I finally got the whole story from the horse’s mouth — a bear tale that comes at an opportune time, bear season less than two weeks away.

I would probably still be in the dark had not a green military helicopter disturbed my peaceful Upper Meadows neighborhood last week. Word has it that a State Police task force uprooted 400 mature marijuana plants before they were done scouring the swamp and hillside behind my neighbor’s home. I can’t confirm their take; only witnessed a couple of plants being lugged off myself; but my neighbor told me they got 400; could have been four for all I know. Quite a scene it was, a well-coordinated harvest-time sting by an eastern Massachusetts team, five or six of them, all specialists, nondescript, just T-shirts and pants, some Army fatigues, others plain jeans: a gotcha-Greenfield moment.

But back to the bear tale, one my friend and neighbor had tried to share a few weeks ago, following a backyard incident. When I started pecking at my keyboard during our telephone conversation, he hesitated, said he hadn’t seen the bear himself. He was just repeating what he’d been told by the man he hired to clean up extensive damage left by a June storm that passed through and wreaked Meadows havoc. Now I have the whole story, one illustrating the adaptability of wild creatures, however large, that have learned to hide out in thickly settled, food-rich neighborhoods. Such beasts feed when the time is right, lay back when it’s not. This demonstrates that.

The devastating summer storm that flattened large trees in my neighborhood did quite a number on my friend’s yard. Several tall pines were broken in half, some destroying ornamental plantings below, one crunching the ridge of his garage roof, another damaging his parked Chevy Blazer. What a mess! But that’s ancient history now; time for a more recent event, one that occurred last Thursday morning.

While sitting and talking to my next-door neighbor in his screened porch, you would have thought there was a manhunt under way; terrorists maybe. A low-flying helicopter was circling my immediate neighborhood, making tight loops apparently concentrated on my friend’s property three doors down. Finally, when the focus became obvious, I called my neighbor on a cell phone to see what was going on. Was he under attack? Suspicion? Did he need help? He just chuckled, said he was fine; I ought to come over a take a look; quite an operation.

I hung up the phone and took a short walk, helicopter circling above, finding my friend way out back. He was talking to a female neighbor and a few men I didn’t recognize, two of whom were there to remove trees and debris left behind by the June storm. I learned the identity of the third man when he turned to walk toward the swamp and woods line, where the helicopter was hovering, men scurrying about on a mission. The stacked writing across the back of his Navy blue T-shirt said it all: Massachusetts State Police. (Ooops, wish I hadn’t made some wisecrack about our tax dollars being put to good use. Oh, well, I guess I’m famous for gaffes like that, though rarer in recent years.).

Anyway, within seconds of the cop’s departure, a member of his party exited the cattails 100 or more yards north of us carrying a marijuana plant as tall as him. He was traveling east toward an unseen vehicle. The plant was reportedly one of many pinpointed by an infrared heat-seeking device aimed at the ground by cops from the airborne helicopter.

As we observed the sting and chatted, the leader of the tree crew approached to join the conversation, which quickly changed to bears. My friend wanted the tree man to tell me his tale. We were standing within spitting distance of the lair from which it had fled, and my friend thought it high time for me to hear the story.

Perhaps 20 feet to our right stood the massive, eight-foot-high stump of what had been a triple weeping willow blown down during the storm, leaving behind a mess that had to be professionally cleared. Three massive leaders had fallen onto the yard, the bottom ends laying in a thick clump of brush surrounding the stump, pointing straight as a preacher to the heavens. On the hot early-August afternoon of the bear siting, the laborers had already cleared most of the mess from the lawn, stacking logs for someone who had promised to take them, piling the smaller branches over to the side. That done, the foreman decided to tackle the three thick, heavy logs resting in the tangled stump clump, but first he had to develop a safe strategy.

After assessing the task at hand and deciding on his first step, he squeezed into the small oval jungle — chainsaw in hand, tall stump towering over him — and looked for enough elbow room to start the saw. That’s when he spotted something big, black, motionless and close that didn’t alarm him at first, assuming it was a stump or log or chunk of upturned turf. But when he fired-up the saw, the motionless black object sprang to its feet and bolted across the field to the woods. It was a big, black, burly bear, probably a solitary male that had lain in its lair under the fallen willows through a morning of commotion, close encounters with human beings and chainsaws, and never budged. The animal must have been feeding on the two nearby apple trees full of fragrant, succulent fruit, and it wasn’t about to leave unless absolutely necessary.

Later, the tree man, a hunter who has killed bears, went out to the apple trees along the swamp’s edge for closer inspection. Curious, he discovered another bruins’ den hollowed out beneath the fruit tree that was partially uprooted and laying semi-horizontal. Further investigation revealed plenty of bear sign: scat, claw marks and broken branches on both trees. Favorable feasting for the big bruin.

The opportunistic beast has probably been back to those apples many times over the past three weeks, will likely continue returning until all the fruit is devoured, picking its spots, people or no people.

Whether bi- or quadruped, they find a way.

Dog daze and cabin fever are afflictions on opposite sides of the calendar that infect a man like me. So here I sit suffering from the former, sweating profusely, thirsty, wellspring of hunting and fishing news dried up, little to write about before the first shots of autumn are fired. Nonetheless, I can usually dig something up to quench my thirst, not always connected to the sporting world, and not always appreciated by nuts-and-bolts sportsmen. But, to take a phrase from my late Nova Scotian grandmother — hardy Acadian French to the core: “C’est la vie.”

Yeah, I know I could be chasing down some useless bass-tournament standings, publishing doe-permit numbers everyone already knows, assessing turkey broods and deer herds in the fields around me, maybe even taking shots at the anti-hunting, anti-gun crowd loathed by so many reactionary sportsmen. But I’ll leave that to others who are content serving maybe 15 percent of the newspaper-reading public. How about the other 85 percent? Do they want to read about fishing derbies and the world according to the NRA? Doubtful indeed, especially here in the upper Happy Valley, god bless it. Here, folks seem more interested in re-establishing a Wolfe bounty and rejecting big-box development. But let us not digress … back to the subject at hand.

