Shave and a haircut….Two fish?

Bartering and other North Country tales…

Writing last week’s diary entry, my observations about how folks in small towns are friendlier than people who live in large cities, caused me to reflect upon the myriad other reasons that I love living in the Adirondacks. That, and also a visit last week from an old friend. Kristen’s family used to live on Bullet Pond, where I had built a house in the 90’s. She was in grade school when I first met her family. Thirty years later, she now lives in Colorado, supporting the observation that the Adirondacks’ largest export is our youth, but she still comes to town occasionally to visit, usually around the holidays. Bless her heart, she always finds the time to reach out and stop by for a visit.

One of my earliest and fondest Adirondack memories was watching the local kids participate in the cherished north county winter pastime of “pond hockey”. Like many if not most north country youngsters, Kristen and her sister were, and are, accomplished skiers and skaters. As soon as there were a few inches of ice on the lake thick enough for skating, a rink area was shoveled clear and if necessary, the ice was hosed down with water pumped through a hole in the ice to smooth the surface. Most north country kids learn how to skate as soon as they are old enough to stay upright, and by the time they are in school they are streaking around the ice like otters, chasing the puck and their schoolmates. It is indeed a winter scene out of Currier and Ives, with the rink area bordered by parents and neighbors holding mugs of spiked hot cider and cheering the kids on. A few years back, the town of Schroon Lake built an ice rink in the pavilion at the town park to make these types of winter activities available for everyone (without the excitement of potentially falling though the ice.) Small town life at its best.

Skim ice began to form around the shoreline of the pond last week.

Temps dropped into the teens this week, and the ice was starting to form around the shoreline of the pond. It won’t be long until the first tip-ups appear, marking the preferred spots for ice fishing, another popular north country pastime that follows the close of hunting season. “Big game” tournament ice fishers target the larger local species like northern pike, lake trout and land locked salmon, but by far the most popular quarry with local anglers is yellow perch. These fish are caught by the bucketful, fileted and prepared in one of two popular styles. The most popular preparation is to batter and fry them, the stuff of Friday night fish fries at some local north country restaurants. Alternatively, the filets, which are usually only three or four inches long, are poached, and then chilled. The resulting curled up filet, “poor man’s shrimp” in local parlance, is served with a spicy cocktail sauce as you would serve shrimp cocktail, except that perch are served by the pile, not by the piece.

This reminds me of another story, which includes another old friend from days of yore who has now passed on, Bunny Suprenant. Bunny and his brother Soupy were north country legends. Soupy’s name was derived from their surname, Suprenant. Bunny’s name was derived from….I have no idea. Bunny ran the local Fish and Game Club with his girlfriend Kitty, which is where I met them. Bunny was an accomplished fiddle and mandolin player who could be persuaded to break one out on Friday nights at Terrio’s, a local tavern and restaurant, or at street dances with his band, The Blue Ridge Sundowners. Bunny also worked as a handy man. He was the proverbial jack of all trades and he had a tool in the back of his station wagon that he could use to fix just about anything. Adirondack folks do not replace anything, they fix it, usually themselves. This includes obvious things like lawn mowers and chain saws and outboard engines, but also not obvious things like oil burners and water heaters, things that city folk would never dream of taking apart. We just replace things. In the Adirondacks, you fix it. Or in my case, you called Bunny to fix it. He was the closest thing that I have ever known to Sully, the main character in Richard Russo’s Nobody’s Fool. Paul Newman played the character in the movie. Bunny and his brother Soupy were a walking, talking Richard Russo novel. Someday I hope to write it.

In any event, one day I am sitting with Soupy at Flanagan’s, a still popular local watering hole, and I noticed that Soupy had a new haircut. I mentioned said haircut, which was noticeable for two reasons, the first obvious, the second, we did not have a barber shop within forty miles of town. I was naturally curious where he had secured this service, as I had hair in those days, and had taken to having it attended to during my regular work-related trips to the Hudson Valley. Bunny responded with “Marie’s”. Who is Marie, I asked - the same woman who makes birthday cakes? One and the same, Bunny responded. Looking for more information, I asked him what she charged for a haircut. I bring her a few perch, Bunny laughed, and now you know why I thought of Bunny when we were talking about perch a while back.

Bunny and his brother, Soupy, were a treasure trove of local information. Not only where to get a haircut or a birthday cake, but where the DEC stocking truck had stocked trout that day, or the best places to pick blueberries - around Horseshoe Pond in August - or when the black caps behind the fourth hole at the golf course would be ripe and exactly when to pick the berries so that you showed up to pick them the day before the bears did.

Soupy was also the unofficial town restaurant / bar historian, as he had worked in most of them over the years. Back in its heyday from the late 19^th century to the mid 20^th, Schroon Lake was home to dozens of classic resort hotels. Route 9, which runs through the middle of the village, was lined with bars and restaurants. Soupy could name the owners and bartenders in most of them. This extraordinary recollection was not because he patronized these places, but because he had worked there as a dishwasher - forty or fifty years ago! His recall was extraordinary, which I found even more impressive because Soupy could not read or write beyond signing his name. As a child he had suffered from severe epilepsy, and he had been denied a proper education because of it. Despite the handicap, he could, and frequently did, go on for hours recalling the town’s history. He was one of the most interesting and engaging conversationalists that I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with. Bunny and his girlfriend, Kitty, also had the wonderful habit of showing up at the house with a bag of perch filets, which we would fry up and eat, usually before they made it to the table. Wonderful memories.

Bartering is a time honored and still popular method of payment here in the north country, sometimes defined and transactional – a haircut or a birthday cake cost a few pounds of perch filets or two dozen eggs - but more often, just neighbors helping neighbors, and it all comes out even at the end. It is indeed a beautiful thing.

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