Hilltown Postcards

Mud and Maple Syrup

We took the kids for pancakes at the Red Bucket Sugar Shack on the far end of a paved road in Worthington. It was a charmingly rustic place with long picnic benches and crushed stone on the floor. Red wooden buckets were hung from the maple trees along the road, for show only because no one serious about sugaring used them anymore.

The sugarer, Jeff, a tall, red-headed man who looked more like a cowboy than someone who boiled syrup, tapped the trees in his sugar bush and elsewhere, collecting the clear sap that ran through plastic tubing to a metal vat. He trucked the sap back to his sugarhouse to boil it down into syrup in a large, flat-panned evaporator that billowed steam, slightly sweet and pleasant. 

Sugaring meant early spring although, as we found, winter hadn’t given up. The days rose into the forties, but the nights fell below freezing. It was worrisome to us, because we were down to our last bit of firewood at our home. But that’s the temps the sugarers need so the maple trees don’t bud and end the season’s draw. It still snowed, but it was the wet kind that melted the next day. Poor man’s fertilizer, I heard it called. 

Now, feeling the change in the weather and a good breakfast out, we were ready for a drive around town. The trees were bare still. Snow lingered in the woods and in dirty drifts along the roads where the plow’s blade shoved it. But the light was stronger and the air had a different scent, something green and fresh.

Zack, Win’s father, promised to put us on his list of people who get fiddleheads later in the spring. The old man had his secret spot beside a river in Huntington. We ate fiddleheads before, but store-bought. The tightly coiled fronds were a little like asparagus although I parboiled them twice to cut the tonic taste.

Hank decided to take Indian Oven Road, named that because of a rock formation in the middle of this winding dirt way that must have looked like an oven to someone long ago. If any Indians were there, however, they were just passing through.

Not many houses were on this road, newer homes, of course, at either end, and a few hunting camps in the middle. Hank discovered it last fall and it saved a few miles getting from one main paved road to another so it was a bona fide shortcut except in the winter when the town did not plow.

The last big storm was a month ago so it should be clear, but as we rounded the first curve, the road’s surface ahead appeared wet and loose. Mud. The other early spring phenomena.

“This doesn’t look too good, Hank. Maybe we should turn back,” I told him.

But Hank kept going.

“We’ll be okay. Just relax.”

But we weren’t okay, because we only went a few yards before our VW bus sunk into mud. The tires spun but couldn’t catch anything hard enough to move forward or backward. Hank put the van in neutral. I closed my eyes.

We were stuck, really stuck.

I got the kids out of the VW as if four skinny kids would lessen its weight and asked them stay on the bank. They watched as I pushed the front.

Hank should be doing this, but I didn’t know how to drive stick. He had the VW in reverse, giving it a little gas, but it was useless. It was digging itself deeper.

I yelled for him to stop. No way was this going to work.

Hank lit a cigarette. He smoked then. His jaw was tight as he got out to check the van. Mud was halfway up the wheels. He shook his head and glanced at a log cabin a hundred yards back, built smartly where the road was firm.

A man came out. We didn’t know him, we were still new to town, and he scowled as he looked our way. Hank tossed the butt into the mud, then walked toward him.

The man Hank was talking with didn’t appear willing to give us a hand. But Dan came, reluctant, complaining about the people who didn’t have any common sense driving on a dirt road during mud season and how tired he was pulling them out.

Then, Dan saw our kids standing on the side of the road, looking a little scared about getting home, and his face softened. He had two daughters of his own. He wasn’t an unreasonable man, just an inconvenienced one.

He went to get a chain and his truck. He thought he could get us out, but Hank would have to be careful so he didn’t dent his truck’s grill when he towed us. The rescue was a success thanks to Dan, who I am glad to say later became a family friend.

And we rookie newcomers learned another lesson about country living that day.

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Ralph Ellison

Finding the Invisible Man

I was on the second floor of a second-hand store checking its supply of used books. Ten books for a buck, the sign said. In the E section, I found a copy of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Hard cover circa 1952. The book jacket wasn’t pristine, but I didn’t care. It is worth a lot more than ten cents.

Inside the book I found a folded piece of paper that said “National Book Award for 1953. Fiction. Judges: Saul Bellow, Martha Foley, Irving Howe, Howard Mumford Jones, and Alfred Kazin.” I suppose it has been with the book since whoever bought it new back then.