Last year at this time, you may recall, I was criticizing Tea Party thugs for carrying weapons to presidential appearances, then shared personal recollections from Woodstock ’69 and the Summer of Love. The e-mails came streaming in, a flood of them, about 10 to 1 in favor of eclectic subject matter, preferring writing to straight reporting. That is not to say there weren’t irate comments from the occupants of secluded tree stands high above hilltown oaks and apples. Feedback from the folks viewing the world from that lofty perspective went more like this: “What the —- are you doing glorifying hippies and criticizing gun owners in a hunting and fishing column? It’s wrong. Inappropriate.”

Oh well, if they say it, it must be so. Can’t satisfy everyone; learned that many years ago; reminiscent of advice from the journalistic mentor I most respected, one who left the newspaper business in his 40s to teach college and cast Molotov cocktails at cream-of-wheat AP news-writing style. “If all you make in this business is friends, then you’re not doing your job,” he bellowed after someone had “issues” with something I had written. Since then, I have always taken my lumps, dusted off and moved on, undeterred, aware that my unconventional ways are bound to stir ire among ardent conformists, conservatives and tiresome bores. Isn’t “conventional wisdom” often based on nothing resembling wisdom at all; more like ignorance, dreaded rule by the rabble that our founders feared most after watching in horror what unfolded before their very eyes in blood-gushing, 18th-century France. That was justice? Really? Thank heaven we’re all entitled to our opinions here in this cradle of liberty, valley of the happy.

Something else my long-lost mentor impressed upon me during conversation about education, credentials and what he looked for in an aspiring journalist: He said he always quickly weeded out the “high-achieving” students who tunnel-visioned their way to newsrooms. “I valued life experience over formal education,” he said. “Give me the dropout who went to war, suffered, returned home, drifted, found himself and took a job at a newspaper. That man knew what life was about, had lived it, seen things no sheltered straight-A student would ever see. He’d make a good reporter.”

I listened, took heed, will never see it any other way, regardless of how many honor rolls and Dean’s Lists the teacher’s pets of the world can cite among their academic accomplishments; which brings me to tales of the rare Frank L. Boyden-hired Deerfield Academy teachers who fit my mentor’s unconventional mold and still earn lavish praise. These men were adored by students at the elite New England prep school, but their likes will never again be hired there; not for a day, far too risky. Sadly, a new die has been cast, the student forever cheated, unable to meet unique, interesting characters with a wealth of knowledge to share, tidbits gleaned from seedy corridors off the main drag, then perhaps a good taste of literature. Very sad. A missing link. But, again, let us not digress … back to the great outdoors.

Two weeks ago, I was driving home on a still, sultry afternoon, traveling through a tunnel between two towering, fragrant cornfields. The strong, familiar aroma got me thinking that maybe bear season will be too late this year to limit significant cornfield damage. The fresh, sweet smell piercing my nostrils told me from instinct that the cow corn was ripe almost a month early; seemed to me a phenomenon more associated with late August/early September. The annual bear season opens on the Tuesday after Labor Day, too late this year, far too late. I almost addressed the subject when I first noticed it, but instead went off on Walmart, following an impromptu breakfast conversation with a veritable expert. Then, last week, I again considered the early-corn-and-bear-foraging subject before going off on a genealogical ramble through the wilds of Hawley; just couldn’t resist. So now, here I sit, revisiting the corn issue, ears still ripe and pungent. The bears must have gotten a whiff by now, found their way.

So, what to do?

Well, I suppose I could have called the state Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs to get clearance and then speak to a MassWildlife expert, get his or her opinion about the impact early-corn maturation will have on bear season and crop damage. But why? What is there to gain? Do these people answering the phone in their air-conditioned Westborough offices know more than me, a man who has observed and written with attribution about this annual phenomenon for three solid decades here? Do I really need some canned response couched in uncertainty to protect a reputation? I think not. So I’ll just throw it out there and await the response from my agrarian neighbors, who will surely confirm my suspicion that bears are visiting cornfields early. Why? Quite simple: Bears gravitate to cornfields when ripe, and they ripened early this year. Duh! And to think I didn’t even need a gilt-framed master’s or doctorate to figure that out. Common sense was sufficient.

So, off I go, having once again dredged up something to fill this weekly space when the well was dry. I hope I haven’t offended anyone, especially my unnamed mentor who’s now old, seemed old when I met him. He warned us nearly 40 years ago — way before the Internet and iPhones and blogs and 24/7 cable news stations — that the future was bleak for newspapers. He thought editors and publishers should take a serious look at “New Journalism” — Rolling-Stone style, literary reportage he believed readers preferred — and toss aside their old, tired news style. That was in the early 1970s. The man was a visionary. He rejected the formulaic “Old News” model then. Readers are now following his lead.

Like the black bears foraging local cornfields these days, modern readers hunt for news that’s fresh and fragrant, with a dash of personality. It makes sense. Only the senile are drawn to swill-bucket stench when the sweetness of fruits, nuts, berries and maize fill the balmy air.

I was entertained by a Saturday-morning conversation over coffee with a guest as we sat in the breakfast nook at the south end of my kitchen, sunlight illuminating the oval, walnut tabletop through parted, blue, Whig-Rose curtains on the double-hung window.

Although the distinguished gent, nearly 70 and “semi-retired,” had stayed with us before, I had never asked what he did or had done for a living. All I knew was that he wore an air of success and sophistication. I finally discovered why: He had been an executive at the ground level of a big New England retail chain, then a developer of many Southwestern shopping centers, two of which he still owns and leases because now is not the time to sell. When I asked him what types of chain stores he targeted as centerpieces of his developments, he identified one as Home Depot, which begged for the quick question. Had he ever built a Wal-Mart plaza? No. He didn’t agree with Wal-Mart’s business model and preferred not to harm existing downtown retail space. I found his response interesting. This from a developer, of all people, someone I would expect to embrace any big-box store willing to pony up. He had no trouble explaining his guiding principles.

