Summer 1966In the Catskill Mountains
Author: Ken Homer Issue: 2024-08-07
Summer 1966–In the Catskill Mountains
by Ken Homer
The summer of ’66 was the summer that upended and rearranged my entire life. In an unusual move my middle sister—who rarely accompanied me on my summer trips to Sag Harbor Long Island—joined me on a bus trip to upstate New York. We were going to visit an aunt of my mother’s—Aunt Margaret, we’d never met her before which seemed strange. She and Uncle Henry had a cabin in the Catskills which would prove to be trip to paradise for me.
Set deep in the woods far off from the road the only sounds to be heard were the sounds of nature. Birds mostly, with the occasional sound of animals moving in the forest and the buzzing of millions of insects. The crickets at night a symphony of sound.
I didn’t understand the concept at the time, but a group of homeowners had purchased a series of large lots arrayed around a small lake. Then they had the lake stocked with fish back in the ’40s. Because there were only a dozen or so families with access to the lake it never needed to be restocked. There was an abundant supply of perch pickerel bass sunfish catfish lake trout pike and carp. There were lily pads and frogs galore. I spent hours in on and around that lake and exploring the stream that fed it. There was also a tire swing hanging from an old tree where we could swing far out over the water and plunge into the lake.
The dark cloud of my mother’s illness was hanging over us. I really didn’t know much about what was happening. I only knew that while my sister got to talk to my mom every few days I was never allowed to. Like so many other things I was told this was for my own good. To protect me from the harsh truth that my mother was dying. I wish they had trusted me with the truth.
That protection backfired. It left me feeling guilty and responsible for her death. I’d get an update that came down to: “She’s still in hospital, coming home soon.” I tried to ignore the horrible way that such news twisted my guts into tangled knots.
Uncle Henry was not a blood relation. Though I wish he had been because he had Iroquois blood running in his veins. (I’ve long been fascinated by the Iroquois) His hair was streaked with gray, but his face was not heavily lined and he had the prominent cheekbones of a Native person. He carried himself with uncommon ease. He was another of the elders who cared for me as a youngster whose true measure I never guessed at until decades later.
He and Aunt Margaret were probably in their late 60s. She was a tall sturdily built woman with a plain face and a direct no nonsense manner of speaking. But she was good-natured and tender-hearted. I think she was terribly upset by what was going on with her niece. It seems they had been close when my mom was younger.
Uncle Henry moved in ways like nobody I had ever met before—he seemed to move as one with the Earth itself! It was like he was tuned to a different frequency. A station that no one else I knew could hear. A rhythm of life that not many in the contemporary world can access today. Like Dr Dolittle he could talk to the animals!
One day a skunk wandered into the garage and got itself caught in one of those Have-A-Heart traps that he kept. I watched this man walk ever so slowly into that garage—I estimate it took him maybe three minutes to cover 30 feet—the whole time he was smiling and humming and cooing until he got to the trap. Then he opened it. The skunk just looked at him and moseyed on out of the garage like this was an everyday occurrence—I was agog!
One morning Aunt Margaret woke me up with a finger to her lips motioning me to follow her to the living room, which I did. She pulled back the curtain from the window and there on the front lawn was Uncle Henry with an apple in his mouth. In front of him were three deer, a buck and two does. Uncle Henry leaned forward in that slow graceful way of his and one of the does came up and took the apple from his mouth. I felt like I was watching someone from a different order of being. It was clear this man was unlike anyone else I had ever met, and I loved him even though I’d only known him for two weeks.
He took me fishing almost every morning. Fish from the lake was a large part of our diet there along with venison that he had obtained from his bow and arrow hunting and vegetables from their large garden. One morning I attempted to cast my line and found I my pole wouldn’t budge I looked back and saw that the three-pronged hook on my line had embedded itself in Uncle Henry’s cheek. But all he did was to calmly grab my fishing pole then nod at me to let go while he carefully removed the hook from his face. No harm done he said and smiled at me. Then he got a Band-aid out of his tackle box and put it on his face and said “How about we catch ourselves some breakfast?”
We spent a total of three weeks at that little cabin with those amazing people. Then Aunt Margaret got on the bus with my sister and me and the three of us went to New York City to meet with Aunt Irene who would take us to a cousin’s in NJ. I remember an intense scene between my two aunts in the Port Authority bus station. They were engrossed in a conversation, casting worried glances in our direction.
They embraced when they were finished. The worry still impressed on their foreheads.
Aunt Margaret came over and gave me a hug and told me to be brave and good. Then she got back on a bus and I that was the last I ever saw her or Uncle Henry.
There’s a thread running through my life: people enter it and make huge impressions. Then they vanish never to be seen again.
Ken Homer • April 2024
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