Eric Renderking Fisk share with the world his Winter Wonder Land Right Next Door...
SnowMageddon 2011!
Eric Renderking Fisk - February 2011 
The Last Light Of The 2000's
My
life changed significantly between 2001 and 2010. Most significantly is
my relationships with my fellow retrocentrics that I’ve met on various retrocentric
forums who have changed my life for the better. No, I’m alone; there are
a lot more people who are trying to recapture the sense of style and the
spirit of adventure from a by-gone era while exploring modern society in
trying to discover what we’ve lost since “The Greatest Generation.”
For many of us, just emulating one of these heroes from the past is enough.
For the rest that’s just isn’t enough.
We don’t want just the fedora, leather jacket, holster and boots.
We just don’t want to act like a cinematic hero, we want to be someone who
is a the cause of positive change in the real world. We want to be more
like our parents and grandparents who saved the world from fascism and tyranny.
The Fedora Chronicles was created in part to document that journey.
The sun setting for the last time on that decade made me realize how
much I’ve done since I started work with Aaron Gantt on The Indy Experience
and The Fedora Chronicles that began in 2004 awoke something in me – I did
a lot of work but there was so much that I started and didn’t finish. I
don’t want to allow another year, much less decade, end without that work
being completed.
I want to document my life better on The Fedora Chronicles.
Not just write reviews of movies, political rants and my own take on the
food and resturants. Where am I going? Where is my life taking me and my
fedora? I want to share all of that with you because I want to prove that
I do as I say. Go out there and do it. Enjoy the world and what life has
to offer while keeping your chin up…
The perfect opportunity for me was the massive amounts
of snow that’s been falling throughout the country. It’s more snow than
we’ve seen in ages and we might never see such amounts ever again if some
of the expert climatologists are right. I want proof that we were out there
enjoying it.
January 21st, 2011 Put them to work early!
I think the best thing that a parent can do for their
children is let them go out and enjoy life and do things on their own. I’m
not talking about letting them break open an old television picture tube
in an effort to fuse lead and calcium to make uranium or play “American
Chopper” with real blow torches.
Coppertop and H-Bomb wanted to make tunnels out of
the snow banks. Fine! Let them. That’s a skill that might come in handy
during the zombie apocalypse that’s sure to come after Nuclear Winter…
Remember kids... a shovel isn't a great tool used to for digging but they're also a powerful zombie slaying weapon!
Here's a secret for all you parents out there...
If you want to see how hard your kids will work, tell
them that when they’ve done enough jobs around the house you’ll buy them
their own fedora. Just don’t tell them how much work they have to do and
they will never stop. Ever!
Now I’m thinking… crap! How small do Penman’s blocks
come? And is this kid thinking “Rabbit” or “Beaver” felt?
The best part about the deep snow? Coppertop can fill
the bird-feeders with out needing a ladder or step-stool.
The best part about where my wife and I live is it’s obviously the woods
that surround our home. We can walk out the door and walk less in a minute
and we’re surrounded by trees. When the tree branches are full of leave
we lose sight of the rest of the world and we’re in another one all our
own. We feel the same way in winter with the same empty branches are covered
with snow and the silence of the season is almost deafening.
Why was it so hard to get a picture of myself?
It's neither the North nor South Pole, but it's something Coppertop made himself. I haven't seen him this proud since he broke the spade over the zombie bus driver's mellon.
February 2nd, 2011
I’m
not really sure what bothers me the most this month.
One - We’re in the second or third week into February and there are a
lot of people crying and bemoaning the fact that we have so much snow when
in fact we’ve had it easy for the past decade or so. We’re human beings
with the capability of dealing with it, and New Englanders are supposed
to be a hearty breed.
Two – I haven’t felt the need to work out and exercise since I’ve been
shoveling all of this snow and it’s getting easier to do so. Will I be lulled
into a false sense of fitness and will be dragged into the ocean by Greenpeace
the first time I go to the beach thanks to my girth and flab?
Three – Maybe I’m getting too old for this crap. While I enjoy the
idea of being a capable man who’s
able to handle this, the idea of a snow thrower or plow for my John Deere
tractor is looking pretty good at this time. Yet if I buy one of those this
spring when they’ll be on sale, I won’t need it again for another decade
or so…
Pictured above - A picture taken by Harrison Fisk of his dad.
Out of all the pictures that I took earlier, I hoped
that this would articulate how deep the accumulated since November. The
porch is over 2 feet of the ground; the snow is obviously above the porch.
The snow is higher than the porch and it's not from the roof. So high in
fact that I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen such accumulation since we first
moved here and I’m starting to wonder about the sever flooding problems
were going to be enjoying come the late-winter thaw in March.
My wife and I have been doing a lot of snowshoeing around the property
and after each time we get some good trails packed down it snows again.
Often after these storms those trails is fresh once more. You can’t tell
from these pictures, but this is less then 6 feet away from the side of
my house and this is a regularly walked trail from the back basement door
to the shed my wife and I built.
