Peein' off the Front Porch and Howlin' at the Moon
The other night I finally watched a tape of the new Morgan Spurlock phenom, "30 days." Specifically, I watched the episode wherein the 2 city folk from Brooklyn go to live with a bunch of environmentalists at the Dancing Rabbit eco-community in Missouri.
It got me thinking. Specifically, it got me thinking about the time I lived in a little cabin in the woods of Meigs Co., Ohio while attending college. I'd like to start telling that story.
Here's the cabin:
Nice picture, huh? (Thanks again, Burb, for your computer acumen.) If I included a picture of the back, it would look much more shack-ish. Because it really was pretty much a shack in the middle of nowhere.
It was about 10 X 12, had no electricity or running water (unless we ran up the hill with the filled water bags from the pump, ha ha), and was heated by a wood stove. I did have a 1920s-era cookstove powered by propane. It was the kind where you turned on the gas, lit a match, and hoped for the best. Due to an earlier mishap involving my landlord's similarly primitive stove, an apple pie, a pilot light that wouldn't stay lit, and singed eyebrows, I checked for flames a lot.
I lived there for about 3 years while in college. The rent was reasonable: $25 a month ($40 when my boyfriend moved in early the next year). This is what I looked like towards the end of my stay:
See? Very happy! That's because I really loved living there.
The cabin was one of two dwellings on my landlord's 90 acres in rural Meigs County. All you dopeheads out there should know Meigs County, home of flavorful "Meigs County Gold" and many anti-drug taskforce helicopters. As the crow flies, I was but a few miles from the Ohio River, which was not easily but still reachable by nubby-tired bike. My landlord--who would've scored way-high on that "Are you a hippie" quiz--was a car mechanic in Athens. I won't tell you the name of his garage, but it had a lot to do with eastern philosophy, and plain befuddled other blue collar workers who weren't quite as familiar with The Way. He also spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that he worked all day in grease and oil to fix things that he had no respect or love for at all. Then he'd come home and do yoga in an attempt to work the auto toxins out of his system.
The other dwelling on the land was the landlord's hand-built 4-bedroom, one bathtub/shower home. When I moved to the land in the late summer of 1992, I lived in a room in that house. When my friend and former punk drummer turned bluegrass bassist, June Bug, vacated the cabin to live in a house with no windows or doors with his girlfriend who rolled her own cigarettes and smoked them while sitting in a near-impossible for adults crouched position, I moved into the cabin.
To reach the cabin, you had to park your car just off the road, cross a little (most of the time) creek on a rickety wooden bridge, cross another, mostly dry branch of said creek by stepping from rock to rock, and ascend a trail halfway up a big hill, with the land rising on the right and the creek down on your left. Total trip up was about 1/4 mile. There, on a rare flat piece of earth, sat my cabin. The flat side of the yard was populated with crabapple and redbud trees and had a rock ledge that overlooked the trail and creek. The up side of the yard had a small trail that continued straight up the hill to the tippy-top. Side story:
One fine day I loaded an old hiking backpack with creek rocks to make a big fire pit on that same tippy-top. I know--creek rocks and firepits aren't natural allies, but we never did have an explosion. I figured that each load weighed at least 80 pounds and the trip up the backside of this hill was at least 1/2 mile, often very steep. I did this for hours. Near round dinnertime, I shucked the pack and my boots at the top and ran top speed all the way down the hill, trying to "let go" and let my body steer itself. By the time I got down the hill (Yee-haw! Japhie Ryder got nothin' on me!), around the pond, past the outhouse and down to the main house (my landlord's), I was positively buzzing on endorphins and exhaustion and hunger and didn't even notice that I had cut the bottom of my foot open until someone pointed out the pool of blood. I sat down to a dinner of homemade cornmeal tortillas (HOT!), beans, rice, spicy mustard greens, assorted other garden veggies, a big jug of cheap South American wine, and friends. Life has rarely--rarely--been better.
Back to the cabin. The whole semi-clearing where the cabin was located was surrounded by a mostly hardwood forest. The 90 acres was similarly surrounded by state forest. We (my landlord and I) were the only people who lived on our "road," which more closely resembled someone's crappy driveway. We were two miles away from the nearest paved road, and about 45 minutes from Athens. Not having a car of my own, at first I got into town with my landlord, who was always driving some cheap peace of shit that someone gave him and he got running. If our schedules conflicted, I stayed overnight on a filthy couch in his auto shop, with appropriately awful amenities. Luckily for me, I had a student card and could gain access to a proper shower at the school's then-crappy work-out facility. Still, the water was hotter than the creek at the cabin, where I bathed with the fishes (and biodegradable soap) when there was enough water and it was a bearable temperature. Ah, nature.
That first late summer and fall was idyllic. I had just started school, which I really enjoyed, and I loved, loved, loved my new digs. One of the first things I did was nail up an owl "shrinky dink" that I had taken from the last city house that I'll ever live in. Soon after, I was sitting on the cabin's little porch with my back resting on the wall that was the owl's new home, and, in the blue light of late evening, I saw a shadow move past me and heard a barely audible "whoosh". I turned my head in time to see a real owl land in the shadows of a pine tree, and soon after I was privileged to hear it's strange song, located in the strange, magical, owl-song-place somewhere between devil-dog barking and gentle, mournful hoos.
I had so many moments like that. I have promised myself to keep writing about them, as those memories are starting to move me to actions too long suppressed.
It got me thinking. Specifically, it got me thinking about the time I lived in a little cabin in the woods of Meigs Co., Ohio while attending college. I'd like to start telling that story.