I had been wanting a vintage copy of the Invisible Man for a while because this book has so much personal value to me.

In the second semester of my junior year at then-Bridgewater State College, now a full-fledged university, I took a Black Literature course with Dr. Barbara Chellis. She was a dynamic professor her students couldn’t pin down.

Dr. Chellis also taught an American Lit. course I took. One year she would say Emily Dickinson was a hack. Next year, when her students were ready to echo that theory, she praised Dickinson as a private poet who never expected to be published.

When we read The Scarlett Letter, Dr. Chellis cut her hair monk-short, wore severe clothes and an ornate silver cross. I learned about Poe’s “knowledge is power” and why people write from her.

Dr. Chellis was brilliant and compassionate. One time I was stoned when I took a mid-term exam. Without a lecture, she asked me take it again. I know you can do better, she told me.

That semester, I moved into the same apartment house as Dr. Chellis and her companion, another woman who taught in the history department. They lived on the first floor, and from our kitchen window on the second, I watched them hang out in their yard. My roommate lied to the landlord, telling him we were nurses and not college students. 

I remember the day I came home as Dr. Chellis drove her convertible into our driveway. The top was down. She slammed on the brakes, backed up, and glared at me. We got our eviction notice shortly afterward.

But I got her back, sort of. We had a huge, noisy party before we moved out. 

And, then there was the presentation I had to do for her Black Lit. class. I chose to speak on Ralph Ellison’s theme of invisibility in his Invisible Man, that nobody can see who we really are including a professor who had me evicted from my apartment. I recorded my speech ahead of time and played the recording it in front of the class so it would seem I was invisible when I spoke. 

Dr. Chellis gave me an A for the presentation.

The last time I saw Dr. Chellis was when I went to her office to get my final grade, another A. She was cordial and encouraging. She asked me why I no longer dated a popular student she liked. I simply said he broke up with me. The truth was he was gay and didn’t want to love a woman. 

I went to Europe that summer. When I returned, I heard Dr. Chellis had been diagnosed with a brain tumor, which later killed her. It seemed terribly unfair.

Here is a quote from the Invisible Man: “All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was.” Thank you Dr. Chellis.

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Hilltown Postcards

Friday Night at Liston’s

Here’s another Hilltown Postcard I found stashed in my computer, in which I wrote about the great Friday nights we had at Liston’s in Worthington when it was owned by Steve and Diane Magargal. Steve also sat for an interview for this story I crafted many years ago. Liston’s, which was bought by a group of locals in 2021 and rebuilt, is still a popular place

It’s 9-something on a Friday night, and the band is into the first set at Liston’s. The tables are filled so Hank and I sit at the bar, a good idea because the band bought larger speakers since the last time we heard them. 

Owners Steve and Diane Magargal had the pool table pushed to the side and covered by plywood. Tables and chairs are stacked outside and the Budweiser Beer light with the Patriots insignia is unhooked from the ceiling. The musicians are backed against one wall, but even so, the dance floor is no bigger than a dining room in a split-level ranch.

The band is starting strong with danceable tunes but they have no takers. Billy is feeling extra-good tonight, clowning around with some solo dance moves on the floor and then doing a goofy stunt with a Patriot’s football helmet. His mother, Shirley, who lives in the senior housing down the road, is laughing on the stool beside mine. A man asks me why I’m laughing, too. Billy, I tell him.

When Hank’s ready, we’ll be on the floor nearly every number. He leads. I follow. Our style is sort of swing. Holding hands. Back and forth. Stepping together in some fancy footwork. Nice and loose. Spinning. Twirling. People often remark they like to watch us. 

We tried a lesson but that didn’t work. It’s hard to break down what we do naturally. We were also getting ticked off at each other. I’ve only danced with a few other men, including one heart-thumping Wanda Jackson number with a family friend. I’m here to have fun with Hank.

Liston’s dates back to 1933 when it was founded by Fred Liston. The bar used to have gas pumps. 

It’s only three miles from our house, a good thing because sometimes it’s easier to get to a bar than to get home from one. 

