Chapter 1:The Last Iceman
From somewhere out on the ice I hear what sounds like the Beach Boys.
It is deep winter of ought-seven…2007, February. I’m standing on the shoreline, possibly, probably, ah who the hell knows, of Lake Champlain. I’m in New York, Ticonderoga I think, if for some reason I wanted a Ben & Jerry’s Triple Double Fudge Marshmallow Moose Turds in a half-pint I could actually step off the alleged lake shore I’m supposedly standing on…and walk across to the state of Vermont and get me the ice cream treat.
And it wouldn’t melt on my walk back ACROSS THE LAKE.
For the record, I’m not a fan of the winter, of being cold, or of water that you don’t have to be Jesus Christ to walk on.
I’m standing here On Chattering Shore because my boss at ESPN asked me this, “You ever do any ice fishing,” to which I HONESTLY replied, “Nope,” which I later found out was the right answer for him, not though for me.
I don’t do anything on, or with, ice that doesn’t involve pouring root beer over it, or laying on a block of it when I have a migraine, but now, NOW, I’m about to climb into one of the heaviest, biggest, NY State snowplows and DRIVE on top of Lake Champlain, “Ah man don’t you worry none it’s at least a foot or two thick by now, you know back in the day we used to have horse races out there, come on, getchayourbuttuphere.”
For the record #2: Just because a horse or two can race around on a guess of ice thickness does not mean that a couple ton snowplow will have the same luck, just saying.
“Put yer seatbelt on, yer never know yer know.”
Oh shit yeah I know, seatbelt my ass, for safety reasons before I sit down in the greasy passenger seat I should actually put on FULL THERMAL SCUBA GEAR and quite possibly SCUBA TANKS or at the very least SOME KIND OF KID WATER WINGS because if this truck cracks ice the last thing I want to be is strapped in watching the bubbles go by.
I say I’m all set with buckled in which is a flat out still-be-able-to-maybe-swim-some lie.
“Off we go,” and unfortunately, we do.
“Yer here!”
We are “parked” on the corner of two streets of ice and snow (and several hundred feet of cold-ass Lake Champlain below my feet).
“Now that wasn’t anything to be all bunched up about was it.”
For The Record #3: I was all “bunched” up about this assignment before I left the ESPN parking lot which in case if you are wondering is built on solid ground without any lake, frozen/slushy/or just plain wet, under your feet.
“Yer here,” is what I was being told is “a yer know an ice fishing shanty town,” said by a person who has grown up around ice fishing shanty towns to a person who has never even thought there would be some sort of thing as an ice fishing shanty town in the first place.
I replied, “Uh huh.”
As I look around I can see “STREET” signs on the corners of “them plowed streets yer know,” and the streets (good gawd I’m now calling plowed snow “streets’) are named just like back there on solid ground. I’m on the corner of “Bob” and an intersection sign buried under the snowmobile sitting on top of it.
And then the man asks me this, “Yer ever been inside an ice fishing shanty.”
For The Record #4: I have never been in a SHANTY of any kind, frozen or not, perched on land or not, and to be honest it isn’t even a way down the list Bucket List item of mine. Nope you could go all the way down my Bucket List, circle around it a dozen times or so and you would never find **Want to be in a shanty sometime** on it, nope.
“Here yer go…
“…take a seat.”
Only the face part of my head is technically in the shanty, both my arms are holding both sides of the door as I peer around, I am yet ears deep into my very first shanty.
“And yer know if yer gotta go it’s just over there…”
“…as soon as they bring the bucket underneath it back. All the comforts of home huh.”
For The Record #5: No No No No No No No No No No…not the comforts of MY home.
“I’ll hold it.’
“Suit yer self.”
Will take a non-potty break here and backtrack some to tell you a story of what happened to me THE NIGHT BEFORE I WALKED ON ICE.
“The Lady Who Ain’t Got No Feet.”
Okay so the picture above is of an alleged “haunted house” in Williamsburg, Virginia, our son, Jimmy, for Christmas got Barb and I a gift certificate to stay a weekend in a house in town there, just something for us to get away to some place new and relax after the Christmas season and my 26 weeks on the road with BASS gig.
We signed up to take a tour of “haunted” Williamsburg and stopped in front of “the most haunted place in town,” according to the guide who knew where every haunted place, good or bad, in town was. So he says stand here and take pictures and if you are lucky you might get some “orbs” in your shot, which in fact it looked like I got quite lucky with “orbs” or dust in the air that night.
If ya believe in those types of things, good, if you don’t good.
As a reporter I’ve unfortunately/fortunately have had the opportunity to do a bunch of stories about “haunted” this or that and as far as I know, nothing has happened in any of the stories I’ve been on.
So, the night before I’m supposed to be on the ice of Lake Champlain I come into the small town there and stay in a Bar/Restaurant/Inn place pretty close to the water/ice and as I’m sitting at the bar talking with the lady who ran the place her young daughter comes up and sits next to me and we start talking:
“Whatcha here for.”
