Chapter drafts continued and subject to change.
3. The Chimes
It’s dark. The Old Meeting House bell is chiming – one…two…three…four…five…six…
Time to get up.
Stoney pulls back the covers, plants his bare feet on the chilly pine floor, steadies himself, takes three cautious steps toward the bathroom door thinking,
Did I hear the chimes at two and three?
Slides the glass door shut. Raindrops splatter on the back deck. Faint moonlight illuminates the tenuous snow cover on the lake. Louise rolls over and pulls up the covers.
Awake, expectant but still a little groggy, Mookie waits patiently curled up on the living room rug. Bending down and ruffling the curly fur on Mookie’s neck, stepping carefully over the lump of his body. He dutifully follows Stoney to the kitchen to begin the morning ritual.
Read the outdoor thermometer – rain drops sliding down its face, 36, maybe. Check.
Slicing and stacking two pieces of home bread next to the toaster to share with Louise. Check.
Casting light on the hall thermostat with his phone and cranking it to 71. Check.
Climbing the stairs to his office – Mookie waits at the foot saving himself from the slippery thirteen steps – turning on the space heater, stepping onto the scales. Check.
Back down to the bathroom. Brushes teeth. Check.
Choosing which and how many layers to wear. Might be a break in the rain. Decided to chance it. Check.
Down the cellar stairs, Mookie first. The furnace blasting on the left, the water pump groaning on the right. Reflection vests strapped on, activates the Garmin 955 – BEEEEP.
Fits the harness tight around Mookie’s strong torso. Opens the thick cellar door. Mookie launches forward into the darkness like a racehorse from the starting gate. Clicking the latch of the heavy door behind them. No rain, a dusting of snow instead. Check.
Early morning runners – fast and slow, women and men, black, white and brown, stepping outside at the very same moment. Check.
The first step in the freezing air is always the toughest. Check.
Jogging down the silent sidewalk to the Old Meeting House, snowplows rumbling by softly scattering salt crystals, dancing in the glow of taillights. Glancing east over the public beach to the lake and beyond to Cardigan Mountain as the sky lightens into a pink rose. Turning onto Apple Blossom Lane. Commuters zipping passed, heading for Route 4, headlights searching – WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH. Check.
Hitting his stride, Mookie trotted smartly, stopping, sniffing the snowbank suspiciously. Apple Blossom winds through a tunnel of trees and drops down into a field, curving gently toward the horse corral. Emerging into the opening as the clouds break up and the waning crescent moon, full it seems like yesterday, looks down assuredly. The two are connected by the retractable leash. Mookie retraces their footsteps back toward the house. Check.
RRRAAA-UUUN… Urgently, an oversized log truck with an added trailer, both overfilled with pulpwood, sucks a tunnel of air down Canaan Street heading for the chip plant in Bristol. Check.
4. The Westerlies
A retired engineer, he cared for his aging mother for ten years. Every day, fair weather or foul, Shep, short for Sheppard, held her arm and guided her bent-over frame down and back on the sidewalk, until she finally and sadly passed away a few years ago. Shep lives alone now and tends his scattering of garden plots and flower patches that cover two-thirds of his postage-stamp corner lot at the intersection of Canaan Street and Apple Blossom Lane, the closest home to the Old Meeting House.
Daffodils, lining the south side of Shep’s gambrel home, welcome spring. A brilliant yellow chorus, a hundred strong. Lupines, gladiolas, iris join the singing as the summer symphony unfolds. Shep, hunched over his push-mower, is careful to mow around clusters of wildflowers when they emerge – Indian paintbrush, goldenrod, Queen Anne’s lace. He collects grass clippings and fallen leaves, used to blanket the roots of orange cherry tomatoes, peas, beans, squash and raspberries. Apple trees are cropped in the fall. Up the ladder Shep scurries with his loppers. Ripe fruit is scooped up into the wheelbarrow, then pressed into cider. Sugar maples are tapped, sap boiled into high-grade, tasty light brown syrup. Shep’s bounty is shared with his neighbors.
