Banked in snow a concrete driveway separates civility from the willywacks. The Hermit’s lair is more fortress of solitude than it is a domicile. It is the perennial man cave. With all the exposed log and chink of a chalet in Switzerland with racks of trophy bucks that have been laid down with single shots. The hermit is the consummate hunter, more at home in the woods than with a crowd of people. Eager to lend a hand and get himself or a stranger out of a bind on his way into town or hours past the last outpost of civilization. A high sided cast iron frying pan browned butter and venison steaks sizzled as they hit. He served ice cold buds with glass mugs. In the living room stood a slate pool table. The kind you might find in a hall 40 years ago. This one just happened to be from the pool hall he worked at in Frog hollow, Middlebury, VT. The hermit is not used to all this attention. Always the hunter he is more in his element in a tree stand than answering my questions. In the tree stand he has his poker face, the wind is right and he is dialed in, he is holding three aces with one more tucked up his sleeve for good measure. Now the hunter was being hunted for that sentence, that kernell that fragment of a story that gives the membership an opportunity to approach him with a greeting and tell their own story to him. For the duration of this interview my subject asked to be anonymous. You may call him the Hermit. Don’t write off the Hermit for his unpolished ride, I assure you his tastes are refined. And so we begin...
H: Now the reason I got out of prison… (erupts in laughter)
ER: (Laughing) Right
H: Is that recording?
ER: Yeah it’s recording
H: The reason I went to prison is they found blood on the clown costume.
ER: (Laughing)
H: (Laughing)
ER: Tell me about your bike
H: It’s a 83 R100 and it has low milage. I don’t know exactly what the milage is. But I know it is probably under 35,000 for the simple reason that the speedometer has been broke for three to four years. When I bought it twenty years ago it probably had like 13,000 miles on it. So it’s been a really beautiful bike. It’s the closest thing to flying, you know when you go into those corners with those airheads they are like wings. It’s just so easy to handle and no upkeep at all. I love it I can’t say enough about BMW’s. We are are very fortunate to live in a time when we can each own our own private rocket.
ER: Right
H: Where we can accelerate and decelerate with a twist of the wrist. Yeah so it’s an amazing thing and I wish more people would understand and experience the joy of motorcycling. I know I have a lot of friends and they all think it is too dangerous. They are missing out, especially living here in Vermont. We have some of the nicest scenic views and roads of anywhere in the world you know.
ER: We do, we do, we really do.
H: Um, I don’t know a lot about my motorcycle, you asked me about my motorcycle so I really don’t know much about it to be honest with you.
ER: Other than every time you twist the throttle it goes.
H: Yeah it gives me a rush.
ER: I mean whenever we’ve ridden together, you are right there (me motioning about ten feet behind my left shoulder).
H: Yeah well I used to be a lot more competitive rider, I could tell you some wicked stories about going into corners down in Middlebury down by the Chevy dealership there, that used to be a sharper corner on route seven. We would be coming out of Middlebury and we would be doing ninety five in that corner and one time I was riding a 550 four cylinder and my friend had a 750 four cylinder Honda and we were both wicked competitive and both bikes were fairly even and you know it was always who could be up front in a group of four or five people. We went into that corner and our back foot pegs were left down and we locked up our bikes in that corner. It seemed like forever before we got unlocked because we were going like this (H motions a steep lean with his hand). Route seven has changed since then you know. I have a lot of stories like that. I don’t ride aggressive anymore. I changed my riding habits after a couple of crashes. And then I had children and now I have a granddaughter. I owe it to them to not do anything stupid you know.
ER: Yeah, I get that.
H: So that’s why I changed my riding habits. Now I am a slow rider basically.
ER: There is a rumor that you used to roll with a motorcycle gang. What is your advice for bankers and lawyers that have never been in a bar room brawl.
H: Go in and call them all Axxholes.
ER: You know there are members of our club that have never been in a gritty situation. Maybe in an office. But they have never been in a situation where the stakes are dropping and it’s time to know get out or you know.
H: Yeah, well it can go too far. It can end up like that scene in Texas where those two rival motorcycle gangs shot it out. And a bunch of people died. And now a bunch of them are in jail. It’s all crazy stuff. Yeah I would like to see more younger people in the club to be honest with you. You get to a certain age and you are afraid to let your hair down.
ER: Right on.
ER: During the Green Mountain Rally you went on a very large group ride with lots of our Canadian Friends. At lunch you did one of the coolest things I have ever seen. James Dean cool. Old school cool. You dropped a hundred dollar bill and paid for the whole table. Why did you do that.
H: Just to show those people that they had some friends in Vermont. And to welcome them to the state. I guess how you spend your money defines who you are.
ER: I mean, do you remember the table? There were some pretty nice ladies there.
H: Yeah I would like to see more members like that. That are excited about motorcycle riding. They were very cool people.