I’m really happy to have been able to take this picture since Coppertop
Fisk (on the right, behind Carol) was feeling a bit grumpy and didn’t want
to tag along. I gave him a shiny flashlight to carry to use when we get
out to the woods, then he was fighting with his brother to take the lead
or took short cuts to get out in front.
I asked Carol to take this picture because I wanted
to show a lot of folks that I mean what I’m saying about the depth. You
can’t tell because this is a landscape and not a portrait picture – even
with the snowshoes I’m almost up to my knees in snow.
It’s hard to imagine that just a couple of weeks ago
that these trails were free and clear of snow and covered with a thin layer
of leaves. The paths had been working on and clearing for the past decade
had simply been reclaimed by nature after a few
storms and a couple of feet
of snow.
I remember the question was asked in “Lawrence Of Arabia”
Jackson Bentley:
What attracts you personally to the desert?
T.E. Lawrence:
It's clean.
That’s the same way I feel about winter. The white covers everything
from the lawn and the garden to the trails in the woods. It covers everything
from trash in the yard the cars in the driveway. Even the way the snow gathers
on the branches, there’s a purity to the winter weather. It causes everyone
to slow down, causing the orchestrated daily chaos to cease temporarily.
For a brief period, the world is perfectly at peace during and after
a snow storm.
February 6th, 2011 - Rhododendron State Forest
My wife and I made a commitment to each other at the beginning of the
year to help each other keep our New Year’s Resolution. It wasn’t just enough
to make the resolution to get in shape but this year we also promised that
we would be hard on each other and ourselves to stick with it. If one of
us was feeling lazy, then the other would step in and be the motivator.
Carol wanted to stay home, feeling tired and down. I had to talk to her
out of her out of this day’s bout of mid-winter depression and told her
that if we didn’t get out now we would never leave and she would regret
it tomorrow morning.
This Sunday I knew that there would be nobody on the trails this weekend.
We would have them all to ourselves, anywhere. We put the snowshoes in the
back of the Flex and drove to the Rhododendron State Forest. It’s beautiful
in the summer and autumn, but we’ve never seen it during this time of year.
What better time to explore?
Once we got there, Coppertop and H-Bomb couldn't get out on the trail fast enough.
The question remains - is she happy now?
While my wife and I were driving to the
Rhododendron State Forest here in Southern New Hamphire we were talking
about the concept of middle age and the legendary “Midlife Crisis.” What
actually is it.
It actually starts with the adolescence. When you start to figure the
world out and your view of it changes from “All I want is toys” to “I want
my own place to live, to be with girls and do exciting things” you also
build up some expectations. Those expectations become aspirations as we
get older and become more focused on them through the electives we take
in high school and chose a major in college or trade school.
At some point life does not live up to our expectations as society starts
to nail us with the hammer of conformity. You must submit to what everyone
else is wearing, what people are driving, what house you live in and the
vacations you must take. “The Committee Of They” takes a more active role
in telling you what you can and can’t do if you intend on succeeding. You
accept these limitations and social restrictions because you don’t want
to be left out and left behind. You want to keep up with the Jones’ not
because you like what they have but because you don’t want the Jones’ to
look down upon you.
The conformity takes place in your mid-twenties to late-thirties and
all too willing participants in the homogenization of the human species
because you want what everyone else is having. Nobody wants to be left out.
At some point you start thinking about those things you wanted to do
and never got done. This usually occurs between your twentieth or twenty-fifth
high school reunion which is also with in a year or two around your fortieth
or forty-fifth birthday when you’re already thinking about where your life
is going in some areas and stalled in others.
Then you start to aks; how much usable life do I have left? How much
“youth” is still in my tank for me to either start over or turn this Titanic
of a life away from the Iceberg called “Built-In obsolescence?”
How much usable life do you have left to do the things you always wanted
to do and be successful at something. Society thinks that just because you’re
forty means you can’t do something's and you have to do others, you have
to stop skiing in winter and exchange that for horse shoes and shuffle-board
in the spring and summer.
Society says “you’re too young, you’re too young, you’re too young” and then suddenly switches to “you’re too old, you’re too old, you’re too old” but you never got the message “The time is right! The time is right! The time is right” unless it’s something “They” want you to buy.
You look at this juncture of your life and you keep asking your own version
of “How much usable ‘youth’ do you have left?” You look at what you believe
what “everyone else” is doing, all the “fun” they are having, all of their
accomplishments, how they are important to the people in their lives and
their work place.
You look at the car you hate. It’s “practical” and gets you to the job
you hate. You stay at this job you hate because it’s close enough to the
house you hate. You live in this house that you hate because it’s close
to the job you hate. You look at the spouse that you're trying not to hate because
she’s not the young little hot thing that made you feel important, sexy
and needed; now you’re just comfortable with a shared history.
How much usable “youth” do you have left? You know, just in case you
want to start over. Men reach an age when all these questions arise and
in finding the answers their behavior leads to what is commonly described
as “mid-life crisis.”
After this diatribe, my wife asked me if I’m describing myself. I said
yes, only to an extent. What I described is what a lot of my friends are
going through along with me. Everyone I know in my “peer-group” is going
through something similar to this.
