One cold and exceedingly snowy winter when I was in my early twenties, I channeled Michael Strogoff. Strogoff is the hero of Jules Verne’s 1876 book; he was a courier to the tsar. No cold was too cold for Michael Strogoff. No snow was too deep. Michael Strogoff helped me walked to work and back every weekday, and he helped me shovel our long driveway. There was so much snow that year that I had trouble throwing it to the top of the snowbanks that grew up on either side of the driveway. Michael Strogoff was great.
That was a long time ago. When I tried to channel him on this morning’s dog walk, I noticed that he spoke in the voice of someone perpetually in his thirties. Alas, I cannot channel his age. It was eleven real degrees while the dog and I were out, and Daughter Number Four tells me the wind chill made it feel like five below. That seems accurate.
Furthermore, caring neighbors had put de-icer on their walks to help with traction, for which I’m grateful. Unfortunately, the gritty bits of it get into Rascal’s paws, rendering him lame. The cure for which is for me to pull off my nice warm mitten and work the stuff out of his pads. Rascal is patient about this and appreciates the assist, but we kept our walk short.
Happily, the weather wasn’t an issue for Tuba Christmas last Sunday afternoon. Tuba Christmas is when all the low-brass players in the area who are so inclined get together in the pavilion at Farmers Market to delight us with Christmas songs. They form a forty-plus-person ensemble of tubas, sousaphones, baritones, and euphoniums, and their conductor is an engaging master of ceremonies. The audience is invited to sing along.
There are also low-brass jokes. “What do you never get when you have a low-brass player in the house?” conductor George Thompson asked. “Quiet?” someone in back responded. “No,” Thompson riposted, “a silent night!” Guest soloist Brandon Ige, rocking a suit bedecked with Santas, alternately sang and played on his tuba the popular, “Santa Wants a Tuba for Christmas.” The concert is free and leaves people smiling.
The Potters Guild sale was also last weekend. That’s when the guild erects a heated building-sized tent in front of its Hill Street studio and offers up what the potters have made in the last six months. Even if I’m not in the market for ceramics, I go to fill my eyes with the wonders the artists have created. It’s reliably good, and sometimes great.
A happy customer heading back to the parking lot with her arms full, warned Anne and me as we approached the show, “You’re too late, ladies! I bought it all. There’s nothing left.” This was approximately ten minutes after the sale began.
Another lady, also carrying purchases, greeted us with the same warning. “You’re too late! I bought everything.” It was indeed an outstanding show. Customers found so many treasures that it took almost as long to check out as it did to decide what pieces were going home with you.
Anne and I went from the Potters Guild to Front Porch Textiles, on Traver, which was having a juried show of weavings, glass, paintings, and other art media. Like the Potters Guild sale, this one featured some remarkable work, much of which was being rehomed.
Saturday morning, before meeting Anne for our art outing, I saw something else surprising in the Sugarbush woods. At first, I had the oddest sensation of having seen an elf just before it vanished, a fair ways up the trail from the dog and me. Since that wasn’t possible, my next bit of speculation was that the thin, agile bit of leg I’d seen must have been that of a child. But then where was the rest of her? There’d been no glimpse of anything but leg, no flicker of colorful winter clothes.
The answer came from some distance off in the woods, as a doe lifted her head to see if the dog and I presented any problem. There was a moment of tension, and then she wandered off to browse.
In the car with Anne later, telling her about the deer, I glanced down Lexington to see two does and a fawn stepping out into the street from Sugarbush. The presence of the fawn explained that moment of tension in the woods. The runner passing where the path ended at Lexington as the deer emerged may have experienced a moment of tension herself. Her sudden encounter with three large mammals must have been a thrill.
13 December 2024