ER: Do you remember the way they were smiling?
H: Yeah they were totally happy…
ER: (interrupting) They were totally ecstatic!
H: That has something to do about being in Vermont I think. Being with you and you know whatever. That was the highlight of my motorcycle riding this year. You know that was a nice ride we went on.
ER: Group rides can be clunky right?
H: Yeah oh yeah.
ER: I mean they can be tough
H: They can be unorganized and there can be whiners. There was no body in that group whining. Nobody likes a whiner.
ER: I have been forced to pencil write notes to you on 2x4 scraps, you don't believe in email, bank accounts the internet or the boogie man, were you born in the wrong year?
H: I like to keep my life simple and I like to have money and not give it out to all these companies. Like Verizon or you know. You know if you figured up what your cell phone cost you for twenty or thirty or forty years you could probably go on a trip around the world.
ER: (laughing) Where are we going?
H: (Laughing)
ER: Do you get pissed when I call you the hermit?
H: No I think it’s fitting actually. I like it actually, everyone should have a nickname.
ER: (Laughing, sipping a Bud so cold it gives me an ice cream headache) Right on, alright.
ER: So the first day I met you we were about to leave Toziers for RTE 100. We agreed to ride home together and then I said to you: “as long as you can keep up”. There was a bolt of electricity that shot through your body, you straightened your back and had light radiating from your eyes and as the skin tightened on your shit eating grin you said: "I can keep up".
H: (interrupts) Yeah cause I have seen it all.
ER: Tell me what you like about going fast with two bikes?
H: The challenge of being in the competition. It’s like skiing or anything it puts you on the edge of life and death. I like that feeling. I am a downhill skier so I like that feeling. It’s what we call a rush. So you know most things you do in life you don’t get that rush. It challenges you and makes you a better rider if you are riding with someone else and they are going ten miles an hour faster or something and you want to keep up with them. It pushes you to be a better rider. It just makes all your senses come alive. You know you can’t be daydreaming. You are totally focused.
ER: It’s about being alive isn’t it?
H: Yeah, I mean your vision gets clearer, Your coordination gets better.
ER: You are banging on all eight cylinders, not the bike, you.
H: You have to be a part of it. You have to be one hundred percent or bad things will happen to you.
ER: At club events your ride is original not restored and is surrounded by a sea of shiny new and latest and greatest. Are you a die hard air head for life?
H: No it is basically what I could afford at the time when I bought it. I think I paid $2200 for it.
ER: You know there are die hard airheads right? There are people only… they don’t even want to look at a waterboxer. They are like (i hold up my two index fingers in a cross that would repel a 90’s Hollywood vampire.)
H: That’s being narrow minded. You know who knows where motorcycling is going to go in the next twenty years. You can’t be narrow minded like that you have to keep upgrading its like skiing or anything you ought to buy a new pair of skis because they are so much better.
ER: Does your bike have a name?
H: No
ER: You know a lot of people name their bikes.
H: I guess they are pretty lonely individuals.
ER: (Laughing) Can I have another beer?
H: (Laughing) Of course you can.
H: What’s the name of your bike?
ER: The name of my bike is Ursula.
H: Really?
ER: Because she’s German. I was going to name her Heidi, but that is the name of my Step sister.
ER: You smoke and drink, what cigarettes do you like?
H: Marlboros
ER: Marlboro Reds?
H: Lights
ER: Lights in a box? 100’s or never
H: No just light Marlboros.
ER: Now the reason I am asking that is that smoking has been shamed to where people don’t even want to talk about it anymore. And people try to make other people feel bad about it. To me it is just a choice. It is a choice that you want to do. I am not going to put that in the story but I would just like to tell you where I am going with that.
H: I think you could probably leave that part out of the story but, in my opinion you are going to reach a certain age probably somewhere around 75 years old and if the cigarettes don’t get ya, you are probably going to have dementia.
ER: Right
H: I mean we are all here for a very short time. So you might as well have a cold beer. (Laughing)
ER: (Laughing) Those are words to live by right there.
H: No its true
ER: So listen, Is there really a killer Barbecue restaurant in the ground floor of a fancy hotel in the adirondacks? Does that place really exist?
H: No, No,
ER: Because you have been talking about it.
H: Yep I’ve been there and I am going to take you to two places this summer. One is called the Sagamore. And its in Bolton Landing and it's a five star hotel. You walk in and everybody is in tuxedo’s, and the floors are made out of marble the columns are all marble, thirty foot ceilings that are all marble, the bathrooms are all marble, wall to wall. You walk through this hotel, you go through giant french doors. You go out onto a patio and you have a view on a bluff that’s probably three-four hundred feet higher than Lake George and you look right down the whole length of Lake George.