“It’s no secret that Wal-Marts are bad for local economies,” he said matter-of-factly, “so I chose not to contribute. Plus, they’re very demanding on developers, don’t want to pay for anything. Communities don’t know what they’re getting into when they accept them. They soon find out they have to expand streets, add traffic lights, you name it, many expensive ‘hidden costs.’

“If you don’t believe me, take a cross-country ride on the Interstates and you’ll see it over and over again. I call it my three-exit theory. You pull off at the first exit and enter a town of cheap antique malls and tacky bar/restaurants. Wal-Mart’s right off the second exit and the parking lot is full, bustling with shoppers. The third exit is a ghost town. That’s what I call the Wal-Mart effect.”

The man’s daughter overheard our discussion from the adjacent dining room and joined in. An Air Force wife now living in the Caribbean, she’s been around and was quite familiar with the picture her father was painting. “It’s not hard to find,” she said. “You’ll find those three exits all over the country.”

A graduate of Northfield Mount Hermon School and wife of a Deerfield Academy grad, she knew downtown Greenfield of the late ’80s and thought it had perked up in the 20 years she had been away. She remarked favorably on the ongoing downtown facelift, even praised the increased number cars parked along Main Street (must have caught it on a good day). “Looks like they’re making progress,” she opined. “I noticed it right away. The improvements probably wouldn’t be happening if Wal-Mart had come to town.”

Which brought us to another subject. Her father was interested in Greenfield’s infamous Wal-Mart battle, one he was not familiar with before I mentioned it. “They were able to keep it out?” he asked. “Interesting. Tell me about it. How’d they accomplish that?” When I told him how Al Norman had gained local folk-hero status, then national spawlbuster fame for leading Greenfield’s anti-Wal-Mart charge around 1990, he said the community should be thankful. Norman had done a good deed. Maybe they ought to erect a statue. I just chuckled and told him there was a day when Norman was held in high regard locally, still is by many. But these days the man known as “Spawlbuster” is largely vilified following two decades of class warfare between those who say they need Wal-Mart and the antis they call elitist because they can afford to shop elsewhere.

The divisive line of attack didn’t surprise my genteel guest. He said the argument is old and threadbare, right out of the tattered Wal-Mart playbook. The game plan is simple: draw the battle lines, pit the haves against the have-nots and let democracy work its magic. It all comes down to a numbers game, and there are always more have-nots. They just have to be whipped into a frenzy, given slogans and encouraged to start the name-calling — a game plan that works to a T in hand-to-hand rhetorical combat.

What’s important to remember is that these observations were coming from a successful businessman, a definite “have” who cut his teeth in big-box retail, then branched off into big-box development. He even touched briefly on the genesis of the regional retail giant he helped to start; said the plan was to buy overruns, sell them cheap and promote what became a prosperous chain store as “local.” But the subject he addressed next was even more fascinating. He wanted to know about Greenfield’s growth potential. Having lived for many years in New England, where he still summers, he was familiar with the region and guessed that Greenfield’s population is stable. Was that right? Yes. In fact, Greenfield’s numbers have probably dropped a bit since the ’60s and ’70s, when industry was booming, good jobs plentiful. Well, he said, in that case Wal-Mart would be double trouble. Growing communities can support big-box development; stable populations cannot.

“It’s pretty simple if you do the math,” he explained. “Say the existing downtown retail space is 220,000 square feet, the size Wal-Mart always shoots for. If Wal-Mart comes in and builds a 220,000-square-foot store on the outskirts of town, the market cannot support both districts. The impact on downtowns is devastating; they die because Wal-Marts undersell them. Wal-Mart’s goal is to seize the market, and they’re very good at it; even bring in dentists and barbers and hair dressers, which doesn’t help towns much, either.”

The man said you can’t compare a town like Greenfield to his native city of Tuscon, Ariz., which had a population of 300,000 when he was a boy. The population today is more than a million and growing, already more than three times what it was 50 years ago, and thus able to support a big-box-retail boom. Greenfield has no potential to double or triple in size.

Conversations like the one we’ve discussed here make life interesting for innkeepers, who greet many interesting folks with wisdom to share. This particular discussion came out of the clear blue sky on a beautiful morning, and touched on a hot local issue. It developed quite by coincidence and I thought it worthy of sharing — just one more expert opinion to consider when shaping your own for the Greenfield big-box debate. And, again, remember that it came from an unlikely source, one with no ax to grind and years of experience, not to mention inside observation, on which to base his opinions.

I guess the point is that it never hurts to listen, something the pro-growth Penrick crowd apparently hasn’t learned. They’d rather shout down voices of reason and fight economic-impact studies. It reminds me of helpful advice a friend’s father never hesitated to impart. After witnessing a conversation he viewed as one-sided, he’d find the right time to inform his son that people who do all the talking learn nothing. Today that boy’s a man who knows when to talk and when to listen.

The Friday of Memorial Day Weekend turned into an eventful day around my Upper Meadows home in Greenfield. First, while taking a leisurely morning walk with my wife through the sunken meadow down the road, I lost the Tri-Tronics remote-control for my dog collars. Then, upon returning home after a quick, once-around search mission, I was confronted with a nest of five helpless baby Eastern phoebes on my backyard cook-shed floor. Two problems to disrupt a holiday and keep my wheels spinning.

My remote sends signals to two battery-operated collars I often use for training purposes and to keep my dogs out of harm’s way. When bird hunting, I keep the contraption in a special pocket at the bottom of my Filson nest, lanyard secured around my belt just in case it gets tangled and pulled free. Although that’s never occurred, it doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Tri-Tronics doesn’t give away its collars. On my daily rounds I usually slip the remote’s lanyard around my neck, convenient for leisurely walks but potentially in the way when hunting. For some reason on this day, wearing multi-pocketed Orvis shorts, I dropped the unit into an open pocket on my left quadriceps, lanyard dangling out. I wasn’t concerned. Figured I’d be walking the tangle-free perimeter of an open field in sandals, nothing challenging.

