Interesting title…we’ll get back to it.

A couple years ago I wrote a narrative essay entitled “Roots in Sand.” I wrote it during a time in my life that a few things had happened: I had just moved to Cape Cod, I had broken my body (See “Last Traction Hero”), and the faults in my marriage had shifted in such a way as to cause a major tsunami. I typed the essay with two fingers of my left hand while walking on a treadmill. One of the things you learn about a broken back is that walking is one of the few things that feels good, of course I also had a busted ankle. I’ll reprint it here because I now wish to add something of an addendum.

Roots in Sand

I’m not what you would call old, but sometimes I feel it.

Today is one of those days, when memories come readily to the mind’s surface as the cold, rainy wind blows, tracing the outlines of broken bones each one a memory. Some carry funny stories; some, not so much. I feel them all as I walk along a new beach doing what I do every winter; look for new places to fish.

This will be my second summer living on Cape Cod, which makes it the longest I’ve ever lived anywhere in my adult life. I take note of darker water and current seams – the interesting places – a fisherman’s eye instinctively seeks out features like these and focuses on them. I could walk for ten miles and find only a handful of these areas, so each one is precious – far too precious to miss. I don’t bother taking pictures or even committing them to memory; this is the ocean and before the end of a single tide the sands could shift themselves into an entirely different pattern.

Not like granite, not like home.

I catch myself mid-thought. For whatever reason, I have always considered New Hampshire’s White Mountains to be my home. I didn’t really grow up there or live there for very long. In fact, I’m not entirely sure how much time I spent on my grandmother’s farm as a kid. I do not call it home because of Sunday meals or warming pies – there were neither – more, because of secret fishing spots and brook trout; because it was where I learned a natural world is one I fit best into; because when I returned to my parent’s house in the city, I felt very out of place in my own room.

A small thing really, but a small thing that changes means far more than a large thing that stays the same – a stone on a sandy flat, far too precious to miss. It is just a thought, though, and not truly an honest one. The White Mountains are not my home, no more than Boston, Presque Isle, Rome Maine, or several other addresses to which I’ve had mail sent. The truth is I’m not really from anywhere, and there is nowhere to return to.

For years it has been an empty goal of mine to return home. Something I always told myself without really listening. I miss mountains and rivers. The truly majestic power of a maple in its autumn raiment is not easily replaced by scrub pine, a feeble-looking tree with its roots in sand, cowering by the sea. The sea is very beautiful, but not welcoming. Like true art, it seems more a reflection of the world than a part, a chaotic swirling of thought and dream; one can look upon it for a long while without noticing time, but this is winter. Soon the beach will be full of people, and the energy of the sea will be muffled by battery-powered radios and the rattling bass of blown out speakers. I will not come here then, for it will no longer be a wild place, the kind I understand.

These thoughts are a bit much for me, so I concentrate again on fishing. White foam surges through a funnel in a sandbar, spilling into a dark trough. I imagine a deceiver dancing through that cut in the sand, to the stripers, which surely must lie in wait. I smile. Finding spots such as this is the biggest challenge for a fisherman with no “home water” – I’ve gotten rather good at it, though not good enough. I think of other spots I’ve found over the years, most of which I will never return to. I wonder if there is something wrong with moving from place to place and having no bigger regret than having lost a fishing spot. I do not miss the people I’ve worked with or communities I’ve been a member of, only the current seams and hidden eddies I’ve uncovered, the insects and crustaceans I’ve learned to masquerade hooks as. Changeable as the natural world can be, it is constant in its principles. It may be the only thing.

I look at the scrub pine again. The sickly vision, its twisted trunk and oddly angled branches filled with random clumps of needle-like leaves, seems awfully beautiful to me now. It grows; it lives. These roots do not find the promise of rich soil shored up by thick blocks of granite; rather, it finds purchase in a dune of sand clinging to life by sheer force of will, each day boldly facing the changing sea. I wonder if it is not the sight of the maple that I miss, but the scrub’s roots that I lack.

Through all my address changes I have had just one companion, fishing. No matter where I find myself I can always find fish and comfort, and be happy. Is it a hobby? Perhaps. Is it a colossal waste of time, to catch a fish and then turn it loose? Maybe. Yet, for good or ill, it has become the largest share of what I am. When I day-dream it is about fishing, when I exercise my broken elbow it is so I can cast again, and when I take a stroll along the beach, invariably I am looking for a place stripers can trap bait. All of these things are a part of what fishing means to me, yet more so; it is the sense that when I am on a stream, lake, pond or the ocean I am where I am supposed to be. I feel no desire to be anywhere else, no need to do anything except that which I am doing, to be nothing more than that which I am.

It feels like home.

Italics do make things look more important.

Kind of a maudlin tale, certainly not my best work, but lately I’ve been thinking about it in another light.

I’m a New Englander.  That’s something to be proud of.

Now I’m sure the other regions of America are nice, and it is possible – although highly unlikely – that places outside of America are alright to not incredibly sucky.  But better than New England? Hell no.