ER: Wow, beautiful
H: And you watch the steamboats come up Lake George. And we’ll have a cold drink, maybe two and we’ll have something to eat and the sandwiches are like $7.95. And it’s a first class place, ok. It’s called the Sagamore and if you have never been there, I would highly recommend it. I’ve never felt uncomfortable there, I have been over there a dozen times probably, and it’s a great place to take your wife or date or anybody.
ER: Ron Dawson and Jeff Buell?
H: Anybody you want to impress. And it’s right in bolton landing. So it’s easy to get to it is right off 9N. It has a long drive that goes… it’s an estate basically. And the trees on the ground, after you eat you can walk the grounds and the trees are the virgin timber.
ER: Really?
H: Oh yeah there is white oak and other species of trees but they are six or seven feet. Four people could not wrap their hands around them.
ER: Gigantic
H: Gigantic, you know five-hundred year old trees. They have lost some from the wind but it’s just a… and you can arrive to the Sagamore by boat too, I have been over there with a boat and there is a guy that comes in a tuxedo to tie your boat off.
ER: Oh S
H: And you walk up to the restaurant and you sit down and it’s just a beautiful beautiful place.
ER: Like the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts.
H: That’s who stays there basically I don’t know what a room would cost you there per night but it’s probably...
ER: Three-four hundred bucks
H: I bet Five hundred.
ER: Dinner not included.
H: You could probably find out.
ER: The fanciest hotel I ever went to was the Hotel Pattee and it is in Perry Iowa and it was $250 for the night, but when I arrived there they said that they had already rented out my room and they asked if it was ok to upgrade me. And I said yes that is fine and they upgraded me to the presidential suite. It had 3 rooms with a wood burning fireplace and a glass shower with ¾ inch glass walls. They had a guy come up and light the fire in the fireplace. You had to spend the night to get a reservation for the fine dining which may have been the best seven courses I have ever had in my life. I took a date there.
H: You got to watch what you say because… (Laughing)
ER: I do. (Laughing)
H: What year was this?
ER: Well no, this was 1998, 1999
H: Before you were married?
ER: Yes before Stephanie, but thanks.
ER: Above your bar in your home you have a row of buck racks. You describe yourself as an avid deer hunter, what does that mean for you?
H: It’s my passion. The love of the outdoors. It is similar to motorcycle riding. Because of the challenge… excuse me let me start over. It is similar to motorcycle riding because it gets you outside no matter what your worries are or problems you have in your daily life if you do either of those sports, motorcycling or hunting, all that goes away. You lose yourself in the woods. And it’s a solo thing sort of like motorcycling usually. No matter how bad you’ve had of a week, you get on your bike and it all changes the instant you pull out of your driveway. And hunting is the same way. Once you go into the woods your whole focus is totally different than what you’ve been doing all year.
ER: Are you like me in that even if you are riding with a second, third or tenth person you are still alone?
H: Yeah you are always…
ER: (Interrupting) Inside your helmet?
H: You are always alone, I know today with all the electronic gadgets and everything people are listening to music and they are you know talking to each other and all that, I don’t have any of that so I am definitely alone. And I like it. I think one of the hurdles in life is to be able to live alone. And be comfortable. A lot of people are afraid to do that. But once you can do that you know you are good for the long haul. There is actually some day in your life you are going to end up alone, no matter where you are now.
ER: What does your best day on two wheels look like?
H: Going with friends. With motorcycle riding it just adds so much more than going by yourself. And then going to some place I haven’t been. It’s not so much the two wheels, it’s who you are with that usually makes the day.
ER: So then am I going to have to make your reservation for Hermit Island this year?
H: Yeah, cause I am not set up with a computer or anything, I don’t have any of that crap.
ER: You want to go?
H: Yeah of course
ER: Can I tell you what is going on this year? I can tell you the date right now by the way.
H: Yeah sure it’s in May right? It may interfere with turkey season
ER: You are killing me. So listen, DownEast itself is May 20,21,22 we are taking Thursday the 19th off and the departure reception is at my house the Wednesday night this year. So it’s Wed 18th you, the LeVangie twins, Jeff Buell, Ron Dawson and Brian Hayes and whoever else gaggles in is coming to my house for a meal.
H: According to that article you wrote they sound like really super nice people (referring to Ron Dawson).
ER: Then we are going to depart on Thursday and we are going to stay an extra day in the campground, that will be $35. A year ago it was $75 if you got the twin lobsters. Do you eat seafood?
H: Yeah I love it. Who doesn’t?
ER: Apparently everyone else I took to this rally last year. None of them ate the seafood.
H: Why is that?
ER: I don’t know, they just were not into it.
H: I have heard of people that don’t ever get it and don’t like it for some reason, but they do not know what they are missing. You know, like you go out to Ohio and you talk about lobster and they say we don’t like lobster and I say “What are you crazy?” (laughing)
ER: Cocktails: top shelf or well?