On Sundays he walks across the street to the Meeting House to wind, first the clock, then the bell striker and resets the clock hands to the right time on tower’s three round faces. Their black complexion stands out against the whitewashed tower clapboards. One looks north up Canaan Street toward the steep descent into Canaan Center. One east across the lake to Cardigan Mountain and the third looks south down The Street, as it’s called by locals, humping up over the shoulder of The Pinnacle, cascading down off the ridge, etched out by the retreating glacier, into Canaan Village, a drop of some 300 feet, to the blinking light at the intersection of Main St. and Route 4, where the Town Office and Town Library sit side-by-side.
Louise and Stoney downsized after their kids went off to college, moving from the 1815 “Old Currier Place” at 551, to the smaller 1850 “Old Williams Place” at 484, diagonally across The Street from Shep.
Soon after moving into 484, Shep, planning to visit his sister in Colorado for a week, asks Stoney if he wouldn’t mind stepping in to wind the clock in his stead. Jumping at the chance to get to know the venerable structure more intimately, Stoney follows him up three flights of spiral stairs to the clock tower, so Shep can show him the ropes. Ascending, the smell of the decaying spruce posts lingers in the stairway. In Stoney’s mind, the musty smell of decay serves to open a creaky wooden door into the rich history of the town.
The federal style Canaan Meeting House, completed in 1794, five years after the French Revolution. The clockwork and chiming bell, “presented” to the town in 1893. The shortlist of major contributors gracing a bronze plate on the wall: Charles H. Hackett, Hon. Caleb Blodgett, G.H. Goodhue, Lewis C. Pattee, Oliver H. Perry, L.B. Hutchinson, W.D. Currier and Hon. William M. Chase.
The Canaan Street Historic District, created in 1973, seeks to preserve the historic past of the town settlement on the lake. The District Commission’s task was to protect a special era in the town’s history. Restorations must use original materials, paint colors chosen from an approved list, in effect, hoping to stop the clock from ticking, to freeze history in time.
“HAH”
Shep exclaims loudly, grabbing a low-hanging horizontal steel supporting beam.
“Don’t bump your head on this guy,” he warns, laughing.
Having climbed up a narrow step ladder through a trapdoor, they stand side-by-side in the shaky tower on the loose, creaky planks – a catwalk encircling the clockworks, an immense jumble of gears and pulleys. Two-by-fours support the decaying spruce posts. Wind whistles between the cedar clapboards. The Westerlies.
“So…to wind the bell striker, you raise this counterweight…,” Shep indicates the steel cable that hangs down the 20-foot shaft to the heavy counterweight in the shadows.
“Crank this handle clockwise like this…” Shep adds, looking through his round wire-rim glasses up at me with a big toothy grin, thinning curly head of hair in disarray.
Shep is a fit 60-something. In addition to doing his yard work and gardening by hand, he pedals his gravel bike over hilly routes, paddles on the lake and the mighty Connecticut and backcountry skies whenever there is snow in the far North Country atop the Greens or Whites.
Bending over gingerly, Stoney grabs the crank with two hands, bends his knees, then lifts slowly, allowing his back muscles to flex gradually before straightening his legs using his quads.
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK… up and over the top of the first revolution it goes and, CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK, CLUCK… down, down, down to the bottom as Stoney presses with his full weight on locked arms.
“One…” counts Shep, both rows of his big white teeth flashing, then to punctuate his enthusiasm, he adds,
“HAH.”
Stoney thinks back to the surgery on his spine.
Yikes! So far so good.
Breathing heavily, he continues… 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… getting tired…10, 11, 12, 13, 14…and 15, done.
“HAH”, Shep blurts again for good measure.
“You’ll be happy to know that that electric pulley,” pointing to the tiny electric motor behind the clockworks, “lifts the big counterweight to wind the clock. Just watch.” Another wide grin from Shep. They both watch and it takes nearly ten minutes for the weight to rise to its Sunday morning position.
TICK…TICK…TICK….TICK…
Then, the counterweight starts its weeklong journey back down into the shadows once more.
From the ground, the bell tower and its shining brass weathervane atop the clock tower look majestic, everlasting, but time and weather, particularly the combination of rain or snowmelt and the Westerlies, have taken a toll.
“You probably noticed the fund-raising thermometer out in the front yard for the “Meeting House Restoration Fund”. $180,000 donated so far using gofundme.com. The goal is to raise $200,000. Most of that is to rent a crane to lift off the tower and lower it to the ground to replace the rotting posts that support the bell,” Shep says looking up at the huge tarnished bronze bell over their heads.
