Shoppers, start your engines

It took us the full two hours to unpack boxes and fill the tables. The goods were organized in general topic areas, but not slavishly so. There were tables full of Christmas and Halloween items, tables with dishes, glasses, games, and such, a front table with copper cups, plates, and other gems, and an area in the middle with large and admittedly sometimes strange things.

We arrived for work at the Phillipston school gym a bit before eight in the morning. Within a few minutes, some early flea-marketers were innocently seeking entry, well ahead of our ten o'clock opening time.

Someone will likely pay dearly for this piece

The people were leaning on the gate when we reached the appointed hour

and soon filled the hall.

The rain started shortly after we opened up and fell steadily, often heavily, for much of the day.
In spite of the bad weather, the church made $3000.

Where we belong is where we are

The teen-aged boy, whose name I didn't catch, reminded me that "if you take care of your truck, your truck will take care of you." He was one of a couple dozen young people who were helping to set up the flea market at the Phillipston school. Several pickup trucks were shuttling items from the church basement to the school.

I know some of the people, but very few. This is an odd thing about being in Phillipston. I've been in this town all of my life, but the focus has always been on the lake. Even the people on the lake whom I knew as a kid, they're long gone.
So, even with a life-long connection to the town, I can probably greet one percent of the townspeople by name.
The easy thing to do, of course, is nothing. Our camp, as we well know, is a very fine place. There's plenty to do for work and play and relaxation.
But, friends beget friends and pickup trucks beget even more. On Friday evening, the night before the bazaar and flea market, we work hard for a couple of hours. The young people, Boy Scouts, mostly, work well with the adults. During the previous week, people spent several hours each event in the church basement, sorting and pricing the sale items. (Other people had spent several mornings during the past month doing the same at one person's home.)
Now it is time to move stuff. The crew carries the goods from the basement and onto the lawn and then onto the trucks. A couple of the men coach the young people on the best ways to load a truck - heavier boxes on the bottom, oddly-shaped things on top.
At the school, another swarm of people unload the trucks and find places for the goods on tables in the gym. Those of us who don't know people's names get along fine. We can still joke, coach, and praise.
By 9:30, we've emptied the church basement. We know that there are more items at the aforementioned person's house, but we don't have any more room on the tables or floor.
A dozen people were  laying out the vases, fax machines, dish sets, Christmas ornaments, tea pots, rugs, baskets, bread boxes, statues of Jesus on the cross, vacuum cleaners, crutches, boogie boards, espresso machines, empty suitcases, badminton rackets, and, well, you get the idea.
I drove home, windows down, trying to remember the names of the people I met. There will be a quiz in the morning when we open up for business.

Where we belong is where we are

The teen-aged boy, whose name I didn't catch, reminded me that "if you take care of your truck, your truck will take care of you." He was one of a couple dozen young people who were helping to set up the flea market at the Phillipston school. Several pickup trucks were shuttling items from the church basement to the school.

I know some of the people, but very few. This is an odd thing about being in Phillipston. I've been in this town all of my life, but the focus has always been on the lake. Even the people on the lake whom I knew as a kid, they're long gone.
So, even with a life-long connection to the town, I can probably greet one percent of the townspeople by name.
The easy thing to do, of course, is nothing. Our camp, as we well know, is a very fine place. There's plenty to do for work and play and relaxation.
But, friends beget friends and pickup trucks beget even more. On Friday evening, the night before the bazaar and flea market, we work hard for a couple of hours. The young people, Boy Scouts, mostly, work well with the adults. During the previous week, people spent several hours each event in the church basement, sorting and pricing the sale items. (Other people had spent several mornings during the past month doing the same at one person's home.)
Now it is time to move stuff. The crew carries the goods from the basement and onto the lawn and then onto the trucks. A couple of the men coach the young people on the best ways to load a truck - heavier boxes on the bottom, oddly-shaped things on top.
At the school, another swarm of people unload the trucks and find places for the goods on tables in the gym. Those of us who don't know people's names get along fine. We can still joke, coach, and praise.
By 9:30, we've emptied the church basement. We know that there are more items at the aforementioned person's house, but we don't have any more room on the tables or floor.
A dozen people were  laying out the vases, fax machines, dish sets, Christmas ornaments, tea pots, rugs, baskets, bread boxes, statues of Jesus on the cross, vacuum cleaners, crutches, boogie boards, espresso machines, empty suitcases, badminton rackets, and, well, you get the idea.
I drove home, windows down, trying to remember the names of the people I met. There will be a quiz in the morning when we open up for business.