H: My favorite drink is a long island iced tea. I don’t know, they probably use the well.
ER: Salmon: sushi or smoked?
H: Smoked. Of course. Native salmon not farm raised. It has to be from Alaska and the cold smoked.
ER: Cold smoked, that was my next question.
H: Cold Smoked with crackers. I wish I had some to give you because my best friend is a commercial fisherman in Alaska in the bering sea. He used to send me white coolers full of salmon and halibut.
ER: (groaning, salivating)
H: We pigged out on salmon for years. Now he sold his permit and he is living in East Middlebury. There is an incredible difference between farm raised and wild salmon.
ER: Just the distance in the veins of fat.
H: And they give them growth hormones to speed up the growth. You have no idea what you are eating because they are raised in pens in a confined area, there’s a bigger chance for disease to spread. Any time you want more beer I got plenty.
ER: I ahh do have one, (lifting two open containers that are ¾ full. )
H: Yeah I am nervous.
ER: You are nervous, why are you so nervous?
H: Because this is awkward.
ER: It is?
H: You asked, let’s go back a little bit. You asked me if that Rib place existed. It does, it is in Saranac Lake and I will be glad to take you there this year. It is easy to go over.
ER: You know what I mean about asking if it is real? Because I am not actually asking you that. That makes it a joke, that’s funny right? We are always talking, let’s say I knew you for ten years and for ten years we were talking about a mythical rib place. That would be the running joke between the two of us. Like we are going to this rib place…
H: We’ve been searching all over…
ER: It’s Eldorado. You are going to go “Hey Rossier, I think it’s in Pennsylvania, I must have F’d up, I guess we are going to have to drive to Pennsylvania to find it”
H: Yeah because we have been talking about it for a year and a half.
ER: (Laughing) That’s what I am saying!!!
H: We haven’t been to it.
ER: (Laughing) That’s why it’s funny to me.
H: But it’s in Saranac Lake, and probably a weekend would be a better time to go. And then good weather of course, it's right off the highway and its under tents with picnic tables and if you can get over there around three o’clock there is probably going to be a band playing, an outdoor band. There cooking meat over in the corner. You can have alcohol there. I usually go from there over to the Adirondack museum. Have you ever been there?
ER: Yeah. At Blue Lake.
H: That’s all cool.
ER: Ah dude Killer.
ER: Puff puff pass or nice long toke?
H: Well my lungs aren’t what they used to be.
ER: (belly laughing) Is pie for dessert only or is it ok for breakfast?
H: Some day before I die, which is on my bucket list, which I have done before is to go to some restaurant is instead of ordering the main course I just want to order the dessert menu.
ER: The whole F ing menu? (Laughing)
H: It will be cheaper (laughing) than the main course, cause it’s $4.95 for each piece of cake.
ER: Allright, allright, allright: you have done fly in trips to northern Canada tell me the gas can story again.
H: Me and a good friend, decided to go on a moose hunt up in Senneterre, Quebec which is probably six, seven maybe eight hours north of Montreal. It’s a little before Val-D'or.
ER: I have friends in Val-D'or.
H: I can’t remember, I saw it on the sign up there. I think I took a right off 133. That’s the route that goes up through there from Montreal. This is twenty-five years ago, I remember the route. My friend was always on a tight budget. We went up there and it was sixty five miles of dirt road. Without a house or anything on it to get to this indian fishing village that had a little tiny store that sold can goods and I think they rented boats there too for summertime fishing and they catered to moose hunters. And they had little kerosene heated cottages. And the first year that I went up there I met two twin brothers that were indians and they worked as surveyors. This store and this bar were just like the wild west. Swinging doors like a saloon would have. And I went in there and I was all alone. I was totally alone cause I wanted to go moose hunting. So I met these two guys, Gene and Carl twin brothers, they were like forty years old or so and I was probably twenty four. Listen, I was moose hunting up there. I had long, long hair. I went over to their table and they said “what are you doing?” I said I am up here moose hunting. They said “Are you all alone up here? “ and I said Yeah. They said: “Boy, you are crazy or something” And so I ended up talking to them and buying them drinks and they took me in under their wing and I had already rented a cottage up there and it was $15 a night with a kerosene heater back then. They didn’t have a place to stay. They were going to stay in their van. I told them: “come over to my place”. I had some money on me for this trip. After we got back to the cottage I had second thoughts about having these two strangers in the same room as me.
ER: Yeah, did I make a mistake?
H: Yeah because we’d been drinking and everything and I had a bunch of money on me and are these guys going to roll me or what. I slept all night with one eye open, And I had a hunting knife that was ten or twelve inches long and took it out of the sheath and I put it in my long hair (motions to tuck the knife behind his neck) and slept with it…
ER: (I burst out) Holy F. Holy F.
H: This is a true story. I slept all night with that hunting knife all night long.