Why include this rant in my travel page for our “Super Bowl Sunday” hike
through Rhododendron State Forest? Its hikes like these that keep “The Mid-Life
Crisis” at bay. So long as I’m interested and young enough to do this, I’m
not “middle aged” and this life is not “half over.” I have more than enough
“youth” left in my tank to accomplish something.
This also explains my motivation for doing what I do on The Fedora Chronicles.
It’s important work for me to create a space for others to say “I’m still
alive. I was here, and I did something.”
This is the real me in these pictures. This is who
I really am when I’m not writing a rant or working on a new graphic for
this site. Hiking and being out in the woods as far away from any pavement
is what makes me feel most alive with my clothes still on. It’s me and the
elements with some-what unpredictable weather and conditions. To create
a space on the internet that actually encourages others to actually leave
their computers in their comfort-zones then do something so that they actually
have something to share with others is perhaps the best thing I’ve ever
done.
“Summer Highway - No Winter Maintenance - Pass At Own
Risk”
There are two reasons why I had to have this picture
taken. Somewhere out in Colorado there's a similar sign that says "No Winter
Maintenance" - except that "Maintenance" is misspelled. My dad,
brother Pete and I each have pictures of ourselves taken in front of this
sign. I can't find the picture of me in front of that sign...
While I’ve walked this road dozens of times over the
past few years I’ve never considered it to be “dangerous,” nor did I actually
even acknowledge this sign during the warmer months; there something a bit
edgy about being here now in the winter.
Not scary, not worrisome, not fearful; just edgy. Since they stop plowing
the whole road and leave just the first 20 or 30 feet of it open at the
intersection for parking, it would be impossible to get any help if we needed
it. Being miles away from the nearest road is a normal event for us, more
so during my youth when I was living off the grid during my transient years.
This reminder that we were going deep into the woods made the hike more
exciting.
Earlier I said that it was a safe bet that we would
have these trails to ourselves because it was Superbowl Sunday? I might
have lied or been mistaken. It was a nice surprise seeing someone else on
Cross-Country Ski’s keeping the trail open for us! We tried to ask this
Vermonter how the trails were and did they go all away around the park?
He didn’t really stick around to tell us, I think he
was in a hurry to get home and watch the game. Oh well…
I thought these two signs were funny in the context
of when we were there…
“Rhododendron Bloom In Mid-July…” Good times… we have
a little less than 6 months to go?
“One Way” – Really? One way to where? Where’s the trail?
I loved these pictures for many different reasons…
You can see how thick the forest and the snow is, and you can see how my fears about our kids not able to keep up with were unfounded. They raced forward and we were either yelling at them to wait up or we were struggling to keep up.
There's a famous poster of a popular movie that a lot of us enjoy. Someone thought that I reminded her of that particular poster and wanted me to share.
Throughout
the years on these forums and websites I’ve talked to a lot of people
about their desire to go on an exotic trip to somewhere else in the
world and really experience what I call “The Raiders Opening
Experience.” We all remember that scene when we first see Dr. Jones,
he’s a mysterious figure obscured by the overgrowth and shadows in the
jungle.
Depending on the time of year you can get that same experience, you just have to be willing to get as far away from the pavement as humanly possible. It’s out there, and sometime you get lucky and find an abandoned house or village. Not this time… but I know they’re out there.
It’s so easy to get lost when you’re out in the woods and that’s part
of the point of going out there. Lose yourself and find out who you
really are.
Just make sure you don’t go TOO far off the trail and bring a compass or GPS device to get yourself back to your car. Also, don't forget A.B.M. - Always bring maps.
These were the last photos I took while we were
heading out the woods. This was a powerful experience for me because it
was in many ways a dream come true for me since my boys didn’t just keep
up; they took the lead. It as a phenomenon seeing my boys running ahead
with their snow shoes and staying on the trail and they stopped when we
asked them to.
Coppertop kept stopping and looking at the leaves
and asking questions about how the trees could keep hibernating like
this. What’s the science behind this? We would have to check it out over
the internet when we get home.
The First Light Of Day
I have such affection for extreme times of the day.
The best example I can think of is the first light of day during a snow
storm. The way the light comes through the clouds and defuses into a
beautiful shade of blue. Most of the region is still asleep and there is
hardly a sound besides the gentle hiss of the snow hitting the ground
and the occasional bird chirp or other random movement.
There are many mornings that I feel the full
potential of life. What promises does the day hold and what can I
possibly accomplish today. With the world this quiet and still and all
the time ahead of me I can’t imagine not being able to get something
done. This special morning light is the source of great creative energy
and all one has to do is just be open and receive it all. Just open up
your mind and heart and charge.
There
is also some remaining holiday magic left in the air as symbolized with
our holiday lights that are left up around our porch. There’s no more
expecations for finding the perfect gift for Christmas or throwing the
perfect party for New Years. By now the real work of the year has begun
and we’re well on our way to make something special of the next 12
months.