About halfway along our walk, skirting a riverside strip of woods shading us from the morning sun, dogs romping through dense, high orchard grass between rows of Christmas trees, we rounded a gentle bend toward a camper on the riverbank when a red-tailed hawk flew off the ground 80 yards in front of us. Lily saw the big bird and ran toward it, sticking her face into the spot from which it had flushed and returning with a freshly killed cottontail rabbit, still warm and limp, Buddy playfully trying to grab it, Lily objecting. I called Lily. She came and handed me the rabbit, which I carried by the hind legs and temporarily placed in the crotch of an apple tree to keep it away from the dogs. I distracted them by tossing a stick into the Green River. They chased it, took a swim, shook off and started running the field, giving me a chance to put the rabbit back where it came from before continuing along our circuitous route back to the truck. The dogs were off on other adventures, ignoring the rabbit. I was afraid they’d take a wide sweep toward the river and rediscover the bunny, but it didn’t happen, so the final leg of our loop went without incident.

When we got back to the truck, I wasn’t happy to discover my remote missing. I was puzzled. Had I pulled it from my pocket to bring Lily back with the rabbit? Maybe. Couldn’t recall. If so, I must have left it on the picnic table under the apple tree. So off we went, all four of us, to retrace our steps and find the missing remote, which, as it turned out, was nowhere to be found. Hmmmmmm? Should have turned up somewhere with four eyes searching. I thought about taking another trip around the field but figured I’d first return home to rule out the possibility of it dropping in my backyard, or maybe I had left it in the carriage-shed or on the kitchen counter. Predictably, it didn’t turn up on the home front. Then, it really started bugging me. Could Buddy have picked it up, run off with it and dropped it somewhere in the field, maybe between a row of Christmas trees? Possible, but I didn’t think so. Perplexed, my wheels were spinning to the scream of a dentist’s drill, shrill and annoying.

Later that day, still pondering, I took another walk through the meadow with the dogs, again retracing my steps, this time focusing special attention on the area near the apple tree and the spot where I had dropped the rabbit. No trace of the remote. The more I searched, the more it bugged me. What could have happened to it? By then, I was convinced the dog must have picked it up, run off and dropped it, complicating my hunt, making it near hopeless, real needle-in-a-haystack stuff. But where else could it be?

The recurring questions kept me awake that night and woke me early the next morning, pulling me from bed before 7. I went outside into the refreshing morning air, loaded the dogs in the truck and headed back to the sunken meadow, planning on a thorough search up and down the rows of Christmas trees if necessary, secretly fanaticizing that maybe Buddy or Lily would locate the damn thing and pick it up along the way. As it turned out, that wasn’t necessary because, as I walked around the high galvanized gate into the field, something caught my eye in a place I had twice searched the previous day. It must have been the soft morning sunlight that illuminated it, but there it was, my black remote with two buttons, green and red, facing me. It was resting atop vines more than a foot off the ground, black lanyard stretched out straight. I reached down, picked it up, slipped it around my neck and, relieved, walked the dogs joy
fully along my normal route, no intensive search required. A great start to the new day. Took the pressure off on a holiday weekend.

But that remote was just one of my issues. The other was the baby birds. Yes, back to those pathetic phoebes on the cook-shed floor. They hadn’t been there when I left for the fateful walk that had consumed me for a day, but there they were when we returned, a nest and five fledglings, three larger and more mobile than the others, all unable to fly. Buddy drew my attention to the nest by picking up his head alertly, freezing momentarily and following his nose to the base of the chimney ascending from the shed’s cement floor. I could see something there. Buddy picked it up and ran a short distance into the yard with it. He gave it a couple of playful shakes and tossed it into the air, a bird’s nest. It landed and he ran back into the small building. I quickly called him off and secured him and Lily in the kennel before investigating. That’s when I found the five baby birds huddled in what was left of their flimsy nest on the shed floor.
I was aware of the nest nestled into the crotch of a joist and crossbeam below the peak of the shed roof, but couldn’t understand what had brought it down. Perhaps the windstorm two days earlier had loosened it, then nesting activity had dropped it. Knowing I couldn’t reconstruct it, I decided to leave it where it lay to see if the parents would move their young to safety. But by 3 that afternoon, the pathetic little birds were still exposed on the cold floor, waiting for a cat or my dogs to grab them, parents chipping nervously from the nearby bass tree. I knew it was time to put on my thinking cap. Maybe I could find a small board and fasten it like a shelf to the spot from which the nest had fallen. That might work. So off to the barn I went, searching for the right board. In the process of searching through the stable, I discovered a handled, rectangular, wooden fruit basket and knew I had a found a solution. I’d put what was left of the nest and the baby birds in the basket, screw it through the handle to the 45-degree joist-and-crossbeam angle and see what happened. Hopefully, the parents would feed their young in the basket. I was confident they would. Then, once they could fly, I’d remove the basket and let them go their own way.

The plan worked to perfection. On Monday morning I went to the dogs and let them out of the kennel. Buddy ran directly into the cook-shed and out flew an immature phoebe, not a great flier but good enough to get away and land in a tree 50 or 60 feet away. The next afternoon while feeding the dogs, I inspected the nest from the aluminum ladder I had left in place. All that remained was the nest and one dead baby phoebe that must have been injured by the fall. It’s surviving nest-mates were gone. Likely they’ll return next year to build nests nearby or in the same building, a popular site for phoebes.

The new nest will probably stay in place better than that old one. If it ever again comes down, I’ll be prepared. The basket is resting on a box next to a stack of fruit crates just inside the barn door facing the cook-shed. Figured I better keep it handy. So now things on the home front are back to normal: remote recovered, birds rescued. Missions accomplished.

That “Drill, baby, drill” chant popularized by frothing, taunting, right-wing crowds during the McCain presidential run has been conspicuously silent in recent weeks, huh? Yep, the silence is deafening. Where have the proponents of offshore oil-drilling gone now that the Gulf of Mexico is swamped in environmental disaster, millions of gallons of crude oil fouling the ecosystem, potentially headed our way via the Gulf Stream … heaven forbid?