ER: I am never going to wake you up.
H: I slept with that hunting knife all night long, and this is a true story. So we got up the next morning but I didn’t sleep at all because I thought these guys are going to beat me up or something right? And they turned out to be the two nicest guys I have ever met. They had like a twenty one foot canoe and the had I think it was a six horse motor.
ER: Like a long shaft.
H: Yeah and then they had a food box that kept us alive for a week. They had a giant food box. With cereal.
ER: A bear proof food box.
H: Yeah it was a huge food box that they put right in the center of the canoe. They took me sixty-five miles up this water system from that fishing village and then we went out at night, this is just one story. We went out at night and they were, they had grown up living way up there so they didn’t think much of game laws. They would go out at night and call moose.
ER: Actually that’s how my Grand Uncle Marvin would do it. They did it at night.
H: Yeah that is the best time.
ER: They would take a coffee can full of water and pour it slowly back into the lake.
H: These indians did the same thing. So I had bought long before this a $21 Sears and Roebuck pop up tent. You know they are a cheap company. So I had that with me. But these guys had tarps and all that. They were professionals, they were professional outdoorsmen. They lived in the outdoors all their life. So they took me… when we finally got up to this trapper island, where there was a little shack but it was locked up. We camped right there on the grounds of the trapper's shack. There was enough brush we could move so we could camp there. They had tents and whatever and I had a tent. So they said, we are going to go out tonight and go across the lake. The lake was like Lake Champlain, and we are going to go across the lake and go into a section of three different bays that run into each other and call at midnight. And they said “do you want to go”. And I said I’ll go. They said: “ you better bring your tent with you. And your sleeping bag because we may leave you there.” Yeah I didn’t like the idea of them leaving me there because I was surrounded by water for sixty-five miles. There was no way I could ever have walked out of there. What the deal was we went over there and we called. When they got done calling this bull answered up on top of a mountain and it made my hair stand right up on end. And it was like dynomite going off when that bull blew through his nose. I have never heard a noise, never have heard one since like that. It was so powerful that you know you could feel the vibration in the air. And it was raining and there was some wind. They herd the bull coming and then it stopped. It was like 1:30 or so in the morning. And they said why don’t you stay here because in the daylight the bull will probably come here. The wind switched and they had poured water out and all of that and took a paddle and acted like a moose was walking in the water. They were professionals. So they said “Set up your tent wherever you can”. And the only place was in the blueberry bushes was right on a game trail. OK and the game trail was like this wide (H holds his hands about a foot and a half apart). Ok because the blueberry bushes were all this tall (holding his hand off the floor waist level).
ER: Are you going to shoot this Bull from your tent?
H: So I stayed there but it was a torrential rain. And they had left so I slept in that tent with my gun loaded and my finger on the trigger thinking this is a bad idea. A moose is going to come down this trail, or a bear and they are going to step right on me. Cause there was no place to go because of the bushes. So I didn’t sleep at all that night. Then around 3 o’clock in the morning every seam in that tent ripped. Torrential rain.
ER: You are ready to send an F.U. letter to Chicago. Your like: Hello, Sears and Roebuck I have a problem.
H: So this is how we will lead to the second story. So I shivered all night and I prayed for daylight. Finally daylight came and it was just getting daylight and I walked down and it was still kind of dark and I was like ten feet above the water. And I had to go down a little bank to look up the shoreline because of the brush. So I started to walk down there. And I looked up that way I didn’t see a moose, I looked up that way I didn’t see a moose, I looked across for the moose and I felt like something right near me. I got a weird feeling. And I looked down and it was a… I think it was a badger, ok.
ER: Jeezum
H: Sniffing my boots.
ER: Jeezum (louder).
H: He had come up the shoreline. I was looking over here and down this way, this thing had come up the shore line and was sniffing my boots. The second I saw him I jumped, am not kidding you, six feet in the air with my gun. I screamed, I screamed and I jumped, because I was so scared and I had the sleepless night.
ER: You were wound for sound.
H: Right, So then, then when I hit the ground that thing freaked out right, and it ran right up the little path that I had made to come down from my tent. So I went up there because I didn’t want him in my tent or anything, you know. Well the tent was collapsed but I was just curious, what it was, and if I would see it again. I had my gun out in front of me and everything and I poked my head up there and there was a little bit of my tent still standing. And I started to look in there and that thing had gone into that tent.
ER: It did! (laughing)
H: Yeah it was right on a game trail.
ER: (Laughing so hard tears are coming out)
H: So I just put my head in there and that thing came flying right by my face and gave me a heart attack. True story, I am not making any of this up.
ER: I never think that when I talk with you.
