Blowing and Drifting - Christopher Tassava

Note: I’m going to try to write at least one biographical essay each month this year.

The Hunting Camp
When my family lived in Ironwood, in the early 1980s, we owned (or, I think, shared, with my dad’s brother) a tiny cabin way out in the woods north of town, about halfway between the farm and Lake Superior. We called it the “hunting camp,” and that name suited it better than “cabin” or, worse, “cottage.” The hunting camp wasn’t much of a building. It was a square one-room shelter with wood-framed walls (probably made from trees cut down to make a clearing for the structure) punctured by three small windows and one clattery door, which opened out onto a narrow porch.

The porch itself was mostly covered by firewood we fed to the big cast-iron stove that stood just inside the door, next to an equally old and wood-fired cooking stove. The two stoves were the dominant feature of the building’s interior. We cooled the hunting camp by opening the door. Northwoods weather being what it is, sometimes we had to use the stove for heat and the screen door for cooling in the same day.

As its climate-control features suggest, the hunting camp was far more rustic than a “cottage” in which a retired couple might want to retire or a family – like my cousins from Ohio – might spend a few summer weeks along the lake. Besides the stove, the hunting camp contained a bunk bed, a bigger regular bed, and a rickety kitchen table with three or four chairs around it (and an ashtray and pack of cards on it). I think there may have been a rug on the floor, and maybe some rough shelves near the stove. Was the floor wood or linoleum? I don’t remember, probably because the interior was always half-lit. The towering trees outside kept much light from coming in the windows. At night, a kerosene lantern over the table provided just enough room to play cards, but not enough – as I recall – to read a book while lying in your sleeping bag. You needed a flashlight for that, and for making the quick, spooky trip to the outhouse in back, under a towering evergreen that often sheltered porcupines. I remember seeing porkies up there, prickly even from a distance, slowly shifting from branch to branch.

The hunting camp was as remote as it was rustic. We could only way to get to the camp by driving down a long trail that started off as a very rough gravel road, mostly used by loggers, but turned into parallel tire tracks through the woods. This track was nothing a car could traverse, so we always took my dad’s gray International Harvester Scout, a sort of proto-SUV. Even the Scout got stuck more than once in a muddy low spot on the trail or blocked by a windfall tree. I would love to know how long we took to make the drive in from the road to the hunting camp – fifteen minutes? half an hour? an hour? I recall it seeming like a long but enjoyable ride, jouncing through the woods. Too, I would love to know the length of the trail. A mile or two? Ten? (Being then deeply fascinated with the military, I always thought it would be fun to rappel from a helicopter down to the camp. Nowadays, I would love to try to ski or bike in to the camp.)

Though I recall once having to turn around and head back home when the track was impassably muddy, we usually made it out to the hunting camp, where we’d unload the Scout and settle in for a few days, mostly spent – as you’d expect, given the camp’s spartan character – outside. A tiny brook – inevitably named “Mud Creek” and pronounced “mud crick” – ran along the edge of the camp’s clearing. At most shin-deep, the creek held no fish except for a few silvery minnow-sized things that were impossibly adept at holding themselves in place against the creek’s current. My sister and I loved to wade in the creek, squishing our feet down into the thick, cold mud along its bed.

And then there were the trees – seemingly endless forest, stretching out in every direction but always up. The track we used to drive in to the camp extended on beyond the campsite, so we could use it to walk further into the woods. I remember that such walks took us over a surprisingly big and sturdy log bridge. The bridge spanned a wider, deeper, and faster creek that I realize now must have connected somehow to Mud Creek. We fished off that bridge, catching fish that were big enough to cook and eat.

Somewhere around that bridge were trees that had strange S-shaped curves in them. My dad told me, at least a few times, that the trees had been kinked by bulldozers or logging trucks, and never straightened out. By the time I saw them, the bends were four or five feet off the ground, but I remember thinking they would be good chairs for giants.

Taking the road in the other direction, back toward the road, we drove past a couple other hunting camps, usually deserted. Once, the biggest one was occupied, and my dad, sister, and I dropped in. My dad must have known the owner, who was hosting a big all-male card game. I remember the players being very loud; they must have been very drunk, too. I also remember the owner/host cursing all the time as he played. I was old enough to recognize the f-word, so this visit must have occurred when I was in late elementary school or even junior high. I remember that the owner/host kept apologizing to my dad for cursing so much, what with my sister – maybe eight years old then – being right there.

Running away from the road were faint but discernible paths. I always thought of them as Indian trails, but of course they were probably deer paths. Following them, I never had any sense of being in danger of getting lost. I wonder if I’d feel that way now. My favorite paths ran north away from the hunting camp and to a big hill that we called, with what must have been Finlander irony, Mount Ilola. We climbed Mount Ilola a few times. From its peak, we could see exactly what you could see anywhere: the forest. I don’t think “Ilola” had any special meaning, but Googling the word now, I find this on Wikipedia:

Ilola (Swedish: Gladas) is a city district of Vantaa, Finland. It is located in the northern part of the administrative district of Koivukylä

Not very informative, except to indicate what sorts of people had the notion to put up shacks in the woods around the hill.