So tell me, did anyone ever believe offshore drilling was safe and clean, that people who thought otherwise were hysterical loons? That’s what Sarah Palin and her Republican legions would have liked us to believe. But when you consider that heavy hitters like Florida’s own Jeb Bush, certainly no liberal, wants nothing to do with offshore drilling along his coast, it ought to tell you something loud and clear: Yes, there is potential for disaster. We’re living it now, have lived it before, will live it again. Trust me.

So, tell me, who in their right mind would trust multi-billion-dollar oil corporations to police themselves, make certain all the safeguards and oversight are in place and working to avert disaster? Who? And who would trust anything Halliburton had a hand in? Not me. Doesn’t it all come down to profit, not conservation, in the perspective of CEOs and investors? Don’t corporations make more money when the fisher cat’s guarding the hen house? Of course. So who would trust the oil industry, buoyed now and then by shifting political winds? It’s a never-ending gotcha game. One administration takes over and enforces or enacts watchdog regulations, then another comes in and turns its back, lets things slide and — BAM! — another dreadful “accident” that likely could have been avoided with due diligence, inspection and conscientious oversight, all of which tend to cut into profit margins.

When I think of manmade disasters like the one ravaging the Gulf today, my focus unfortunately turns to a similar catastrophe potentially waiting to happen next door, at Vermont Yankee, along the border in neighboring Vernon, Vt., just a calm northern breeze away. Could a meltdown occur at that geriatric plant? Has enough radioactive pollution already been released into the water, the air and soil to compromise our health? Don’t dismiss such questions as insane. There is much we do not know, are not being told, will never be told. Then those who shout it in the public square are called crazy. You can’t believe a word the public-relations men and lobbyists say. Those who take their rhetoric as gospel are misguided fools. Energy corporations cannot be trusted. They’re capitalists, not conservationists, no matter what they tell you.

And, yes, hate to say it (not really) but that includes snake-oil salesman Matthew Wolfe, our friendly biomass man — you know, the one who supposedly has Franklin County’s best interests in mind. It’s a joke, not just toxic smoke, something else he has no short supply of.

Sorry, fellas, not in my backyard. Why don’t you send it to Texas or Oklahoma, Alabama or Mississippi or South Carolina, places that deserve it.

I enjoyed an idyllic, restful weekend, reading studiously under bright sunny skies in the comforts of home, pleasing natural stimuli, sights and sounds, everywhere. Does it get any better?

My wife was out of town visiting grandsons Jordan and Arie, providing me with plenty of time to read a fascinating book about birds and their anthropomorphic ways. I purchased it noontime Friday at World Eye, was delighted to find a copy of the new release in stock, and delved right in upon returning home, not even waiting for my wife’s departure to the People’s Republic of Vermont, that great little state with independent Yankee DNA flowing back to Ethan Allen and friends. The book immediately seized me. I couldn’t put it down; was so committed, in fact, that I awoke at first light Saturday and Sunday mornings, dressing warmly, hat and all, windows wide open, before laying back on a leather couch to read under artificial light, serenaded throughout by sweet, incessant cardinal melodies, front and back, stereophonic, uplifting and, yes, even invigorating. What a way to start the day.

During intermittent breaks, I spotted a bright red male bird perched in the burning bush and sugar maple out front, later in the forsythia and large fir tree out back, so I knew some of the joyous tunes were his. Or were there two or three or more? I suspect a nesting female or two were also singing their happiest spring tunes, but I never saw one. Still, the songs were better than anything that could have been delivered by my clear Pres Speakers, innovative surround-sound units created totally by the hands and mind of old friend Mark Pieraccini, a man who loves baseball like no other. Well, I used to love it, too, maybe as much as he, perhaps even more. But now, consumed by other stuff, baseball’s behind me. I view it as kids’ stuff, great while it lasted, maybe even better than great; for had I been a songbird back then, I would have whistled rapturous tunes. No doubt about it.

Isn’t it strange how this new book, one I would recommend to anyone and am here discussing – “The Nesting Season: Cuckoos, Cuckolds, and the Invention of Monogamy,” by Vermont naturalist Bernd Heinrich – came to my attention? It all started with e-mail correspondence between me and a faraway, foreign cyber pal, during philosophical discussion about Christianity, the three forms of Greek love (eros, agape and philia), and monogamy. At one point in this enticing correspondence freshet, I questioned the popular myth we’ve all heard about birds mating for life, said it made no sense that nature would construct so rigid a rule when the goal of mating and courtship is to maintain and strengthen species. I wrote that I had been told for years not to hunt wood ducks because they mated for life, would never find another once their “first love” was gone. I told my faraway friend I had never believed it, viewed it as pure nonsense, even from my own mother’s mouth, because it violated the basic tenets of nature - my personal god, the only one that can drop me to my knees. I viewed the doubtful bird-monogamy concept as propaganda that fit snugly and conveniently into the same Christian Doctrine I rejected as a gullible peach-fuzzed lad. They tried to snare me back then and failed. I believe I’m a better man for it. Certainly not a true believer. Far from it.

But let us not digress. After stating my case in writing, off the cuff, about ornithological matters I knew little about, I was feeling a little insecure, like maybe I was talking through my, well, you know what. After all, there I was, basically an autodidact, certainly no academic, communicating with a world-renown doctor of science who probably knew more about the lifetime-mating theory than I. Maybe some birds do mate for life, I thought. Possibly she knew it to be so, would view me as a fool for suggesting otherwise. So I went to Google and started hunting information with different keywords – combos like “birds” “lifetime mates” or “birds” “monogamy.” Sure enough, up popped Heinrich’s latest book, fresh off the Harvard Press. I had to read it, and did.

My weekend reading chores began each morning in the west parlor before the sun peeked over the eastern tree line. Then, before 9, I’d move to a comfy backyard table in the alcove formed between barn and woodshed. There, catching hot rays through a clear blue sky, I was serenaded by some of the birds I was reading about, mostly cardinals. It was surreal, distant  rattle of the stream, maybe 100 feet away, adding soft percussion, like brushes petting a snare drum. At times, the cardinals’ song would distract me, pull me away from Heinrich’s prose. My eyes would stay focused, not my mind, which would go briefly elsewhere, thinking about the cardinals and what all the singing meant, maybe wandering further off to more complex matters. But I always found my way back to the book and regained focus, my goal maximum comprehension, not always easy with your mind awhirl.