H: So that was about as exciting as the trip got right there. And then I started looking at my watch and it started getting really light out and I said I wonder if those guys are coming back because there was no way I could walk back to where my truck was I would have died out there, it was flooded, you know. Millions of acres of water. More water than land up there. To my amazement I don’t know what time it was, around 11:00am or so they pulled in and asked me if I saw the bull and I said no, I never saw it and then we went back to the island. We were camped on an island, and we went back there. Because of rough weather we were stranded there for like three days on that island. With that twenty one foot canoe we couldn’t go out in a body of water like Lake Champlain with five foot waves. It was insane, it was suicide right. So that ended the moose hunt. I heard one bellar and that was it. So four or five years ago I invite my friend to go up there again. And I knew the waterway because I had gone with those Indians right. They had carried the food box with a strap on their forehead and the box on their back and one guy carried that twenty-one foot canoe with a strap, he had a leather strap this wide (H faces his two C cupped hands to each other and shows the headband to be six inches by ten or so inches). And there is a name for it, but they carried it around the rapids and stuff. I got pictures, sometime I will show you them, It would take me half an hour to find them now. But I got pictures of my father’s little ten foot or twelve foot aluminum boat and my friend was a fairly big guy and we took enough food and gas up there for a week of hunting, which is a lot you know. When we left the little fishing village, I got a picture of it, there was about this much of the boat showing (H holds up one hand showing a few inches).
ER: Like four inches of draft.
H: Yes a four inch wave would go into the boat.
ER: You’d be sunk.
H: Until we drank and ate some of the supplies.
ER: Easy on the throttle, huh.
H: So we go up in there, and I brought two motors in case I broke one. Because those streams and rivers and lakes up there are very shallow, boulders everywhere.
ER: And it changes too right?
H: Oh yeah, If you get out in the middle you aren’t going to hit anything, but there’s places that one place the water is a foot and a half deep and other places it’s three feet deep. We go up through there and I hadn’t estimated the gasoline right. We got up there to that trapper island and we had already used half the gas to get there. Nothing to leave the island and go across.
ER: And it is not like you can go up stream and float back.
H: No it is too far. It is like sixty some odd miles of river travel. It would take a month to float out of there or something, I don’t know.
ER: You would run out of food before you would get back.
H: I don’t know, we might of went into one bay up there but we realized right after we got up there that we did not have enough gasoline. We started actually sweating about it because I said “Shit what are we going to do, how are we going to get back? Now this is all screwed up.” I don’t know why we took a walk around this trapper's shack was literally just a tar paper shack. Something that they would use in the wintertime, something that they would ride across the ice in snowmobiles and set a trap line and then stay warm in this shack. It was nothing fancy, but I think it was locked. I didn’t even try the door. For some strange reason, nothing to do, I took a walk around the back of it and to my amazement, it was like God was shining down on me. There was three ten Gallon… they weren’t five gallon cans, they were ten gallon plastic cans of Gasoline sitting in the back of that shack. Just right out, not locked up or anything. So there was thirty gallons of gas there. What I think it was for, I think it was for a float plane. Drop hunters off and they need fuel and they had it there right? So I said Chris… it was the best good fortune I have ever had. I have had a lot of good fortune. But I think that tops it. Like 60 some odd miles from my truck and then to find gas out in the wilds of Canada like that, that’s just incredible. So I said Chris I am going to borrow a little bit of this gas. Enough to know that we can get back. Because I know how many gallons it took to get up here. So I said I am going to take two and a half gallons of it. I am not going to take it all or anything like that. Because somebody flies in here with a float plane and it’s their lifeline, gasoline you know. And he says: “should we leave some money?” Leave some money on the gas can for taking two and a half gallons. I said how much should we leave? We had a discussion about it. He says: “ Oh I don’t know, five dollars or something”. I said how can you even put a price on gasoline out here? It’s priceless. So we ended up not leaving any money because we didn’t have a lot of money to begin with, and I felt bad about it, but it is just the circumstances, you know survival mode sets in. So we took two and a half gallons of gas and we are headed across the lake and we are headed out of there and we ran into a storm where the waves were five and a half feet tall like Lake Champlain with a twelve foot boat. But then there’s a bunch of different little islands, abandoned islands you know the size of this livingroom or whatever, all big rock shorelines. Boulders. We were a few hundred yards from one of them and I ran out of gas in the boat. We had gas in containers but it was so choppy that you couldn’t pour the gas into the regular gas tank to run the motor. So we didn’t have any power and we crashed into the rocks. I tried standing up to pour the gas and I couldn't do it, it was just suicide. So we crashed into this rock island we had to stay there a night and a half, two nights and like a day and a half or something. Cause we got in there about 3:30 in the afternoon. We stayed that night and it was really really rough and we thought at noon or something it would calm down, but it never did. But there was a window, but we weren’t smart enough, there was a window around 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning that it got calm for like a half an hour, and then the wind picked up again. But we didn’t know that that was going to happen. We thought it was going to stay calm. So we had to stay there that whole next day. And then that night when we went to bed I said: “hey if it does that again tomorrow morning, man we are outta here at 4:00 in the morning, because it could be windy all day again tomorrow”.