The hunting camp’s name was not a misnomer. In the fall, we did use it for hunting – mostly deer, I think. Others hunted in the woods too. I remember being at the camp one time when a group of bear hunters walked past, barely controlling a big group of hounds. I think my dad went out to talk to them for a few minutes, since that’s probably what you do when hunters cross your land. My mom was disgusted by hunting in general, but especially by the use of dogs to track and kill bears. Her basic anti-hunting argument – “What did those animals ever do to you?” – resonated with me after seeing the bearhunters.

That’s not to say I didn’t like hunting itself. I liked the few times I went with my dad into the woods to find deer, and I still recall the weird pleasure of actually bagging a buck once, somewhere in the general area of the hunting camp. Even more than hunting, I liked shooting guns, which was a big activity at the hunting camp, whether we were hunting anything or not. We would stand a few steps off the porch and fire our .22 rifle or, even better, our .22 pistol off into the woods, aiming mostly at empty cans and bottles. I usually had my BB guns along, too – a pistol and a rifle. These were less satisfying to shoot (less power, less noise) but I could fire them off without supervision as long as I still had BBs, which were sold, as I recall, in little containers that looked like milk cartons.

If walking around and shooting guns were the main outdoor activities, eating was the main indoor activity. My parents did most of our cooking on the cooking stove, and a bit on a green Coleman kerosene stove that we hauled in with us. I remember being slightly amazed by the fact that my parents could toast bread simply by buttering it and laying it in a pan on top of the stove, right next to the bacon. It tasted awfully good.

Today, I was supposed to compete in the first of two ski races this winter, the 26k classic race at the City of Lakes Loppet in Minneapolis. I was scheduled to ski the 42k classic race at the Mora Vasaloppet next weekend. When I registered for these races last summer, I was very, very excited to be doing two races, including the marathon-length Vasaloppet.

Then arrived the horrible winter of 2011-2012 happened. The lack of snow kept me from training and hurt both races: the CoLL race shortened and staged on a short loop in Theodore Wirth Park earlier today, and the Vasaloppet was canceled outright. I didn’t even bother to go up to Minneapolis for the CoLL. I have no ski fitness at all, and skiing laps on a golf course didn’t sound appealing.

Trying to put a positive sporting spin on the day, though, I did go for an hour-long gravel ride – kicking off my training for the Almanzo 100 on Saturday, May 19.

It was a solid ride – not long, by any means, but I averaged just over 15mph and, most importantly, I felt pretty good, except for my frosted toes. I can’t wait to do some serious training over the next three months.

I recently started reading Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. So far, I’m not finding it to be profound, but it is full of interesting stories and quite a bit of insight into why Jobs became the man he was when he died. I was particularly struck by this anecdote, from the early 1980s as Jobs struggled to define the Macintosh’s distinct visual style:

This was all the more remarkable to me because I’m reading the bio on my iPad, which is of course a rectangle with rounded corners.

The pathetic “winter” of 2011-2012 has given me a case of un-seasonal affective disorder. I can hardly overstate how much I look forward to winter – the snow above all, but also the cold, the storms, the crisp blue-sky days…

This year, we’ve had almost none of that. With only a few brief exceptions, temperatures have been unreasonably high since November. Even worse, we’ve had just a few inches of snow, and plenty of long thaws in between the one set of flurries and another. And we’ve certainly had no all-out storms to enjoy.

All of this has brought me down, man. Most importantly, I’ve only been able to ski once – for half an hour, in my backyard. Absolutely unjust. Being horrifically under-trained, I’ve decided to abandon any plans to ski the classic-technique races at the City of Lakes Loppet this Sunday and the Mora Vasaloppet next weekend. I *had* been looking forward to both event for a long time, but already the Loppet has been shortened and confined to a loop course – not its full, full, wonderful point-to-point route. I don’t know what the Vasaloppet organizers are planning, but I do know there’s no way I could enjoyably do the 42k race I’d been anticipating for months.

In short, this winter sucks. I hope it’s a one-time thing, and that next winter’s back to something like normal. If it isn’t, I might have to invest next year in some sort of U-SAD mitigator, like a backyard snowmaker.

I’m not sure why, but I pretty much stopped blogging late last year, and only posted one or two things during January. The first of February strikes me as a good moment to get back to blogging, which I (usually) enjoy a lot. To get things rolling again, I thought I’d post something that I meant to post back at the beginning of the new year: a list of books I plan to read this year.

The list mixes old and new stuff I’ve always meant to read, and there’s no rhyme or reason to the list except that I’ve heard good things about all of these books. As it happens, in the last month I’ve finished a few of these books, and loved them. I’ll try to remember to post some mini-reviews of those books soon, and to keep up with posts on other books as I finish them all year.