Fact is, despite reading a detailed account of bird-nesting behavior, I never really understood why those cardinals were so happy and vocal. It had to have something to do with nesting and mating, I thought, but why exactly they were so vociferous was above my pay grade. Then, Monday afternoon, the singing abruptly stopped after my daily feeding trip to the kennel and pooch Lily. I had heard their blissful songs throughout the day while reading the new Rolling Stone, and had several times through the back windows seen a brilliant male perched brightly on a dead fir limb 10 or 12 feet off the ground. All had been quiet when I walked through strong, blustery winds to the cookshed, where I opened the 30-gallon plastic tub, took a scoopful of Iams and dumped it into a Griswold No. 8 skillet for Lily. After greeting her, tail wagging, at the kennel door and placing the skillet at the back right corner, I returned toward the woodshed and spotted a faraway clump of something that had not been on the ground below the fir tree during the outbound trip. As I approached the tall tree towering over the barn roof, I could see it was a bird’s nest. I picked it up and found underneath the remains of three or four broken blue eggs, right below the perch used many times by the male cardinal. A coincidence? Who knows? Not likely, though, in my mind.

Being no ornithologist, I could not say for sure that the fallen nest belonged to cardinals. Northern cardinal eggs I Googled were cream colored with brown speckles, not solid blue, and cardinal nests were not constructed like the one I found. But I knew the singing had stopped after the nest fell. So my guess at the time was that it was those cardinals’ nest, and that the singing would resume when another was built, a new clutch laid. Call it deductive reasoning, which, at the time, was all I had. Kind of like my uninformed opinion that birds do not mate for life. That suspicion was confirmed by Heinrich, a veritable expert. He says birds are monogamous by necessity, not choice; and that even after they’ve secured a partner for mating season, cuckoldry is not uncommon. Imagine that! I shudder at the thought, then break into a wry grin. For the umpteenth time, an interesting discovery has tickled my armpit. What discovery? Well, the knowledge that sometimes you don’t need a gilt-framed diploma to figure things out. Common sense often suffices, is more than enough. That fallen nest may have been a robin’s, or maybe even a robin’s nest under consideration or already populated by cardinals. Possible, I guess, but would need more research for a definitive answer. What I know for sure, though, is that the cardinal singing went silent after that nest tumbled to the turf. Then all was quiet for more than 24 hours, not a peep anywhere within earshot. Everything changed following Tuesday’s damaging, late-afternoon rainstorm when, sometime after 5, the singing resumed like it had never stopped. By Wednesday morning, sweet cardinal tunes could be heard all around me; from my yard, front and back, my neighbors’ yards, across the brook – a cheerful symphony in dynamic stereo. I looked out and caught two frisky scarlet males involved in a chase from tree to tree, bush to bush, through the front yard, one right on the other’s tail, both low to the ground, the one in back scolding the pursued with a staccato chipping sound. Maybe the chaser had been cuckolded, heaven forbid. Nature’s way, it seems.

I again pondered why the singing had resumed and what had stopped it for more than a day? It must have had something to do with that fallen nest, or perhaps another, unseen, that had tumbled down in the same tree-swaying wind.

Then again, when you think of it, does it really matter? Isn’t it sometimes better not to know? Nature’s mysteries are entertaining, intriguing and capable of wildly spinning your wheels to a shrill scream. Usually, that’s  good enough for me.

It’s that time of year when, sadly, I must report, not write, despite what’s going on around me. Given a choice, I always prefer writing to reporting. There’s a big difference. One not everyone understands.

The time is right for writing. Perfect, in fact. The early spring has produced a rare overlap of beautiful colors from the magnolia, forsythia, Japanese maples, apple, quince, bleeding hearts and Quanson cherries simultaneously adorning my yard in their full splendor. The rhubarb and asparagus are ready for their first cuts, and even the lilacs beneath the magnolia are sporting tiny purple blossoms while many full magnolia flowers still ride the cold, blustery wind on their flimsy shoots; very unusual, first time in 13 years on my property that the lilacs have shown color before the magnolia tree turned green, its scattered pink tulip petals rotting on the turf below. So here I sit, space-heater purring behind me, spot-heating, refusing to start the wood stove or tip up the thermostat for this cold snap that’ll soon turn warm.

Speaking of pink, how about that Full Pink Moon in the sky, the one I promised weeks ago was due for opening week of turkey season; weather permitting, would likely stimulate aggressive daybreak gobbling from boss toms? When I left work Tuesday night, I could feel that bright moon behind dense stormy clouds high in the southern sky, its filtered light illuminating downtown Greenfield, casting a favorable hue over the uplifting facelift bordering the town common. Miraculously, by the time I arrived home, some three miles north and west, and stepped outside to run the dog, the moon shone brightly in a clear, starry hole framed by billowy gray clouds, akin to a large floodlight peeking through a wide, unruly smoke ring, the sphere sneaking through leafing streamside maples and reflecting off a Hinsdale Brook eddy. The sight and sound spun me off into reflection and introspection as they often do. Call it lunar influence, which again infected me, brightening a cold, gray week in a suddenly clear midnight sky; as though the clouds intentionally opened to remind me the moon was there, looking over my shoulder, coddling me till the sky cleared, the air warmed.

Gray, overcast days and full moons might signal trouble for some. Take a friend I know who recently got into a turkey-hunting jam that’s haunting him. This good, honest man now finds his fate in the hands of the government, the law, which doesn’t often display empathy for honest mistakes. Maybe someone will intervene and inject some fairness into the authorities investigating this sorry case. Perhaps they’ll understand that the way the illegality played out clearly identifies it as an error, a twist of fate, not a crime. I hope so. The man deserves a break, nothing less. But the people calling the shots probably won’t care, seldom do in such cases. Sometimes judges and juries or officers of the law must understand the gray, not just black and white. They must be willing to explore the spirit of the law, the reason it was enact ed, not just the fact that a rule has been broken. At least that’s the way I see it, not from the rigid law-and-order, red-white-and-blue perspective; my view more philosophical, not cut and dried as prosecutors and cops often demand these unforgiving days.