ER: You could run out of food.
H: Yeah, nobody knows where you are, this is before cell phones and all that. So It did that exact same thing at 4-4:30 in the morning, it got calm, for a little bit and we got out of there and got into a river that we could go towards the fishing village. I got all the maps of that area. We got back and my buddy that I went with he said: “Oh I can’t wait to get home, I miss my family, he had a wife and two little kids. And I had a wife and two little kids. So he’s all freaking out, that he want’s to get home, right. I had, after all the expenses to get up there and buying licences and everything, I think I had maybe sixty dollars on me. Ok, and we are way up there and he didn’t have any money.
ER: Oh no.
H: He was always on a budget. So if I needed gas, I had to buy gas. So we are driving up that sixty five mile dirt road back to Senneterre out of this lake region and halfway out there we see this young kid probably eighteen years old jogging towards us. And he’s got panic written all over his face. So I pulled over to him and I rolled down my window and I said: “What’s up, what are you doing up here, thirty-five miles from any houses?” He says: “My father hit a rock in the road with the truck and we put a hole in the radiator and uh we can’t drive it and I am running to the fishing village to see if I can use a phone to get some help. I said: “Do you want me to give you a ride back to your father?” and he said: “Nope I am headed to the fishing village”. He had quite a haul, he had fifteen miles he had to run. So I said: “Alright I will go ahead and see what your fathers up to.” So I drove another ten miles or whatever up the road and…
ER: The guy is running a marathon for his Dad.
H: To try to get help, right. So there wasn’t much at that fishing village, I think they had some sort of CB radio or something, but I don’t know what the deal was. So I go up there and my friend says: “Don’t stop, I want to get home, don’t F around with this guy, don’t stop, don’t stop.” And I said: “Hey man, it is the right thing to do, to stop and help this guy if we can.
ER: Of course, you have to stop.
H: No, no, he didn’t want to, this is a true story, he didn’t want to, he was in a hurry to go back to Bristol, (VT) He was in an Fing hurry and he was whining because I was going to stop. I said” Yeah, I am going to stop because if I was broke down I would want to stop he’s out here no where you know”. He’s an old man, he’s sixty some odd years old. So I pull up to him and he says: “Yeah we were driving driving down this dirt road and there was a rock sticking up in the middle of the road and somehow my fan hit it and punctured a hole in my radiator.” And when I went up there, I had carried a can of soldier seal, copper pellets, or flakes. I had two of them in my glove box. I had a little tool kit, vise grips and all that.
ER: Just enough to be dangerous.
H: Well, just incase I had done the same thing. I could fix it and maybe go twenty miles.
ER: Instead of running a marathon and having a heart attack or something. .
H: So I said, let me look at it and, back then I wasn’t afraid to do anything so I crawled under his vehicle and saw where it was leaking and took the fins away from where it was leaking with a screwdriver and took a pair of vise grips and bent it up and squeezed it as tight as I could and put two cans of that soldier seal in it. And there was a stream, I don’t know, a hundred yards away, down over the bank, they went down in there with a blue cooler and filled it up with water and came back and poured it in. And I said this ought to get you to the village.
ER: Where his Son was.
H: And He says: “What do I owe you?” and I said: “Nothing, nothing, I said I am glad to help you out. “ That’s what I said, that’s what my father would have said and he reached in his wallet and he was shaking and he started to hand me all the money he had. My friend had saw while we were working on the pickup he had walked around it and he had an open bed pickup and there was a cooler in there with some beer in it. So my friend says: “I don’t mind having a beer”. You know, he actually asked the guy for a beer. So the guy went over to the cooler, grabbed the whole cooler and said: “Have it all”. Because he was so appreciative. He ended up giving me twenty dollars in cash and he have us a twelve pack of beer in a cooler. We left. I used that twenty dollars as soon as I got in Swanton, VT to put gas in so I could make it to Ripton.
E: Whhooooaaa!!!
H: (laughing) True story.
E: Holy S.
ER: Which one of your woods skills would help you in an urban survival situation?
H: Woods skills?
ER: Yeah, like your deer hunting skills.
H: In an urban setting?
ER: Survival setting. So like, you are in the city, and
H: There is an earthquake.
ER: and shit is going down, I am not saying the zombie apocalypse, let’s say shit is going downhill fast. Which one of your skills from deer hunting would carry over into that setting?
H: Just the knowledge of how animals move.
ER: That’s great. That’s what I am talking about, that is fantastic, (laughing).
ER: I like my venison medium rare in butter on cast iron. How do you cook yours?
H: The same way, I got two cast iron pans on the stove right now and before you leave I am going to cook you some. And I usually add a little bit of garlic.