• Blair, Ann: Too Much to Know (2011, nonfiction – information overload in Renaissance Europe)
• Carr, Nicholas: The Shallows (2011, nonfiction – polemic against the Internet’s effects on thinking )
• Gibson, William: Distrust that Particular Flavor (2012, nonfiction – collected essays)
• Gleick, James: The Information (2011, nonfiction – a history of information in the modern age)
• Inskeep, Steve: Instant City (2011, nonfiction – Karachi)
• LeCarré, John: The Honourable Schoolboy (1977, fiction – 2nd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• LeCarré, John: Smiley’s People (1979, fiction – 3rd book in the George Smiley trilogy)
• Lipsyte, Sam: The Ask (2010, fiction – college fundraisers)
• Martin, George R. R. : A Game of Thrones (1996, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Clash of Kings (1998, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Storm of Swords (2000, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Feast for Crows (2005, fiction – fantasy)
• Martin, George R. R.: A Dance with Dragons (2011, fiction – fantasy)
• Mehta, Suketu: Maximum City (2009, nonfiction – Mumbai)
• Monchaux, Nicholas de: Spacesuit (2011, nonfiction – a history of the Apollo spacesuit)
• Murakami, Haruki: 1Q84 (2011, fiction – literary fiction)
• Smith, Tom Rob: Child 44 (, fiction – crime novel)
• Stephenson, Neil: REAMDE (2011, fiction – SF thriller)
• Szymborska, Wislawa: Miracle Fair (2001, poetry)
• Vanderbilt, Tom: Traffic (2008, nonfiction – study of auto traffic and driving)

Today I read an incredible essay by Meghan Daum in The Believer – “Haterade.” Equal parts autobiography and social commentary, the article analyzes hater culture on the internet – horrible comment boards on news websites or blogs, vitriolic email criticisms to authors, and so forth.

Maybe I’m naive, but I was shocked by some of the critical comments that Daum quotes. This made me pretty sympathetic to her critique of hater culture on the internet, which not only dumbs down the (often already low) level of discourse on the Web (and, now, in every other medium, since everything’s everywhere), but contributes to what the conservatives rightly call the “coarsening” of our culture. Not that I believe America ever was, or should become, a high-toned society, but really, we are not better off when anonymous haters can tell Daum:

What a pathetic, inept, and uninformed person you are. Your articles are brainless, and when I read them I think of how miserable as a person you must be. Probably a fat ugly little girl who needs to prey on others to feel better…A fat, ugly squashed bug.

Which brings me to my own current experience with internet haters: the anonymous and horrible crap that’s being vented by “readers” on the webpage for Shannon’s book. I won’t quote any of them, for at least four reasons: most are awful (being badly written, cruelly vitriolic, or both), many are stupid (betraying the commenters as very poor readers), at least some of them are coming from a person or people we know, and – most importantly – the negative comments are more than outweighed by the numerous thoughtful comments.

Now, don’t misunderstand me and think that I am (or think my wife is) a delicate flower who can’t stand being criticized. To the contrary: both of us learned in grad school to take some hard knocks and profit from them. I have to be similarly flexible (or bulletproof – pick your metaphor) to do my grantwriting at Carleton. And Shannon’s been a blogger for a long time, in which role she’s received some pretty awful comments.

But but but, there is a huge difference between, say, redlined comments on a grant-proposal draft and a “review” on Shannon’s B&N.com page such as

I truly expected a really helpful read, the answer to my many answers. Failed to live up to its title and expectations I had. ”

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one quote.) Constructive criticism exists to improve the writing to which it responds, and the writer and the critic are in a relationship that assumes the value of the writing. On the other hand, a half-literate “review” on B&N.com exists only to tear down the writer. It actually prevents any sort of meaningful connection between the reader and the writer, and rests, as another couple reviewers say, on the readers’ idiotic evaluation of the writing as a “joke.”

Thankfully, Shannon knows all this. A few days ago she called out the negative commenters in a post on her blog. In addition to requesting that anyone who’s read and liked the book post a comment to that effect on the book’s page, Shannon said (in part):

If you’ve been following along at home, you know that there’s been quite a bit of drama over at my book’s Barnes & Noble page. I’ve been blessed to get a ton of super-great, five-star reviews over there, which is thrilling and exciting. I’m grateful for every one. However, I’m being dogged by a troll reviewer who has been putting up hateful “reviews” for every good review that goes up, from the very first day of release.

…

Many of these comments have been flagged as abusive, off-topic, or inappropriate. My publisher and book marketing manager are in contact with Barnes & Noble regarding an investigation. But in the meantime, this person or persons is/are intent on continuing to bring down my ratings average by putting up a 1-star review for every 4- or 5-star review that goes up. (Fortunately, most potential buyers and reviewers are smart enough to notice the suspicious nature of these troll reviews, and more than one have actually mentioned it in the comments.)

As you should expect, the fact that my talented, hardworking wife has been attacked like this on the internet angers me, and I applaud Shannon for standing up to them. I (we!) value the exchange of views, even opposite ones, but I think the hate by the comment trolls is beyond the pale of normalcy or value. Which is probably why I felt such a strong jolt of satisfaction when Daum wrote in her Believer essay, “These days, being attacked isn’t just the result of saying something badly, it’s the result of saying anything at all.”

We’re all lucky that some of us are brave enough to say something good anyhow.