Remember, this opinion’s coming from a taxpaying citizen who just Tuesday appeared for jury duty in Orange, was seated and promptly yanked by the prosecutor for the third time this millennium. I guess men who reason like me are not meant to be jurors in 21st century courtrooms, even in a liberal state. And to think I now sit passing judgment at my desk, seated on a long-ago discarded walnut chair from the Hampden County Court. Is it irony or coincidence? You decide.

But, like they say, life goes on. Then you die. I guess when you think of it, we’re all just passing through a place much bigger and more complex than any of us.

Fact is, like most, I wasn’t eager to serve on that jury, anyway. Fancy that. For once a member of the majority, far from silent.

What a difference a day makes. That’s what I was thinking the day after last week’s column about the spring buds and flowers that had greeted me on a morning backyard visit with dog Lily.

What had struck me first the previous day were the burning bush’s tiny pink buds, a new color, subtle, lining the brook’s bank by the cook shed. After studying the tiny buds, I looked around to assess the progress of other trees and bushes, later recording in print what I had observed. Following a day of hot, bright sun and temps nearing 80, everything changed. That same burning bush was sporting green, not pink, the forsythia was in full yellow bloom and the maples wore that pretty pastel green of spring, having overnight gone from buds to tiny mayfly wings. But that is not what I want to discuss today. No, I want to focus on the saucer magnolia and coincidence. Yes, coincidence, something I have wrestled with often following surreal discoveries related to me and this valley called home. My conclusion is that very few weird discoveries I encounter are coincidence, but rather something far more spiritual — this from a man who’d break out in hives on a trip through the chapel door.

I wrote last week that I intended to fulfill a promise by sending a faraway female cyber pal photos of the large magnolia along the east side of my home. I wanted to reciprocate for pictures she had sent me of a Hawaiian magnolia flower weeks earlier. Later in the day, I evaluated the tree and decided to wait. More blossoms would be open the next day. So, wait I did, shooting several shots back-lit by the late-morning sun before e-mailing them to my German friend. A typical heartfelt response the next day brought me once again into the realm of coincidence vs. something deeper and more powerful; maybe a simple twist of fate, more likely a spiritual puppeteer playfully working his strings:

Dear Gary,
How nice of you to think of me and send these gorgeous sights! I had a bit of a difficult day yesterday — it was the 9th anniversary of Jon’s passing. Seeing the beautiful magnolia blossoms and learning that spring has arrived in your place really cheered me up. I do hope to meet you in person some day, dear cyber pal. Have a great weekend and enjoy the beauty of spring.
With much aloha,
Hannelore

She was referring to a boyhood pal of mine who moved far from his Franklin County home before departing this world too young, at 47, a cancer victim in Hawaii. It was there she met him and suffered through his illness, patiently nursing him along until his mom and late sister arrived for his final weeks; never easy for anyone. Hannelore has not forgotten her late friend. At least once a year she sends me a check for graveside flowers to adorn his peaceful resting place, protected under the canopy of massive hardwoods, even stately shagbark hickory, one of my favorites.

So, tell me: Was it coincidence that on an April 8 whim — sitting at my desk on a sun-splashed morn, magnolia beckoning though the window to my left, forsythias screaming from across the street — I stood to get my camera, take some shots and send them to my cyber pal? Or was I magically lifted from my seat by a force I cannot explain to brighten a sad day being suffered by a lady friend I have never met?

I cannot accept that quick trip across the south face of my old tavern as coincidence. Far more profound. Spooky, in fact.

Is it real? Or have I gone mad?

I guess it depends on the evaluator.

I was out back early Wednesday morning with four-legged friend Lily by the brook, running clear and strong, its soothing rattle penetrating dense air as the dog made her rounds, splashing enthusiastically across a shin-high rapid to wet her coat before taking a little romp on the opposite bank. She broke into the perimeter of a small hayfield, nose high into a crosswind, searching for squirrels, rabbits, maybe turkeys, anything to flush or chase up a tree. The cool, damp air was pleasant, the sun hidden beneath foggy skies that would soon burn off and bring the predicted 85-degree April day, potentially a record, perfect for the nighttime Yankees-Red Sox rubber game.

The neighborhood dogwoods and star magnolias had worn brilliant white for days, and my own forsythias had been in bloom, not peak, since the weekend, nicely complementing the yellow daffodils. Now the lilac buds had popped into tiny little green wings that seemed to visibly grow as I stood looking at them in the dull, most air that had deposited a delicate, web-like dew across the greening lawn, clearly identifying my path, showing every step I had taken from the woodshed stoop to the kennel door, then across the mouth of the cook-shed to the lip overlooking water’s edge. I noticed, standing there, that the tiny pink buds on the streamside burning bush were more noticeable than the previous day and would likely be more prominent, even from afar, after a day of bright, hot sun, the same conditions that promised to bring out the saucer magnolia blossoms on the gabled east side of the house. They had been threatening to pop for days, just needed intense sun and heat to stimulate the process. I reminded myself to later in the day snap a digital photo of that tree, one of the oldest, most beautiful magnolias in the county, tightly clenched, pink buds waiting for days to burst and reach their showy tulip petals skyward. I had promised to e-mail cyber pen pal Hannelore Hoch a photo when it bloomed. A German professor/author/curator and friend of a friend who died too young near her vacation home in Hawaii, Hannelore loves flowers and had sent me a tight shot of a Hawaiian saucer magnolia flower six or eight weeks ago, her harbinger of spring. It was then that I promised to e-mail her a shot of my own magnolia when in blossomed. I knew the time had come, waning moon settling this two-legged lunar creature temporarily into a peaceful orbit. The new moon will appear in a week, leading to a full moon at the end of the month, brightening the prospects for opening week of turkey season. The night skies will then likely be crisp and clear and cold, perfect to entice throaty gobbles from predawn hardwood roosts. Something promising for hunters to eagerly anticipate.

