November 14, 2002

The move from the Mohonk Guest House in New Paltz to a bed and breakfast at West Cornwall in western New Jersey was a dramatic change in my September trip. My small room was right over the kitchen. The chef specialized in caramelizing onions to a thin enough vapor that the odor made a cloud bank in the room.

Hard rain pelted the thin walls. Four wire coat hangers on a hat rack served as a closet. It took a fancy sidestep to enter or leave the bathroom. When I called West Cornwall for the room, I visualized an English ivy-covered quarried stone house with a big fireplace in the living room, sizzling pine logs and pewter tankards thumping on oak tables served by saucy maidens wearing lace caps and aprons. Instead, I was stuck in an asbestos-shingled loft in a cold rainstorm wondering if my clothes were going to smell like cooked onion the next day.

The colorful names on the map lured me to West Cornwall. "Jinny Jump Mountain," Bull Bridge, "New Village," Washington, and the likes of the Housatonic River start the mind imagining crossing grounds connected to our early history. Notably close to West Cornwall is Bull Bridge, a red wooden covered bridge linking a road General George Washington used to go north to seek support from the French for the Continental cause. It was important also as the spot where the rescuing of the general's horse from a fall off a bluff into the Housatonic River cost $215, a hefty expense item for the Continental Congress to review.

As the father of our country, Mr. Washington could not tell a lie. However, as General Washington, he might have had broader latitude in regard to veracity, say "a fib." All the guide book said was "At Bull Bridge, General Washington, on the way to seek aid from the French, was delayed while his horse was retrieved from a fall into the river at a cost of $215."

I understand why he didn't tell lies. If General Washington had been a storyteller, he'd have left a whopper on how his old pony skidded off the bluff at full speed, barely giving him three seconds to kick loose from the stirrups and swing free from the saddle on an overhanging branch. How he tore his velvet hat, lost a pearl-studded snuff box, and filled the air with a dust as potent as sneeze weed pollen from his wig hitting a tree limb.

Close to the townsite of Washington, I found the Institute of Native American Culture on a side road. Just as my friend and I parked, five school bus loads of kids vacated the museum. The sudden departure of so much bedlam sent the staff scurrying to the coffee room. The two of us stood in free reign of large glass displays of Indian artifacts and wall murals of tribal scenes. The Muzak sounded several notches higher than normal to compensate for the eerie stillness left over from the departing mob of children. Stuck on the menu was a recording of Indians imitating the sad call of loons — a chilling sound electrifying the nerves.

The music had a deep effect. Close to the reception area, an auburn-haired lady walked through the room, only pausing long enough to say, "Admission is free for the rest of the day; so is the coffee." At that moment, the loon cries peaked. I stopped her and said, "Beg your pardon, Ma'am, but that loon music haunts me. My mother left me as a mere tot to be raised by schoolteachers. (long pause) In Texas in those days, redhead, freckled-faced boys could be left without any recourse or penalty by the state. (deep sigh) There was a lost child department in El Paso, and six hundred miles to the East at Beaumont, there was a found child department. The most dreaded of all was to be put in a claiming race in the first grade."

Before I finished telling her that the cry of loons is identical to schoolteachers' nightmares, I felt the gentle touch of my friend's hand on my coat sleeve, increasing to a firm grip moving me away from the stunned curator. At the same time, she was saying, "Now, now Monte, people up here don't know about storytellers."

I caught the staff people peeking from the coffee room once, hoping we were gone. I'll end with an Onondoga Indian prayer I copied at the museum to bring home: 

Oh Great Creator whose voice I always listen to in the winds 
Hear me 
I am a small part of You; I need wisdom
Let me walk in your beauty
Keep my ears ever sharp for your voice
Help me travel a path of wisdom, so I may understand all people
I seek knowledge not to be greater than my brother, but to learn to share a great understanding Make me always helpful and ready to come to all earthly causes with clean hands and clean thoughts. 
Amen.

November 14, 2002