Just Another Day at the Office
Katahdin Shadows Campground
Medway, ME
September 10th, 1999
I have
pretty
much restricted my writings to events of history or things of
beauty, but a change of pace was in order when arriving at the
Katahdin Shadows Campground. It has been my intention to find the
beginning of the Appalachian Trail which is on top of Baxter
Mountain, in the Baxter State Park, just northwest of Medway. A
very healthy, determined and perhaps irrational person can walk
this trail from the top of Baxter Mountain all the way to Georgia
without much interruption. The route takes about four months. As
we drove out to the park to record the head of the trail, our
plans were dashed by a violent rainstorm, and the fact that we
were informed it was a 10 hour hike to the
summit and the rangers would not let anyone stay overnight on the
trail in the park. We settled for finding a beautifully hand
painted large rock along the way which proclaimed the greatness
of Maine. Back at the trailer we were in for several days of hard
rain. To our delight two of the "trail" hikers
abandoned their trip in favor of a cabin which was next to us.
Mark and Jessie James ( we did have fun with her name) joined us
for dinner and some board games as we passed the night away. It
was from them that I learned much about the "trail" and
what it is like doing long distance hiking. The campground had
added an interesting item to the grounds. Rabbits. Dozens and
dozens of them, running 
everywhere, mooching
food from anybody who would stand still long enough for them to
jump up on your leg like a dog seeking praise. I would have liked
to have had the concession in carrots in that park. As the rain
passed I found myself sitting at the picnic table outside the
trailer surveying the surrounding woods. The tundra there is like
peat. It sounds hollow when it is struck, much like a muffled
drum. I heard the rapid beating on the ground long before I saw
the large black rabbit racing toward me in a shallow zigzag
pattern. So fascinated was I, by the speed of this creature and
the fact that it was on a collision course with me that I didn't
look up until the huge hawk, wings set in a glide was less then a
hundred feet from me coming on at full speed, about eye level.
The rabbit was making a beeline to the underside of my trailer
and the hawk was determined to beat him there. Their
concentration was so intent that neither of them saw me. The 
rabbit
scampered under the picnic table and on to the underside of the
trailer. The hawk realized he was late and pulled up to go over
the trailer. I ducked to the side as I felt the wind from his
furiously beating wings rush by my face. In the last second
before he was gone, our eyes met. I have never seen such cold,
black, deadly looking eyes on anything living. It was over as
fast as it had began. The hawk was gone and the rabbit was
quietly munching on some grass underneath the trailer. I sat
there for a while wondering if I had just witnessed all that I
have described. It was a side of nature I was not quite used to
yet. Still somewhat unsettled by 
the
day's events, I retired for the evening. It was a dark muggy
night, the windows were cracked to let in the mountain air. At
6:30AM I was awakened by a sound. It was one of the sounds you
hear in your sleep and then lay there trying to decide what it
was you had heard, or was it something in some forgotten dream.
Before a decision could be made, it came again. Something bumped
into a venetian blind in the living room. Not the sound of the
wind rattling the shades, this was a loud collision as if someone
had fallen into them. "There's someone in the trailer,"
I nudged Laura, as I made the choice of going for the Winchester
307 rifle or confronting the burglar head-on. She said nothing,
but rolled over on her back beside me. There we lay, quietly
listening and then the crashing sound of a blind struck with
something solid. Laura positioned herself to retrieve the rifle
as I hiked up my underwear and s
tomped
forward into the living room. There in the middle of the floor
stood the defiant culprit, not the least bashful about its
sneaky deed. A large gray squirrel darted to the recliner then
bounced off the blind in a futile attempt to escape out the
window. Laura, who had joined me, flung the front door open, and
in her best motherly voice announced "OUT", and the
beast escaped into the woods. In the aftermath, an examination of
the trailer revealed that in the dead of night with the stealth
of a "cat burglar", this monster had jumped to the roof
of the trailer from a nearby tree, the smell of a ripening apple
on the kitchen sink, being too much to resist, he slid down the
side and while hanging from the open window frame, sliced the
soft screen with the precision of a switch blade, entered
thorough the hole and had his fill of the apple. His attempts to
exit through the glass windows covered by the blinds was the
noise that had awakened me. The next morning, on our way to the
hardware store with the sliced screen in hand we talked with the
trailer park owner. "Yep," he said, "they're
regular bandits. They learned to slice screens about a year ago,
and now they're all doing it." On the way down the hill, we
passed several of the cabins and noted the number of windows with
duct tape on them. I had to smile, "Just another trying day at the office I suppose." I commented to Laura
as we drove down the hill
and out of the park.
*** THE END ***
