 |
 |
||||
 |
|||||
 |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
||
|
|
|
|
5 | (continued) For years, I had heard frequent mention of microclimates, but never imagined living in a place where I would be passing through several such zones every day. The three most distinct areas, especially in mid-summer, were the interior of the woods (cool, calm and moderately humid; a few insects), the river flats (hot, calm and very humid; many insects), and the railroad tracks amid the open fields (warm, breezy and comfortably dry; very few insects). These differences were of course most noticeable on sunny summer days, and I came to dread going for water then, when the tall grasses beside the river were nearly tropical in their sheltered ravine—exposed to the midday sun, with dense woods on both shores—and me in my anti-mosquito parka. Climbing back to the tent and taking off my protective gear was like entering an air-conditioned room. Just as merely walking out of the woods onto the tracks seemed the equivalent of passing from Alabama to Arizona in the space of thirty seconds. The atmospheric transition alone gave the illusion of much ground being covered; it never failed to surprise me, and always seemed to boost my mood. On the flood plain, well north of my tent, but just south of the highway, on both sides of the river, there were several houses—or at least buildings with people living in them. The largest of these buildings, I was told, had “always been called The Creamery,” presumably because that’s what it once was. Those houses seemed to form a tiny community unto itself, entirely visible from the highway bridge, but quite cut off, visually (and I suspect socially), from the rest of the village, and I never foisted myself upon its inhabitants. I used the riverside trail that ran north through the woods above the flood line, and I knew just how far I could walk along that trail before I could be seen from those houses. Just for safety’s sake, I never passed that point in all the time I was there. Now and then, on a fine fall day, some of the locals would hike past my stretch of the woods, and see the tent. I could always hear them coming, since they habitually made so much noise—not by walking, but by yelling. Another instance of sylvanophobia. Yes, even in broad daylight. I would typically present myself after pushing my hair into place somewhat, so as to look presentable at fifty yards, and wave, say a few words, just to let them know that the Squatter was an ordinary guy, and not a scheming recluse who might come lurking about their henhouse—or worse, their daughter’s bedroom window—at some unthinkable hour. On one occasion, on the river trail, I met two of the men who made up that little community. We talked about camping, mostly, and since they had done less than I, they naturally had more enthusiasm for it. They were typical rural working-class men, which, as always, made me a bit uncomfortable, but it was a relief to discover that they didn’t find me strange in the least, despite—perhaps because of—my present address, since they seemed to think well of it, and we parted smiling. That encounter tended to belie the Crank’s contention that “the whole community is nervous about you staying back in there. They don’t know who you are or what you want.” I’m quoting from memory, of course, but this is a close paraphrase of his position from the first—hardly surprising.
One day a bunch of kids invaded the woods to play. I had never seen them before, and a neighbor told me later that they were grandchildren, nephews and nieces of the farmers, just over for a day’s visit. They were loud, and there must have been at least eight of them, but they kept a respectful distance from me (warned in advance, I’m sure), and though I was there most of the day, I made a point of not watching too closely what they were doing. Yet it wasn’t hard to tell, once they focussed on a single job, which took a while: they were building a shelter, about a hundred yards from my campsite, something like a peaked, tapered tent, entirely of wood. They found the trunk of a partly-fallen tree, angling out at about 40° above the horizontal, and they leaned as many straight, narrow poles as they could find against both sides of it. |
||
|
|
|
|
|
||
|
|
|