Steve, whose family goes way back in Worthington on both sides, remembers biking here as a boy, he and his buddies going swimming, then stopping for penny candy, Coke in the bottle, and the shuffleboard machine. At the time, Liston’s wasn’t the only bar in town. Frankie’s was in West Worthington, nothing more than a joint that served ice-cold beer. On Saturdays, Steve’s dad and his Uncle Bevo rounded up the neighbors’ garbage to haul to the dump, and when they stopped at Frankie’s, he and other kids played Wiffle ball outside. 

Steve says Frankie’s could be a rough place. Hell’s Angels robbed it one time, and the bikers shot the dog. When the place burned to the ground, the owner didn’t bother rebuilding.

Later, when Steve was old enough, it was the Drummers Club on Friday nights after softball. It was Liston’s on Sunday nights after pick-up basketball in Town Hall. The bar didn’t have a large selection. 

“But the beer was ice cold and Irene had the TV set on,” he says. 

Liston’s wasn’t a late-night place then. Irene, the owner, discouraged it. Two bad accidents involving patrons a few years apart shook her up. Now, Steve and Diane own the place. 

Hank and I have moved to a booth. The cold air leaches through the wooden walls although hay bales wrap the outside. The five TVs, including the one above the band, are tuned to a basketball game with the sound off. In the summer, it’s usually a baseball game. Red Sox and Patriots fans rule at Liston’s. (Steve and Diane organize a couple of bus trips to Fenway each summer.) Sometimes it’s NASCAR or a rodeo. One night, hunters were killing deer on the screen.

Admittedly, Liston’s and other watering holes have been an inspiration for my adult fiction, which have a bar in every book.

When Liston’s doesn’t have a band and we still feel like dancing we’ll go elsewhere, usually the Ashfield Lake House, where you dance between two rows of tables, or the Home Club in Hinsdale, where they serve Bud in cans, or to a friendly biker bar in Easthampton. We rarely know a soul even though they’re not that far from Liston’s, our place of preference. Here, we know most everyone. Many have worked with Hank. Others just live in town or one nearby. Some are kids who went to school with our kids but haven’t left town.

I’ve seen two or three generations here at the same time or so many members of one family drinking you’d think they’re having a reunion. One kid, who sipped sodas while his pop drank beer, got a birthday cake on his twenty-first birthday. 

There’ll always be a little barroom hanky-panky, but people have to be on good behavior. No swearing. No fighting. No acting up so others feel uncomfortable. Or they get tossed for several months, long enough to realize how much they miss the place. If the mess-up happens in winter Steve tells the offender to see him when the grass is green. If it happens in summer? “I tell them to come see me at Christmas.” But some don’t learn their lesson. Six people in town are permanently banned from Liston’s, and I know all six. Unpredictable sorts.

I get up to use the women’s room. The women’s room is clean and smells good, because women won’t put up with anything funky. The door is located next to the bar, so guys lining up to get drinks have to step aside to let you in. The women’s room is also close to the part of the bar where the band plays, and if they’re loud, it feels as if they’re in there with you.

By the band’s second set, the dancers are on their feet. The dinner crowd is gone, and those who remain are here for the music. The parking lot this time of year is usually packed with snowmobiles but we haven’t had enough snow this winter so the trails in the woods are thin. 

The band plays something from the Rolling Stones, then Johnny Cash, and those in a dancing mood are loving it. We’ve found our feet and are on the floor with them. The floorboards are smooth from ground-in dirt and drinks.

The man who sells us firewood, a lean guy who wears a ball cap pulled down on his head, holds his arms tight and does a nice shuffle. So does his buddy, Kyle, who later sings with the band. Another Kyle, a sheep farmer, wraps his big arms around a woman in a tender way like he’s carrying her. Gerry, who is sometimes called Freddy, is jumping around like he’s stomping out brushfires. A young girl who grew up with one of our sons, of age to drink, shows off a trick she can do with her cowboy hat.

Most bands play cover tunes. A few make up their own. Mostly it’s some blues, some country, and a lot of rock and roll. Charles Neville of the Neville Brothers, who lived in a nearby town, has played sax with local bands a couple of times, including a benefit Steve and Diane held for New Orleans musicians displaced by the hurricanes.

Bands can be on one night and flat the next. They get better or worse or call it quits. You know a band’s in trouble when the lead singer goes to the bar for a beer in the middle of a song. Or they’re just too weird. 

