There's a misconception about small towns, and this town, now that I think about it, is so small it might not even qualify as a "small" town. Yet, what the town lacked in size, it more then made up for it with its timelessness. Nothing had changed in the 65 years since my family moved into our house on New Years Eve, one block from the hub of the village which consisted of a gas station and country store, unambivalently named, you guessed it, "The Country Store."
What some people (most likely from the city) think is that nothing much happens in a tiny town. A dot on the map so insignificant that naming it was hardly warranted in the first place. But nothing could be farther from the truth. I'll give an example.
Ronnie and I were best friends. It had been inevitable. We were the two smallest boys in the sixth grade and due to our diminutive stature and the custom, back then, of lining children up by height, we were sorted together. It may have happened anyway since we shared the same viewpoint in many things and ways, not only the horizon. We loved hiking through the woods and fields that spread in every direction from the epicenter of town. We also shared a similar sense of humor that, in those days, would have pegged us with the title of "wise guys."
Well, on a particular Saturday morning in March, Ronnie and I were in his kitchen trying to decide when we should set out in search of sacred Indian burial grounds that were rumored to be hidden somewhere in the woods north of town. Nobody had ever claimed to have stumbled upon them, which meant that when we did find them it would be some feathers in our bonnets. We'd planned all week during school to begin our quest this morning, but it was still quite cold so we agreed to have another bowl of cereal and wait for the temperature to rise above freezing.
It's these kinds of innocuous decisions that have, on occasion, changed the course of history, and our second bowl of Cocoa Puffs proved the point. Ronnie's older brother, Richard, and his partner David, who was our age but much bigger, and therefore did things with older kids, had a maple syrup enterprise. They had collected gallons of sap during the week and were preparing a fire under the 50 gallon drum containing the sticky liquid. As you may know, turning sap into gold or less metaphorically speaking, syrup, was a long process that demanded utter diligence. Constant care is needed to keep the fire going and monitor the evaporation. All successful entrepreneurs eventually learn that monetizing time is a key to success and I can only imagine that a moment of dawning wisdom must have occurred while observing Ronnie and me hanging around the kitchen wasting this valuable commodity and precipitated their impulsive decision to hire us to become keepers of the flame. It's unfortunate that the available workforce in the kitchen that morning was so desperately thin.
Richard explained our duties which were quite simple and explicit: Keep the fire burning and don't leave. Thinking back, I believe that Richard should have emphasized the second part of our job before he and David left to use their newly gained time to tap and gather sap from more trees in neighboring areas.
Soon after they were gone Ronnie mentioned that we should go down to the country store for provisions (Baby Ruth, Snickers, Mounds, and Mars came to mind.) A hunt for sacred Indian burial grounds would take more than peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to accomplish. First of all, before running down to the country store for a few minutes, something had to be done about our obligation to keep the fire going. After a short deliberation, we hurriedly carried armloads of cut logs and stacked them on the fire until we'd brought the flame to more than double its size. That should keep things going during our brief absence. Satisfied, with our work, we wandered off down the hill. The round trip should take, well, not very long, and judging by the size of the roaring fire, we left without a worry in the world.
An old adage, things happen, is sage wisdom. It's funny how, when things begin to happen, it's sometimes difficult to recognize, especially if you don't know what an adage is. All I knew was that I could smell Oriskany Creek and wondered about the condition of the brown trout that resided in the cold waters. I loved to fish and spent my summers bringing home trout for the table on a regular basis. Ronnie didn't, so it was me that talked him into going past the store and down the hill to the creek before buying our candy. As I suspected, the fish were coming out of their semi-hibernation and were laying deep and moving slowly. Occasionally, one would rise to pick a bug off the surface. In another couple of weeks they'd be hungrier and more likely to hit one of my flies. Ronnie could only tolerate so much scouting of fish, and after what seemed like just a few minutes, he dragged me up to the road and back towards the store.
We'd gotten around the bend from the creek and had turned up the hill to town when my sister's friend, Sherry, trotted up on her horse. Though she was two years younger than me and ostensibly Lynda's friend, she did have two horses and I did like to ride her pinto, so I guess she was kind of my friend as well. Regardless, Ronnie didn't care for horses any more than fish, but it would have been rude not to stop for a brief chat and pet Sherry's horse's nose. There's nothing like a horse's nose to bring a smile to ones face. Sherry was riding bareback like she nearly always did, so I might have jumped on with her. I guess I told Ronnie to go on up the the store while we had a little run. I'm pretty sure I yelled to him that I'd meet him in a minute.
Ronnie was waited for me inside the warmth of the store when Sherry dropped me off. I told him go ahead and do the shopping while I took care of something that I'd forgotten had been on my mind all week. I needed new fishing boots and there was a pair in the back that had my name on them. They were too big but, "Oh, he'll grow into them," was something I'd often heard from grownups and that was good enough for me. I put them on, tightened the top strap so they wouldn't fall off, clomped to the counter, and told the tired old man to put them on our family account.
Out on the road, it took only a few steps to realize that the walk up West Hill Road to Ronnie's house in my new boots would be nothing short of torture. I sat down on a bench in front of the store and changed into my Keds. I slipped back into the store and asked the old man to hold my boots behind the counter. He stared back at me with an apparently unanswerable question on his red, wrinkly face, so I carefully placed them on the floor next to him and told him that I'd be back later to pick them up. His head jerk up and around like he'd heard someone call his name or possibly a fly had buzzed by, barely missing flying up his nose. I quickly pushed out the door before he noticed I'd come and gone.
Ronnie had been joined by Paul, our classmate, who was excited and animated and pulling on Ronnie's arm. I asked what was up, and Paul said that he'd gotten a new BB gun and wanted us to come over to his house to see it. Wow, yeah, lets go! At the same time, somewhere in the bottomless depths of my mind, there was something trying to surface—like I'd forgotten—some niggling thing…oh well. A shrug, and we were off to shoot Paul's new Red Ryder.
It took a while, but about the same time, sometime after lunch at Paul's house, Ronnie and I stopped and looked at one another. It might have been telepathy, I don't know. What I do know is that we both knew we were dead boys walking. No time for goodbyes. We tore out of Paul's back yard and ran the quarter of a mile to W. Hill Road, turned and jogged up the hill until suddenly stopping in our tracks. Richards truck was in the driveway. We were too late. Our hearts were racing and our instincts too over. We furtively slid, tree to tree, sneaking closer and closer, scouting Ronnie's front yard like a couple of Indians.
