So come Wednesday, July 3rd (incedentaly my Bday), but also, more pertinently, my Dday, the day to set up my booth for the big Festival For The Eno, the next day on the Forth, it was raining.
No, it was pouring. And the old man in the sky? Well he was ROARING.
Long has it been since I have witnessed the skies open up with such vehemence.
What gives big G? Who might have pissed in your corn flakes, I wonder, to invoke this breed of wrath?
Now I will not say that I was not actually enjoying this thunderous storm, on some levels, because I sure was. It cooled everything down to an unprecedented cool, that I just have never known in conjuntion with this festival. This made my work at that moment considerably more pleasent.
However, I had to wonder what effect all of this weather was going to have on the festival, and was already having on my good friends already dealing with these issues on the festival grounds....
Now that I had it, was it even worth loading up Diane's van, and driving all the way to Durham
I made a quick call in to see what the out look was.
"Moving right ahead" was the answer, "come on down".
Well OK!....Charging Forth it is!
I made a big fat memo note, and posted it in the front of my frontal lobe, that read something like, "Travis, you are just a small piece of this very large puzzle. And right now, the good people who are putting it together are probably dealing with some pretty hectic adjustments. So go with the flow on this one, Dude, just go with this flow, OK?"
And that was my mantra through out, and I think it served us all well.
So I loaded up the van, and headed out.
As I reached Highway 64, on my way out of town in this crazy downpour, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an unmistakable black heap, laying motionless at the edge of the busy 5 lane highway.
A big hulking snapping turtle, a casualty, slain by the cross town traffic fire.
I drove over to the gas station, parked, hopped out, and watching for cars, drug her out of the road and onto the grass. Her carapace (top shell) was cracked in two places, it looked like she had been squarely, and maybe purposefully run over by a four wheeler, but her limbs were all intact, as sad, and droopy, and lifeless as they were.
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She had most probably been making her way from a wetland behind the hotel, to an old farm pond that lies behind what it now the Burger King. I've found dead snappers out there before in the heat of the summer.
But this find, as disturbing as this may sound to you, was a different special circumstance.
For, due to the icy cold storm water she had been laying in, that had been washing over her, seemed to be a cool, clean, fresh kill.
I questioned myself.
Of all the many many details that I still must attend to, compounded by chaos that this weather will wreak on the very foundations of the festival, do I really have any room at all, on the top of my proverbial pile, to load a hulking snapping turtle? I looked at the van, stuffed to the gils with tire art.
No, I did not.
I looked back at this pitiful creature, of ancient dinosaurian grace, laying slain in the grass.
Did I really have the heart to just leave her there either?
With a deep sigh, I realized that no, I didn't either.
And so, grabbing a spare black garbage bag, I sifted her into it, and hoisted all 15 lbs of her onto the floor of the van.
Here we go!...Off to Durham.
I had to do a few errands on the way into town.
I picked up a few armloads of fated discounted plants at Lowes, with the storm threatening to rip the tin roof off.
And out near Lystra Road, where Janice and I have a few landscaping clients, I came across yet another turtle, this one a yellow bellied slider, or a cooter, and ALIVE.
"Get in the van" I said, nestling this poor gal against the immobile lump in the black plastic garbage bag. Surely, she thought, this is the end.
But I took her in the direction she was heading, finding a big wooded area behind the shopping complex she was attempting to cross.
When I finally got to Durham, it was already getting dark.
I dropped by folks place, and discreetely slipped this hulking mass into the freezer.
I could explain later...
Off I went to the West Point On The Eno, to set up what little I could in the rain.
When I arrived, I found that my beloved booth spot, while itself relatively dry, was now standing as kind of an island in a swamp that had overtaken the lowest reaches of the park, that connect it to the beautiful, river, which was now raging at its banks.
Greg graciously offered to let me stay if I wanted, or to accomodate me if I wanted to find a new spot.
And so I went off searching in the dwindling light, like a lost tribe of Isreal, for my escape from the floods, a new promised land?
I was about ready to stick it out in the swamp down below, when I spied a spot across the mill race, that looked to be unused. While not yet an official space, it was a tent sized room, hidden beneath the canopy of an old tree, quite like my ussual spot.
The difference was, the fingers of the these limbs almost drooped down to touch the ground, creating sort of a fortress around this space.
So my question to Cheif Greg was, a) can I use this space, and b) if so, can I do a little pruning to shape it up. After some discussion, the word came back- a resounding yes, you may, and you can even borrow some pruners! It seemed that Greg, Bless him, was also very much going with the flow, which I can only imagine he has learned as a natural survival skill in many years directing the festival.
And so I wend to work, setting up the skeleton of booth in the dark of a torrential downpour, up to my ankles in muddy mess, wearing nothing but my swim suit! When I finally had that up, I got the pruners, and went to work carving out a space under the tree, as well as for my neighbors to be, NC WARN.
When it was all done, as far as I could tell in the dark, darned if it didn't look like home.
However, I have got to say, that as hard as I WAS working, the folks putting on the Festival were working MUCH MUCH HARDER!
They had been living, breathing, sleeping, probably eating mud for the last week, at least, attending to the thousands of details involved with bringing thousands of people, and electrical equipment, and on and on and on, together in the unpredictable outdoors.
My hat is really really off to these troopers that make this thing happen every year.