By twisting two wooden stoppers, Shep is able to remove the small square of plywood inside the west face of the tower. A panoramic view up and down the Upper Connecticut River Valley stretches out before them. They take turns peering out across the lumpy green carpet. Wind funnels through the tiny window, whistling. The Old Meeting House seems to be teetering on the edge and vulnerable to the stiff Westerlies.
The thought gives Stoney goose bumps.
Twelve miles to the west, as the crow flies, another weathervane, sitting atop Baker Tower in Hanover reaches up into the sky, testing the winds.
5. The Winds of Change
In 1928, a weathervane depicting Eleazor Wheelock at the foot of the Lone Pine, sitting on a stump next to a barrel of rum and looking down upon a Native American Indian, probably an Abenaki, sitting cross legged on the ground, wearing a headdress and smoking a long, white, curved clay peace pipe, was placed atop Baker Tower. Wheelock, the founder of Dartmouth College, established the college with a commitment to educate and instruct youth of the Indian tribes in this land. This mission was articulated in the college’s original charter, which aimed to provide education to Native American students as well as English youth.
The school’s motto, Vox Clamantis in Deserto, reflects its mission – a call to arms to speak out for justice and truth, even when those messages may go unheard and unheeded by the majority.
Samson Occom, a Mohegan Indian and one of Wheelock’s first students, played a crucial role in raising funds to establish the college. However, despite this initial commitment, Dartmouth did little to actualize this mission for its first 200 years. It wasn’t until 1970 that Dartmouth reaffirmed its founding mission and established one of the first Native American programs in the country.
More recently, however, 900 students (Winni Moonflower and Chiqala Little Deer among them) and alumni signed a petition calling the weathervane a racist and stereotypical portrayal of Native Americans and in 2020 it was removed a few days after Commencement.
Lake Hitchcock was formed 15,000 years ago when the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreated, leaving a natural dam that created a lake that extended from present-day Rocky Hill, Connecticut, up to St. Johnsbury, Vermont, submerging the Connecticut River Valley. The lake was long north-to-south and narrow east-to-west with a maximum depth of 200 feet, the same measure as the height of the weathervane on Baker Tower.
Over time the natural dams eroded and the glacial lake gradually shrank and drained down into the valley between the Greens and the Whites, creating the Mighty Connecticut River. With time vegetation grew on the hillsides and filled the valley up with trees and plants, fauna and flora. Settlers paddled up the streams and rivulets of the mighty river’s watershed and established early settlements, Native Americans first, followed be explorers, trappers and homesteaders from around the globe.
6. The Upper Valley
The UV is interlaced with a vast web of trails cast upon the landscape – routes, segments, gravel and dirt roads for walkers, hikers, runners, riders, swimmers, cross country skiers and paddlers. A virtual spider’s web of paths over hills and mountains, through forests and meadows, along streams and lakes. The Appalachian Trail crisscrosses the mighty Connecticut River, the Long Trail pushes its way along the UV’s western rim before reaching up to the Canadian border. At any moment in time this intricate web is like an ant colony of bustling activity – dream chasers, nature lovers, soul seekers. Verdant and peaceful, the flow of nature breathes and draws them in.
Ultra marathoning – the ultimate challenge for a long distance runner. The young, the middle aged, the old, the black, the red, the brown, the yellow, the white, the disadvantaged, the blind, the intellectually challenged, the disabled, the homeless, the religious, the spiritual, the winners, the losers and those who run to honor nature and support others or raise money for worthy causes. Running in the woods for 26.2+ miles along a path over hill and dale will connect you with nature and transform you from the inside out. The tougher the challenge the better and the more attractive it becomes. The trek may take hours, days, nights, a weekend, months, years or a lifetime. Day and night, spring, summer, winter, fall. The endless journey.
It is at once exhilarating, hallucinating, life threatening, intoxicating, depressing, humiliating, exhausting yet invigorating, mean yet loving, contemplative yet mind numbing, enlightening, awakening, addictive, adaptive, rejuvenating, crippling, courageous yet stupid, inclusive or exclusive. A metaphor for life – ever changing in the never-ending swirl of Chi energy.
To be continued…