In case you are some intellectual feeb from a square state or stupid enough to think that brown corn syrup is a suitable replacement for the greatest substance on Earth – more on that later – New England is a collection of six states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.  The capital of New England is Boston, each state has its own capital but no one cares.  Politically the people of New England are diverse. Vermont is populated by Communists.   New Hampshire by Libertarians. Rhode Island is run by the Mafia – not the good Mafia these would be like the third cousins of “The Family.”  Maine is the home of people who though they may be aware that things happen outside of Maine they don’t much care.  Connecticut is where New Yorkers park their cars – Connecticut would have been kicked out of New England if not for the fact that Vince McMahon lives there.

New Englanders are always cranky.  This is not to be confused with the anger or general mal-temper of a New Yorker.  The crankiness is actually a test, to see how you respond.  Surprise or fear indicates that you are from the South or Swedish.  No reaction means you are from the Midwest, where a stupid grin is a clear indication of California.  The reason New Englanders do this is to help them spot New Yorkers…New Yorkers are the lowest form of life and like most parasites they often try to pass themselves off as something else.  New York sucks…that’s why so many of their people flee to New England.  Some will even halfheartedly mumble “Yankees suck” in Boston bars. New Yorkers are the reason New Englanders are always cranky.

Quick think of the funniest person you know…odds are either A. He is a New Englander (I didn’t put She because women have no sense of humor every joke told by a woman is about a man…men are therefore the source of all humor in the universe.)  B.  The Funniest person you know is not funny (you are probably from the South where quick-witted just doesn’t happen.)  Jay Leno and Conan O’Brien are New Englanders – Dave Letterman couldn’t get a 4th grade class to laugh at a fart joke.  Seth MacFarlane and the majority of the writers for the Simpsons…New Englanders.  This is carved in stone.

What about Larry the Cable Guy?  Developed the character and his comedic talent in New Hampshire.  The humor rule is absolute.  Non-New Englanders simply aren’t funny.  Larry the Cable Guy is mildly amusing…but I know my audience and I’m sure you think he’s a riot.

New England has beautiful beaches, complex forests, mountains (well really big hills at least,)  and an array of freshwater lakes, ponds, rivers, and streams….you can see all of these features driving less than 3 hours.  We also boast the worst weather in the world at the top of Mount Washington our highest peak.  I once hiked to the top of Mt. Washington – there was a parking lot and a train station – the summit was a pile of rocks I didn’t bother waiting in line to climb.

New England has maple syrup…the true nectar of the gods.  I can not write words of love in prose.  As a nod – and just a nod – to America’s little sister to the North, I will use the Ode form popularized by Pierre de Ronsard.  Ronsard took the classic Pindaric story structure and then added a closing couplet to each quatrain to form sestet stanzas with ababcc rhyme schemes.  That’s right ladies I am the perfect man.

Ode to Maple Syrup

Maid of Vermont thou art a bitch,

Peddling brown corn syrup as -

Maple’s kiss.  I’d toss you in a ditch,

Or lock you up in Alcatraz.

Fake Maple Syrup I hate thee,

I would much rather ingest pee.

Beauteous Amber sweet and light,

Playing on my lips Maple Syrup

You are the maiden, I your knight.

Words my steed, meter my stirrup.

Love stronger than Ernie and Bert,

You, my water in the desert.

When my eyes dim, my hearing fades,

How precious your kiss to me then,

As Grim Jim deals me the Ace-of-Spades.

You my escape, my opium den.

My ghost leaves with one last task, Syrup calls “DO IT”!!!

Whisper “Nice Boobs” to Jennifer Love Hewitt.

That’s right – not only did I rhyme “syrup” I included a Garbage Pail Kids reference…ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!!!!

The other New England staple is Cranberry Juice.  I use cranberry juice as an alarm clock.  Say you absolutely need to wake up in four hours to catch a tide…alarm clocks have snooze buttons.  If you drink a pint of cranberry juice, your ass will be up in four hours, and you will learn exactly how full a bladder can be.  Word to the wise if you start to have dreams about: urinals, swimming in your boss’s pool, German porn – wake yourself up immediately.  Cranberry Juice is tart, unwelcoming, and great with Vodka – New England in a nutshell.

Cranberry juice is also wicked good for you.  People from the Boston area say “wicked” a lot.  That’s because they are wicked awesome, kid!!!  People from Medford – a town outside Boston with the highest number of mentally unstable people per square inch – have a unique way of expressing disdain.  They simply take the keyword of the last sentence their victim uttered and add  – THIS to it with a dramatic down thrusting gesture towards their nether region.

For example:

Teacher:

Sean, you would have performed better had you studied for the test.

Student:

Study-THIS!!!!

Judge:

I am going to sentence you to 45 days.

Defendant:

Sentence-THIS!!!!!

Judge:

Ok, 90 days.

I hope this will serve you well if you ever decide to visit New England…granted I hope even more that you’ll stay in whatever hell-hole spawned you and leave us alone.

Yankees Suck.