ER: Nice.
ER: This summer one of my favorite short roads was one that your brother paved. Does it give you the inside edge to have an asphalt man in the family?
H: Does that give me an inside edge? No, I got a concrete driveway actually?
ER: I am saying we are driving around the roads, you know where your brother just paved, you know where the clean pavement is. New pavement, does that give you an inside edge?
H: Yeah sort of, but they are in so many places at once that I don’t know what it is family pride or whatever takes over too.
ER: Is it me or are the beers that you serve your guests extra cold and refreshing? You are not putting lettuce in that fridge are you?
H: Uh I do have some lettuce in that fridge.
ER: (laughing) I am worried it is going to be frozen.
H: No. I didn’t get a chance to chill these glasses. Usually they are nice when they are all frosted.
ER: Is VT overpopulated?
H: Yes it is
ER: I mean in 10 years am I going to have to ride north of Chibougamau by GS to see you?
H: Nah, I am going to stay here. Ripton is a special place. You can lose yourself here and have the privacy that I crave, you know.
ER: Something tells me you have a skinny dipping story you are not sharing. What was her name?
H: (without hesitation) Lisa.
ER: (laughing)
H: At the East Middlebury Gorge bridge. Coming back from The Alibi at 2:00 in the morning or whatever.
ER: (Groaning) Oh man…
H: That will sober you up.
ER: Preppers, I don’t know if you know that term or not, but it is people that are getting ready for the end of the world.
H: Yeah, I have a friend that has an arsenal.
ER: Preppers have a bug out bag packed with all the stuff they will want for the zombie apocalypse. What would you put in yours?
H: That’s a really good question, I don’t know if I would run. Usually in those movies they are in some farm house boarding up the windows (laughing). And the guys that are out there running are getting Fing killed.
ER: Ok forget Zombies, bug out bag:
H: Well whatever would fit on my motorcycle.
ER: Any MOV events that you missed in 15 that you want to hit in 2016?
H: Any event that those French girls are at.
ER: That’s the right answer.
ER: Any interest in going to the national this year? Did I mention Ron Dawson and Sandy Marincic are going to be there?
H: Yeah, that’s an easy ride, when I go out Ohio bowhunting we go right by Hamburg, they got a water tower out there the shape of a hamburg right side the interstate. It’s interstate 90. It is probably two thirds the way out there it is out past Syracuse I think.
ER: You are probably going to be surprised when I tell you this is the last question but, you made it by the way high five for making it.
H: I don’t know if you want to write all of what… I don’t know.
ER: So let me ask you this: Is it OK to barbecue a T bone steak on a campground fire pit grill or is that better left above a glowing red bed of charcoals?
H:
ER: So you know what I am talking about? You have the fold over wood fired iron ring cook grill. Do you put the cord wood and cook the T bone there? Or cook it over some charcoal.
H: personal preference, some people…
ER: (interrupts) I am not talking about some people, what does the Hermit want?
H: I guess if you are hungry you shouldn’t be fussy. (laughing)
ER: (laughing) That was it that was what I was waiting for.
H: There is Fing people that have that kind of nonsense in their lives, you know trying to have an argument over how to cook it. They should just be happy they are eating steak. It’s all in how hungry you are, you ask a hobo that Fing question.
As I left the interview with the Hermit he kept patting me on the back and telling me how dumb he was and how bright I was. I couldn’t help but think that he had it all backwards. That underneath his well weathered roughness of experience was brilliance. There was an approach to life that harkened back to before writers put pen to paper and created the waltons. There was the purest of pursuits, the sustenance of life, bringing live protein that meet the ends of the next day, and the days to come.
In 1968 it was seven cents a string which is one game, which is ten frames. So if two bowlers were bowling one game he got 14 cents to set candlestick bowling pins in Frog hollow Middlebury. Sitting on top of the ball return rail which was about three and a half inches wide. Today the Hermit has claimed this trophy, It almost looked like the headboard of a bed. And he has it laid out and down flat and built his own table from it. The perch from which balls and pins would ricochet as drunk farmers laid down their money on fifty cent and dollar bets against their wage of what would happen. And when they lost, they reached out in furious anger casting their candle stick ball down the alley to ricochet in the tunnel enough to break a young boy’s knee cap. The sheriff owned the ally and the pool hall upstairs and so it is fitting that one of those tables is the Hermits own today. It’s old school wide slate, free return, and no coin box. A sea of green felt. It has all the smoke and memories of when he sat on a bench six feet from it and watched men in coats spend their wages as days turned into nights.
If you go:
The Sagamore Hotel
110 Sagamore Road
Bolton Landing, NY 12814
866 384 1944
www.thesagamore.com
Hotel Pattee
1112 Willis Ave, Perry IA 50220
515-465-3511
Senneterre Outfitters
717-432-7783
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