One night, Steve hired a two-man band as a favor. The guitarist, a small man, dressed like he was the reincarnation of Stevie Ray Vaughn with a satin shirt and a black, flat-brimmed, Billy Jack-style cowboy hat. He tried playing like Stevie while the drummer wailed away with his sticks. 

Hard-working guys. But no one left their seats. 

You could only watch.

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Isabel Long Mystery Series

Missing the Deadline now in paperback

It’s a fact of my writing life that most of my book sales are digital. I’ve grown to accept that because it means attracting — and hopefully keeping — readers far from where I live. But I have great news for those who prefer a book in hand. Missing the Deadline, no. seven in my Isabel Long Mystery Series, is now available in that format.

So I will jump right to it, here is the link to Missing the Deadline.

As my publisher, darkstroke books, prefers, the Kindle version is released first, typically three months before the paperback is released. Frankly, I find the release of both an exciting development.

So, what’s this book about?

As it has happened before, Isabel finds her next case in an unlikely place — at a poetry reading. Cyrus Nilsson, aka the Big Shot Poet, is trying to make amends to the late Cary Moore, who you might remember was a highway worker who wrote poetry good enough for him to steal. He was even a suspect in that case, Isabel’s third. But the reading is to promote Cary’s book, ‘Country Boy,’ which Cyrus worked hard to get published.

Cyrus asks Isabel about taking on a case after the event, which was SRO at Penfield Town Hall. So, what’s this one about? Cyrus’s first literary agent, Gerald Danielson, was found shot in the head and near death outside his home three years ago.

Gerald survived but is not the same hotshot literary agent who moved from New York City to the village of Meadows Falls. Police ruled a failed attempt at suicide. But Cyrus has serious doubts. 

And as Isabel pursues this case, she quickly accumulates a list of possible suspects, such as a vindictive ex-wife, a jilted local writer, and even an apparently devoted sister who lives with him. 

Isabel also delves into the often frustrating world of publishing, which includes a trip to a literary conference in Vermont. She also explores a part of the hilltowns that is unfamiliar to her.

(By the way, Maria, Isabel’s mother and “Watson,” is glad to have a case once again. She says it’s boring without one.)

The books in my Isabel Long Mystery Series can stand alone, so you don’t need to read the first Chasing the Case. But it’s always my hope is that I will hook you into reading the rest.

PS I am half-way through Finding the Source, no. 8. 

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Hilltown Postcards

Following a Mislead about Mastodon Bones

After being the Worthington correspondent for years, I took on two more hilltowns: Chesterfield and Cummington. These days predated the social media we have now, so that required bona fide legwork. Fridays was my day to call sources in each town, which included officials, school secretaries, and people generally plugged in to their community. I also drove around, making a couple of stops at town halls and such. I called it “checking the traps.” When I became an editor that’s what I advised the reporters to do. It’s also the title for one of my Isabel Long Mysteries.

One of favorite sources was Ron Berenson, who used to co-own the Old Creamery Grocery in Cummington, population less than 800. Ron, who was a transplant from New Jersey, was a lawyer and had worked in PR, so he had a keen interest in news. He knew how to chat up the customers. He tipped me to so many stories and only misled me once, but it would have been a great one if it’d been true.

Ron called to say two archeologists from MIT had stopped at the store to say mastodon bones had been found in the Swift River section of Cummington, a discovery of immense proportions. “I wanted you to get the story before the New York Times and the Globe,” my loyal source told me.

So I drove to Swift River, following Ron’s directions. I parked the car at the end of a dirt road just as a state wildlife truck was pulling out, which I took as a good clue.

But as I hiked in the snowy woods to a clearing, I didn’t find a crew of scientists or equipment or even footprints. All I saw was the paw prints of bear, massive ones, but I kept searching for an hour or so, trying different roads until I returned to the store.

Ron was incredulous that I didn’t find anything, the men had been so serious, but then a customer overhearing our conversation started laughing. The night before on the TV show, “Northern Exposure,” two characters played the same trick on the locals. Now the laugh was on us.

I used to tease Ron about the story, but I didn’t hold it against him. He and I had been duped together.

But too bad, it would have been a great story it were true.

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