Most people’s idea of getting away from it all is to vacation on some Caribbean island, go on a cruise, get a tan. But my favorite getaway is upstate New York in the bitter cold of December. In Schoharie County, way up in the Catskill Mountains, sits a log cabin my friend Steve’s grandfather built 30 years ago. It’s situated on a hillside clearing, looking down on an open field, with not a soul in sight. When we were in high school and college, my friends and I would go there for a week, pretend we were pioneers, and rough it without electricity, phones — even television.
Gas powers a few lamps as well as the oven. Warmth comes from a stone fireplace and a potbelly stove. That’s it. If we forget to stoke the fires every few hours through the night, we freeze. There’s a bathroom with a shower and a toilet, but as teenagers, none of us really quite knew how to operate the generator to make any of this work. Hence, when nature called, we went to nature. No one took a shower — the water’s ice cold. This might not sound too appealing, but it gets better.
Because it was just the guys, we ate and drank whatever we wanted. Early on, this meant franks and beans and whatever we found in the kitchen cabinets. We tried sipping on Sambuca, that licorice-laced cordial resembling lighter fluid, and some of us even acted as if we enjoyed it. Steve’s grandfather had a collection of tobacco pipes which we eventually got the hang of. We would spend hours playing cards — mostly hearts, which meant mostly yelling and screaming at each other — and talking about girls and school and college.
Hiking was always an adventure. There’s a beaver dam nearby, and next to it is a frozen pond we would walk on, wishing one of us would fall in. Occasionally, we’d stumble across fresh paw prints and hope they would lead us to a black bear, though none of us would have known what to do if they had. Steve’s advice was grim: If you meet a bear, run up a hill because bears are slower going uphill (aren’t humans too?). If you’re trapped, play dead. The bear might take a swipe at you, but as long as you remain lifeless, it will eventually move on.
Another highlight was sledding down Suicide Hill — a steep mountain slope that all of us would ride down to the bottom on a wooden toboggan. It was suicide because you traveled at high speed and because the only way you could stop was by crashing. There was always a fear that eventually someone would break something. And eventually someone did — a hairline fracture to an upper arm. Not that this stopped us from further sledding.
After the hikes, we would return to the cabin, smoke pipes, play cards or chess, read, and nap. Then we’d make dinner and around midnight go back out for another hike. On a clear night, you could see the Milky Way and hear only the stream, the wind, and the coyotes.
That’s what we loved about the cabin trips. That and the independence from adults. We had to do everything ourselves and make sure no one got hurt. We would get home stinking and looking like hobos. But we always felt relaxed, refreshed, and ready for school. It was better than a spa.
Which is why I so looked forward to my return to the cabin last week, along with four friends, after a six-year hiatus. We’ve changed in six years. None of us is in college anymore. All of us have jobs except Steve who is studying to become a doctor. And much as we try to ignore it, our age is catching up with us: On the third run down Suicide Hill, one of the guys seriously injured his leg and limped the rest of the trip (he’s getting X-rays this week). Another pulled his back while trying to start the generator. Two announced they are getting engaged to their girlfriends this month.
But for those five days, you’d have thought time had stood still. The cabin itself is unchanged, but for a new mounted deer head on the wall (taken by Steve’s grandfather and dedicated to his late brother, whose ashes were scattered nearby). We played round upon round of hearts, smoked the old pipes, and told the same crude jokes. We finished almost two dozen eggs and four giant cans of corned beef hash (which I cooked proudly, using butter to grease the skillet and throwing in a little tabasco sauce) all in two days. Another morning, we finished a box worth of pancakes and a few pounds of smoked sausages, which one of us rolled up into a sort of “pig-in-a-comforter.”
Alas, we could kid ourselves only so long. Inevitably, we had to pack up our things, clean up our mess, and return to our normal lives. Soon we’ll be going to the engagement parties, then the weddings. But we all promised to return someday to the cabin. And we promised not to bring our wives.
VICTORINO MATUS
