This was composed at the advent of the attack on Afghanistan. --KC
October 8th, 2001
I took Peter to Lincoln Pond, a small lake in the mountains between Elizabethtown, New York, and Lake Champlain. It was the day after we began bombing Afghanistan -- we, the US. We, Peter and I, crossed the Bouquet River and passed the home of Learned Hand, a nineteenth century Supreme Court Justice, and took the righthand fork headed east out of Elizabethtown.
We drove uphill through the bright trees for about six miles. Peter complained about his ears hurting and I reminded him to relieve the pressure by yawning. In principle, he already knows about ears popping, but here it is out of context for him, since we are not in an airplane. "I fixed my ears, mommy," he said. "I fixed my ears!" The cap popped off the lemonade and I slapped it back on.
As we drove through the woods on our way up, we passed a few houses. Some were vacation houses, recently painted and with pretty views. Some were run-down log cabins and farmhouses with swayback rooflines and formerly gracious porches used to store anything that might come in handy. (Culturally, Essex County is the northern tip of Apalachia. A third of the county is on welfare, and of the few jobs there are, most involve delivering social services to those on welfare. There is very little crime however.)
Peter gets restless in the car, and I ask him to count the colors of leaves as we drive. He says, "Red and yellow and orange and green and brown." He is happy, on an excursion with mommy. We pass a field with horses and that makes him happy too. He looks out the window, watching for new colors and for animals.
We round the corner, and I see a causeway across a small lake. It doesn't look quite the way I remembered it, but I had only been here once before. There is a little parking area beside the road. There is no sign, but I see a few distinctly public-looking fire pits and the back of a sign nailed to a tree which has the look of a park sign. A mother and daughter have parked and are unloading cayacks. We park.