The sound and sight of the free-flowing stream and the thick morning air reminded me of spring fishing, and the fact that stocking reports would likely be waiting in my e-mail inbox before 9. As I watched the stream’s current, it brought me back to my younger days, when this time of year I often pushed myself to the water’s edge at the crack of dawn, before the birds sang, to take advantage of ideal water conditions and voracious feeding by shaded mountain trout. Back then, I’d catch my limit before most people were awake, clean the fish streamside, return home to package them in Ziploc bags and deliver them to my paternal grandmother, always an early riser. She’d keep what she could eat and give the rest to friends who thoroughly enjoyed them. When I kept trout for myself, they’d always be squaretails, large or small, baked or pan-fried, their moist orange meat one of New England’s natural delicacies, right up there with fiddleheads and strawberries. I learned many waters that held the beautiful, native, speckled trout and likely still do, although I have heard disheartening tales to the contrary from brook-trout aficionados. I don’t want to believe them, would rather remember how it used to be, sneaking into the back side of reservoirs or private ponds we all knew well as boys and fished regularly, always early, before household light bulbs burned.

Stocked trout were fun to catch. I can’t deny that — acrobatic, sky-pilot  rainbows bursting from the riffles, furiously wiggling in midair, hooked, irate and trying to shake or break it. But they could never compare to squaretails as table fare, and I well knew the difference. Still do. Give me a native any day, be it fish or foul or animal, two or four-legged.

Yeah, maybe I am a snooty New Englander. Not the least bit ashamed of it, either. Quite proud, in fact.

It’s that cabin-fever time of year when, with little to write about, I’m usually searching for something, anything to fill this space. Such a predicament I found myself mired in this week while preoccupied with other pressing, non-work-related issues. Then, out of the blue, like a gift from the heavens, an envelope appeared in my mailbox from longtime friend and colleague Chip Ainsworth, who’s wintering in Florida and bailed me out with a “New Yorker” article he thought I’d enjoy. He was right. Not only did I enjoy it, it brought me back some 35 years to the Leeds Reservoir. There, from the road high above, we kept seeing a large fish nestled up against the edge of a massive flat stone in shallow water along the shore, then finally figured out what it was.

But first the article, titled “The Patch” and written by John McPhee of “The Headmaster” fame. The narrative is about chain pickerel and how his pursuit of them with rod and reel related to the recent passing of his 89-year-old dad, himself a longtime fisherman who taught the author to fish. The piece describes pickerel, their habits and sporting value, and it hit home for me on many levels. Even got me reminiscing about my youthful land-surveying days with Stevie Stange, an old friend from South Deerfield who, at the time, was the party chief of our two-man crew during the summer of 1974. A large parcel of Middlefield property was changing hands that summer, and we were surveying it. As I recall, the property, mostly woodland, exceeded 500 acres, had been in the same family for two centuries and had not been surveyed since George Washington’s days, always a fun project.

To be honest, I never knew the quaint Hampshire County town of Middlefield existed until arriving there to start our little project. We began by finding the corners and establishing the property lines, then went around with a 16-foot rod and a level to pinpoint the details for the mapmaker, a job that kept us busy until the leaves fell. Middlefield had a classic rural center of town straight out of the early 19th century, or maybe one of those little towns in Wyoming’s Red Desert, population 12 or something ridiculous. Downtown consisted of one large, two-piece, two-story building with a porch in front. The place served as a country store, restaurant, Post Office, tavern, liquor store and gas station all in one, a great place to strike up conversation, prit’near any time of day or night.

We’d depart for the job each morning at 7 from my grandfather’s South Deerfield home, where Stange was renting an upstairs apartment. From there, we’d snake our way through Whately, Haydenville, Leeds and Westhampton, have breakfast at a Huntington greasy-spoon and arrive at the Middlefield work site about 9. Each day we’d pass the Leeds Reservoir twice, often stopping on the ride home at a little side-of-the-road pullover overlooking the water to search for fish or fowl or whatever happened to be there. With the water at is lowest midsummer level, we kept noticing that aforementioned large fish snuggled up to the major flat stone and wondered what it was and if we could catch it. If it was a trout, it was a beauty, all of two feet long.

Well, our curiosity finally got the better of us and, one evening, we decided to give it a whirl, see exactly what it was, fishing rod in the cargo space of Stange’s Toyota Landcruiser, dubbed the “Toyotski.” We didn’t have any bait but did have a tackle boxful of lures, mostly for warm-water fish like bass or Northern pike. We figured we’d give it a shot with a floating, broken-back Rapala, maybe four inches long. Even if it was a trout, at that size it would likely hit a Rapala. The trick was to get the lure within striking range on the first cast from a challenging distance above, no easy feat for a rookie.

I don’t remember who actually made the cast, but it was a good one, touching down less than two feet in front of the fish with a loud, showy splash. We let it sit there for a minute or less to settle things down a bit before giving it a twitch with the rod tip, then another. The fish didn’t budge, just laid there as motionless as the stone next to it. Then, on the third little twitch, the fish wheeled 90 degrees in a flash and — whammo! — struck like lightning, furious energy, getting a toothy mouthful of piercing treble hooks before taking off, Mitchell 300 drag whistling a shrill mountain tune. We ran down the elevated bank to the reservoir’s edge and played the fish to shore. Then one of us (again, I can’t recall which) ran back up the hill to the “Yotski” for needle-nosed pliers needed to remove the hooks. With the hooks removed, we released the fish back into the water. It was a pickerel, a beauty, two feet or more in length, razor-sharp, pointy teeth, nothing to handle with bare hands.

The released fish was sluggish at first but soon swam right back to its stone-side feeding lair and remained there for many days thereafter. Like McPhee said in his story, pickerel will stay in the same spot for days, weeks, years, unless removed. Well, I can attest to that because of that Leeds Reservoir pickerel that captured our fancy that summer. I witnessed it with my own two eyes, occasionally impaired. Those were the good old days.