Future of News, Phillipston-style

While the print and broadcast news media wrestle flail in paroxysms of poverty as Google and Twitter steal their lunch money, the good folk of Phillipston bring the important information directly to the people.

(Editor's note: at this writing, I've not been able to confirm our news source, but I suspect that it's Claire.)

The slow walk out of winter

(via OnTheCommon.com - The slow walk out of winter)

When we reached the top of the first rise on the camp road and saw the unfriendly mix of ice and snow with melting water and soft ground underneath, we opted for the prudent choice. We parked the car and walked the rest of the way.
This wasn't a hard winter for us. We had cold stretches, but only a few times did it dip below zero. We had snow, but the mid-Atlantic states had much more. No, it was a fairly easy winter with not much more left to it.
The ice had started to pull away from the shore. If you looked closely, though, particularly around the dock, you could still see that the ice is still nearly a foot thick.
We're in the cold part of the lake. The northwest winds push the ice into the cove. Elsewhere, the sun and rain have thinned the cover. Queenie, our very own plywood royalty, went for a swim some time on the evening of March 18 (Queen Lake Iceout). When we were at the lake on the 16th, she was still standing tall in the afternoon sun.
Our neighbors reported that there had been a lot of snow on the open ground as recently as the past weekend, but the rain took it away.
Because much of the road is sheltered by evergreens, the warm sunshine doesn't have a big effect on the snow cover. It's the fog and rain that'll do the melting. The forecast suggests that we might have some of that kind of weather early next week. It wasn't a bad winter, but we're ready for spring.

How not not to be found

via Karl Hakkarainen's Phillipston Blog

Normally, I don't like bothering guys who are ice fishing for just the reason that Sandra had suggested. A guy who goes out into the middle of a lake in the winter is usually someone who enjoys his own company and his own thoughts.
But, ice fishermen have a public service to perform. Actually, a couple. One is to let the civilians know how thick the ice is. We need to know these things because it's a gauge of the winter so far. The other service, of course, is to let any passer-by know how the fishing is.
He was fine with it. He reported that he'd thrown back quite a few small perch, but he had a couple of edible-size fish on the ice, fish that Marley thought were very interesting, indeed. This was the fisherman's first visit to the lake, so he'd just picked a spot that looked promising. He asked about the location of the deeper water. This selection had good depth, but I also pointed to a couple of other areas to try.
On the first point, two guys and one gal confirmed that the ice in the north middle part of Queen Lake is, at most, 10 inches thick. Given the long stretches of cold we've had so far, I'd expected more, but that's what we have.
After a few minutes, we returned to shore, leaving the fisherman to his quiet. Walking was easiest where there was a little bit of snow. You couldn't, however, always trust what you were seeing. An old fishing hole 10 or 20 feet away let water seep underneath, turning what looks like hard-packed snow into a slushy mess.
None of the fishing holes were too close to one another, so the surface hadn't been weakened. Later in the evening, I talked with son Adam and mentioned that my father used to say that you could drive a truck across six inches of ice and that I'd only known my father to fall through the ice once. Adam asked if my father came up with the six inches per truck rule before or after he'd fallen in.
All was in good order in and around the camp. As we reached the parking lot by the boat house, Sandra received a call on her cell phone. It was from the National Organization for Marriage, asking if she supported Scott Brown for Senate and if she supported nationwide gay marriage. After giving answers that should reduce the likelihood of future such calls, Sandra and I walked back to the car. If you interrupt someone else's quiet time, karma says that you should be prepared to have a dose of the same.