ironies and stuff like that, this may make complete sense.

I type all this preludic (I don't know if that is considered a word by anyone else but it is by me just now) nonsense because a man died four days ago, a loving and very interesting man, a beloved and appreciated man, a man I have known my entire life, a man with more stories told and told about than anyone else I know, a man I have loved for as long as I can measure forever. A man who spent one night in Moose River, New York.

One night. Parts of two days, but one night.

Uncle Al.

I want to tell you a few things I know firsthand about my Uncle Al. If you don't enjoy reading or thinking about these things I am fine with it; go watch some Spectrum ads or fight for some cause someone told you matters fervently enough to convince you, or bail and hang out with "the girls" or "the guys" and do whatever the hell people do; there's a reason grocery stores hang packs of ping-pong balls in the beer aisles; I never see any paddles or replacement netting so I know there's a lot of stuff I don't know. But you, if you are so wired, do. So, do.

(Did that sort out any of the riff-raff? If so, please beckon them back. I love the riff-raff. It's the people who are sure of things that worry me. Not saying you should leave if you're sure of things; just saying consider the use of distance and perspective and reconsideration.)

All the inducements to leave I can think of having fizzled, you are still here. And so am I.

And so here is my story of Uncle Al.

***

Those three asterisks seeming to form an ellipsis were supposed to make some sense, to give me a jumping-off point from sadness to tell a bunch of great (or terrible) stuff about the man. But I have no great moments (judging by what I think other people I know consider greatness) and I have no terrible ones either (for the same reasons). But the man was in Moose River, New York, for about 18 hours (which is a guess, because I couldn't measure the time because I WASN'T THERE) and if that information isn't worthy of an official MRD obit, I don't know what is.

So here goes.

(Here comes some more asterisks; you have to use something.)

***

Allan F. Jones

1941-2019

He was born near Rochester, NY, USA, and spent a lot of his childhood and beyond watching out for his brothers, he was a lover and protector and supporter of them; myriad tales I have heard of Al pulling up next to them in his car and asking if they needed anything, money or otherwise.

He was a gun lover but never would have been without his focus on gun safety. He took at least one nephew into his parents' woods with a gun and drilled into him the importance of "every gun is loaded", "never walk behind anyone while carrying a gun", "barrel up or down but not forward".

He once said "excuse me a moment" and hopped out the front passenger door of his brother's station wagon while it was at the drive-thru window of the Panorama Plaza Burger King. He proceeded to walk to the rear of the car, climb on the bumper, and jump up and down and make theretofore unknown noises while bugging his eyes out, making the occupants of the car almost pee themselves with laughter and causing goodness knows what reaction from the cars behind them. He then jumped off the bumper and walked around as if it was completely normal, got back in the car, and said "Hi".

He was walking with a nephew down the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, when a man asked him "Got a quarter?". Allan's response was a deadpan facial expression (his specialty, I think) and the words "Two blocks down, then left."

He was a million fun and funny things, to me, but he was much more to me too. He was the person who taught me that the people who seem like they are in charge probably don't know shit. I never heard him say that word but his existence among us on this planet seems to serve as an example that he wouldn't be offended by it. I've spent fifty or so years on this planet and I think Allan's teachings are more valuable than anyone else's when it comes to expressing yourself in ways which influence formidable obstacles to question what they know. I cherish the wisdom he imparted; I often use tactics I call "channeling Uncle Al", and they work without fail.

In 1974 he yanked a Florida license plate from 1955 off a trailer in his backyard and gave it to a nephew. That plate is at Moose River.

He married a woman who loves him when he was close to 50 years old, and they have two daughters; their love is an inspiration to anyone strong enough to accept that you can't fight it: great people eventually find you.

His brothers cried when he passed. As of right this second I'm sure they aren't alone.

He spent a night at Moose River.

That's plenty. Or should be.

When I think of Uncle Al these few days he's been away more than normal I think of the offhand comment made about seemingly nothing, completely unnecessary except for its necessity, its need to make Al hear our laughs and look down as long as possible to some point on his chest, until maybe our responses or maybe something else made the stone face pass to an almost smile and then a laugh and an understanding of something causing something causing something again; is it wrong to say the man could guffaw? I don't know. I DO know he created laughter out of nowhere, and he doesn't play favorites. Wherever he is right now, he has me laughing (after all, the tears stopped fifty seconds ago), mostly because he refused not to laugh when it was necessary. He roared when it was called for, and it often was.

I'm sure he's still roaring with laughs some place, and I want eventually to hear his laughter again, and so he is claimed, Virginian though he surely is, as a Moose River...persona yes grata?

Whatever that means, it is.



-MJ