Here's the cabin:
Nice picture, huh? (Thanks again, Burb, for your computer acumen.) If I included a picture of the back, it would look much more shack-ish. Because it really was pretty much a shack in the middle of nowhere.
It was about 10 X 12, had no electricity or running water (unless we ran up the hill with the filled water bags from the pump, ha ha), and was heated by a wood stove. I did have a 1920s-era cookstove powered by propane. It was the kind where you turned on the gas, lit a match, and hoped for the best. Due to an earlier mishap involving my landlord's similarly primitive stove, an apple pie, a pilot light that wouldn't stay lit, and singed eyebrows, I checked for flames a lot.
I lived there for about 3 years while in college. The rent was reasonable: $25 a month ($40 when my boyfriend moved in early the next year). This is what I looked like towards the end of my stay:
See? Very happy! That's because I really loved living there.
The cabin was one of two dwellings on my landlord's 90 acres in rural Meigs County. All you dopeheads out there should know Meigs County, home of flavorful "Meigs County Gold" and many anti-drug taskforce helicopters. As the crow flies, I was but a few miles from the Ohio River, which was not easily but still reachable by nubby-tired bike. My landlord--who would've scored way-high on that "Are you a hippie" quiz--was a car mechanic in Athens. I won't tell you the name of his garage, but it had a lot to do with eastern philosophy, and plain befuddled other blue collar workers who weren't quite as familiar with The Way. He also spent a lot of time lamenting the fact that he worked all day in grease and oil to fix things that he had no respect or love for at all. Then he'd come home and do yoga in an attempt to work the auto toxins out of his system.
The other dwelling on the land was the landlord's hand-built 4-bedroom, one bathtub/shower home. When I moved to the land in the late summer of 1992, I lived in a room in that house. When my friend and former punk drummer turned bluegrass bassist, June Bug, vacated the cabin to live in a house with no windows or doors with his girlfriend who rolled her own cigarettes and smoked them while sitting in a near-impossible for adults crouched position, I moved into the cabin.
To reach the cabin, you had to park your car just off the road, cross a little (most of the time) creek on a rickety wooden bridge, cross another, mostly dry branch of said creek by stepping from rock to rock, and ascend a trail halfway up a big hill, with the land rising on the right and the creek down on your left. Total trip up was about 1/4 mile. There, on a rare flat piece of earth, sat my cabin. The flat side of the yard was populated with crabapple and redbud trees and had a rock ledge that overlooked the trail and creek. The up side of the yard had a small trail that continued straight up the hill to the tippy-top. Side story:
One fine day I loaded an old hiking backpack with creek rocks to make a big fire pit on that same tippy-top. I know--creek rocks and firepits aren't natural allies, but we never did have an explosion. I figured that each load weighed at least 80 pounds and the trip up the backside of this hill was at least 1/2 mile, often very steep. I did this for hours. Near round dinnertime, I shucked the pack and my boots at the top and ran top speed all the way down the hill, trying to "let go" and let my body steer itself. By the time I got down the hill (Yee-haw! Japhie Ryder got nothin' on me!), around the pond, past the outhouse and down to the main house (my landlord's), I was positively buzzing on endorphins and exhaustion and hunger and didn't even notice that I had cut the bottom of my foot open until someone pointed out the pool of blood. I sat down to a dinner of homemade cornmeal tortillas (HOT!), beans, rice, spicy mustard greens, assorted other garden veggies, a big jug of cheap South American wine, and friends. Life has rarely--rarely--been better.
Back to the cabin. The whole semi-clearing where the cabin was located was surrounded by a mostly hardwood forest. The 90 acres was similarly surrounded by state forest. We (my landlord and I) were the only people who lived on our "road," which more closely resembled someone's crappy driveway. We were two miles away from the nearest paved road, and about 45 minutes from Athens. Not having a car of my own, at first I got into town with my landlord, who was always driving some cheap peace of shit that someone gave him and he got running. If our schedules conflicted, I stayed overnight on a filthy couch in his auto shop, with appropriately awful amenities. Luckily for me, I had a student card and could gain access to a proper shower at the school's then-crappy work-out facility. Still, the water was hotter than the creek at the cabin, where I bathed with the fishes (and biodegradable soap) when there was enough water and it was a bearable temperature. Ah, nature.
That first late summer and fall was idyllic. I had just started school, which I really enjoyed, and I loved, loved, loved my new digs. One of the first things I did was nail up an owl "shrinky dink" that I had taken from the last city house that I'll ever live in. Soon after, I was sitting on the cabin's little porch with my back resting on the wall that was the owl's new home, and, in the blue light of late evening, I saw a shadow move past me and heard a barely audible "whoosh". I turned my head in time to see a real owl land in the shadows of a pine tree, and soon after I was privileged to hear it's strange song, located in the strange, magical, owl-song-place somewhere between devil-dog barking and gentle, mournful hoos.
I had so many moments like that. I have promised myself to keep writing about them, as those memories are starting to move me to actions too long suppressed.
posted by lulu | 6:09 AM
2 Comments:
I love these autobiographical travels back in time. I'm unconvinced by the photo, however, since it looks exactly like you look now. Admit it: you spec'd that photo assignment on OneStep, and a croney in ADP shot it last weekend.
The colorful characters are fun, too. June Bug could be fleshed out some, and the legendary landlord-mechanic-sage needs a name! (Dan Millman called his mechanic-mentor Socrates, but you can do better.) And what's an owl shrinky-dink?
Awaiting the next installment of the continuing saga.
Loved the memories. I feel all serene now. My boss Christian Masterson was right, you are just like the last girl I dated.
Ahh well. Cheers. And put me above the spam why don't you?
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