No, it was pouring. And the old man in the sky? Well he was ROARING.
Long has it been since I have witnessed the skies open up with such vehemence.
What gives big G? Who might have pissed in your corn flakes, I wonder, to invoke this breed of wrath?
Now I will not say that I was not actually enjoying this thunderous storm, on some levels, because I sure was. It cooled everything down to an unprecedented cool, that I just have never known in conjuntion with this festival. This made my work at that moment considerably more pleasent.
However, I had to wonder what effect all of this weather was going to have on the festival, and was already having on my good friends already dealing with these issues on the festival grounds....
Now that I had it, was it even worth loading up Diane's van, and driving all the way to Durham
I made a quick call in to see what the out look was.
"Moving right ahead" was the answer, "come on down".
Well OK!....Charging Forth it is!
I made a big fat memo note, and posted it in the front of my frontal lobe, that read something like, "Travis, you are just a small piece of this very large puzzle. And right now, the good people who are putting it together are probably dealing with some pretty hectic adjustments. So go with the flow on this one, Dude, just go with this flow, OK?"
And that was my mantra through out, and I think it served us all well.
So I loaded up the van, and headed out.
 |
| I built and bought myself some crates, tubs and boxes, which made for a much more solid base layer of my van packing. This was a satisfying improvement over years past. |
As I reached Highway 64, on my way out of town in this crazy downpour, out of the corner of my eye, I saw an unmistakable black heap, laying motionless at the edge of the busy 5 lane highway.
A big hulking snapping turtle, a casualty, slain by the cross town traffic fire.
I drove over to the gas station, parked, hopped out, and watching for cars, drug her out of the road and onto the grass. Her carapace (top shell) was cracked in two places, it looked like she had been squarely, and maybe purposefully run over by a four wheeler, but her limbs were all intact, as sad, and droopy, and lifeless as they were.
.jpg)
She had most probably been making her way from a wetland behind the hotel, to an old farm pond that lies behind what it now the Burger King. I've found dead snappers out there before in the heat of the summer.
But this find, as disturbing as this may sound to you, was a different special circumstance.
For, due to the icy cold storm water she had been laying in, that had been washing over her, seemed to be a cool, clean, fresh kill.
I questioned myself.
Of all the many many details that I still must attend to, compounded by chaos that this weather will wreak on the very foundations of the festival, do I really have any room at all, on the top of my proverbial pile, to load a hulking snapping turtle? I looked at the van, stuffed to the gils with tire art.
No, I did not.
I looked back at this pitiful creature, of ancient dinosaurian grace, laying slain in the grass.
Did I really have the heart to just leave her there either?
With a deep sigh, I realized that no, I didn't either.
And so, grabbing a spare black garbage bag, I sifted her into it, and hoisted all 15 lbs of her onto the floor of the van.
Here we go!...Off to Durham.
I had to do a few errands on the way into town.
I picked up a few armloads of fated discounted plants at Lowes, with the storm threatening to rip the tin roof off.
And out near Lystra Road, where Janice and I have a few landscaping clients, I came across yet another turtle, this one a yellow bellied slider, or a cooter, and ALIVE.
"Get in the van" I said, nestling this poor gal against the immobile lump in the black plastic garbage bag. Surely, she thought, this is the end.
But I took her in the direction she was heading, finding a big wooded area behind the shopping complex she was attempting to cross.
When I finally got to Durham, it was already getting dark.
I dropped by folks place, and discreetely slipped this hulking mass into the freezer.
I could explain later...
Off I went to the West Point On The Eno, to set up what little I could in the rain.
When I arrived, I found that my beloved booth spot, while itself relatively dry, was now standing as kind of an island in a swamp that had overtaken the lowest reaches of the park, that connect it to the beautiful, river, which was now raging at its banks.
Greg graciously offered to let me stay if I wanted, or to accomodate me if I wanted to find a new spot.
And so I went off searching in the dwindling light, like a lost tribe of Isreal, for my escape from the floods, a new promised land?
I was about ready to stick it out in the swamp down below, when I spied a spot across the mill race, that looked to be unused. While not yet an official space, it was a tent sized room, hidden beneath the canopy of an old tree, quite like my ussual spot.
The difference was, the fingers of the these limbs almost drooped down to touch the ground, creating sort of a fortress around this space.
So my question to Cheif Greg was, a) can I use this space, and b) if so, can I do a little pruning to shape it up. After some discussion, the word came back- a resounding yes, you may, and you can even borrow some pruners! It seemed that Greg, Bless him, was also very much going with the flow, which I can only imagine he has learned as a natural survival skill in many years directing the festival.
And so I wend to work, setting up the skeleton of booth in the dark of a torrential downpour, up to my ankles in muddy mess, wearing nothing but my swim suit! When I finally had that up, I got the pruners, and went to work carving out a space under the tree, as well as for my neighbors to be, NC WARN.
When it was all done, as far as I could tell in the dark, darned if it didn't look like home.
However, I have got to say, that as hard as I WAS working, the folks putting on the Festival were working MUCH MUCH HARDER!
They had been living, breathing, sleeping, probably eating mud for the last week, at least, attending to the thousands of details involved with bringing thousands of people, and electrical equipment, and on and on and on, together in the unpredictable outdoors.
My hat is really really off to these troopers that make this thing happen every year.
