Opening Spread: Musician
and master of momentum,
Mike Cornelius lays tracks
on a lengthy cue. Previous
Page: Backside slap attack
by Charles Harmon at the
Dog Cheese banks.
brother Posey" (Posey is a name I regrettably will
carry to my grave as the result of owning the first
Vision pasture wear seen in this locale).
"What?" I asked.
"We're gonna build one hole of a half brother
Posey. Grab that shovel, get the wheelbarrow and
hoe, Joe, and follow me."
"All right, Sluice, I got the juice, but methinks our
capitol reserve predisposes a conservative outlook
on this venture."
"Hush, boy," Sluice reprimanded with his typical
air of all-knowing. "Was Stonehenge a kit model?
Was Jamestown built with James' dad's Lumberland
credit card? Did the pilgrims avail themselves of the
local Wicks' home improvement center? Did
Grossman's float the construction of the Cistern
chapel? Was the Pharaoh troubled by the availability
of reasonably-priced Readymix? The Lord Provideth.
Cast your bread upon the waters..."
"Enough, enough, tireless leader. Lead on."
Past the sugar bush, past the sap house, past the
old bottle dump. We thrashed our way through the
stand of mixed fir and hardwoods to a place about
a quarter mile from the closest dirt road; a spot where
father time and a millennia of spring rains had carved
a 20-foot gash in Earth's great green breast.
"Dis be de place, ace," Sluice beamed as he
jumped up on a large moss-covered boulder, closed
his eyes, lifted his arms from his side and sat silently
and motionless for about ten minutes. I collapsed and
sprawled into the wheelbarrow, enjoying its metallic
coolness against my sweaty neck as I proceeded to
swat at the year's first emerging black flies.
"All one ever needs, to do what one needs to do,
is within the shadow one casts as the sun brings us
each new day upon new day." Breaking the silence
with these cryptic words, Sluice was making it evi-
dent that he had memorized all his tattered issues
of Thrasher and had turned to more
esoteric readings.
Sluice proceeded to share his vision with me. The
simple beauty of it, the spare elegance revealed itself
to me and magically the flies seemed to disappear.
The sun that only moments earlier felt abrasive and
alien to my winter blanched hide now seemed to
energize and vitalize me as never before.
Under the weight of wet winter snow a grove of
six-inch thick birches had bowed to the forest floor,
presenting a welcome yet curious sight. Like some
magnified view of a scrap of white Velcro, or a lost
elephants' graveyard, or a collection of discarded
McDonalds arches, the birches drooped to the ground
never to regain their once erect stature.
In no time at all we had the Husky fueled, filed
and fired up. We proceeded to fall and limb twenty
or so of these gracefully bending free for the felling
birch transitions. The ravine, where a tricklet of a
stream wore its way to the valley, was about 35 feet
across and offered a near perfect transition for 25
feet or so on both sides. After hacking away some
underbrush and saplings from the slopes we carefully
dropped in the matched up birch tusks as best we
could, marveling at nature's consistency and sense
of form.
Only about two hours had passed since we first
considered our rampless plight, and our transitions
were all in place, secured by short stakes driven in
along their length. We were ready to sheath. Sheath?
Plywood is a product of man, the product of a highly
contrived technology-the scientific sum of
silviculture. "What next ole Sluice? What in our
shadow is here for our use?"
Sluice brought the chainsaw to its ear-piercing roar
and felled a stand of alder saplings that had over-
taken the upper bank. "Grab that axe and limb these
branches, Posey," he blurted. We were left with
hundreds of 25-foot stems, two inches at the base
and tapering to an inch at the tip. By tacking these
across the birch transitions we soon had
our half bumpily sheathed.
The four hours of lumberjacking were fun, invig-
orating and fruitful, but now we faced actual work:
labor, sweat of the brow, grease of the elbow, callous
raising, back breaking work. As typical skaters, this
challenged our very essence and we decided to leave
the task for another day. We went home proud,
satisfied and with the excitement that accompanies
the creation of a masterpiece. We slept the sound
sleep of labor: the sleep of love.
The following day, as we approached the ravine,
the light was different and the once undisturbed.
isolated forest had taken on a sense of familiarity and
occupation. The sweet smell of freshly cut wood and
the new light flowing past the seeping fresh stumps
invigorated us as we set about our task.
Where the stream had carved its way through the
forest a vein of blue-grey clay lay exposed, greasy
and glistening. We dug this out and mixed it in the
wheelbarrow with bucketfuls of pine needles scooped
from the shade of towering white pines and enough
water from the stream to make a pliable plaster-like
paste. We daubed this on by hand over the entire sur-
face of the half-pipe and smoothed it off with a long
bough that we used like a giant trowel. Once again
we fired up the saw and dropped a few large spruce
trees that were shading the work site. In rushed the
noonday sun to bake our bowl-like half.
We fitted straight and sturdy young rock maples
as coping, dragged our tools home and anxiously
waited as it baked its way to a slick, hard surface.
No sooner had this final act of nature begun when
we started to wonder if we shouldn't have included
a roll-out or maybe mixed some wood ash with the
clay. And what about a tombstone?
"Oh well, we'll build another one later," I said as
I looked to Sluice and saw his furrowed brow and
the far off look in his eyes. I knew his internal engines
were cooking again.
"You know," he said, "what if we trapped a beaver,
cut off his tail, soaked it in epoxy, mounted a set of
trucks to the bottom and
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