“Going to do an ice fishing story for ESPN (and I point to Sportscenter playing up on the 4 TV’s in the bar).”
“Do you like to ice fish.”
“Nope.”
“Why did you come then.”
“I was told to and I still have two kids in college…”
The young girl’s mom laughs, the young girl just looks at me like I’m from Mars (also a 4 letters word that may in fact fit).
“Are you staying here tonight.”
“Yes I am.”
“Oh, well then maybe you’ll see the lady who ain’t got no feet maybe huh mommy.”
I turn and look at Mommy who is giving her daughter at that exact moment the “Hush Your Mouth” Mommy look to the sweet you thing sitting at the bar next to me.
“What lady who ain’t got no feet, do you have someone who stays here in a wheelchair.”
At about the time Mommy next to me tries to reach past me to her daughter she says, “Ha no silly, the lady who ain’t got no feet just floats down that staircase right there and says hello to me all the time.”
Um, hmm, um…
“Now (something, I didn’t hear the kid’s name) you just don’t be bothering Mr. ESPN here (usually when I’m called that a college Sports Information Department employee is escorting me off campus) with your old ghost stories, now you just go see papa in the kitchen.”
Um, hmmm, um…
“My oh my she has such a wild imagination, you know how kids are…”
I do, and kids are the ones who are supposed to actually see all those folks who float about here and there.
Um, hmmm, ummmmmm…
“Would you like another Beef-on-Weck…”
Um, no, what I would like is to get your daughter back in here so me and her can have a talk about this guest with no feet and floating ability but I say, “No I’m good.”
“Ok then I’ll show you to your room, but first I want to show you how to lock up tonight.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah when we close up the place and leave one of the guests has to lock the door behind us, it’s just been done that way forever, and since you are the ONLY ONE STAYING HERE TONIGHT you need to see how to lock the door and then all you have to do is go back up the stairs to your room and turn down for the night.”
Um, hmmm, ummmmmmmmm….
So I did, lock up, walk up the seemingly floatable staircase, went to my room, but out TWO bottles of water, left the room door open and went to sleep.
And when I woke up, both bottles of water were still full, and the staircase never creaked.
True Story.
Back to the Ice of Champlain
For the next few hours I wander, actually slide, slip some, slide some more, around the ice fishing shanty town, I’m told, “Yer picked a good day to be here it’s almost zero out now, warming up some huh.”
Um no, it is impossible for it to be “warming up” when in fact your nose hairs are all frozen together and the snow-snot that runs out your nose freezes in your mustache even when you are INSIDE one of the shanties.
“Excuse me but wouldn’t “warming up some” sort of put a damper on your ability to ice fish since warm and ice don’t really mix well especially when you are standing on the ice and feeling warm, huh.”
“Eh, huh, don’t matter none how warm it gets the ice you’re standing on is a foot or two thick, we’ll be fishing this very spot come into the middle of March.”
For The Record #6: When you are ice it surly does MATTER when it starts to get warm since you won’t be ice much longer, and 2, once again there is a HUGE difference when you are “ballparking” the thickness of the ice you are standing on, cooking on, driving on, to say it is not an exact science would be to say it while being very wet and cold like and looking for a ladder being slid your way over your bad judgement ballparking of ice.
Smelts or Smelties
I wasn’t really sure what to say when I saw what they were fishing for, what they caught, I’m thinking it must be all about having fun with the guys, the ball-busting and talking about stuff you can’t talk about when your wife is within hearing distance x’s 2.
To be honest they could have caught the same fish in the “International” aisle of Wegmans and those fish come with a key so you can open the top of the can to catch them better, and in warmth I might say as well.
But you know what, I had fun with all the folks in ice fishing town, I did worry some about the keys who were lifting the beer keg to put it up on their stove because, “Ha we left it out all night and it frozed on up, just going to thaw it out some so we can get to the beer.” I told them “I’ll come back for the interview after the explosion,” and left, did see them about a half hour later, maybe 7:30am outside their shanty sans shirts and downing beer, so I guess you can defrost a keg of beer on a propane stove and not blow the whole ice town pup BUT PLEASE DON’T TRY THAT AT HOME (that covers me legally in case you are wondering).
If you want to read the story I did for ESPN with all the bosses and editors freaked about what I was going to write and looking over my shoulder for some reason you can dig the somewhat sanitized/overbossed version here, it’s called: The Ice Kings of Lake Champlain and a huge shout out to all those out there on the ice way back a dozen or so years ago, thank you for inviting me in, and on the ice of Champlain.
But now, the reason I write this story, you’ll find it out there, WAY out there…
The last iceman
There sat way, way out in the middle of the lake, one lone shanty. No plowed roads lead to it or away from it, no street signs, nothing but aloneness.
When I came into the town on ice all I could see was a tiny black dot way out there, this photo was taken with my zoom lens on the all-zoomed-out setting.
As I was leaving, this time walking back to shore (which once again is an amazing sentence to write) a man in an old snowmobile pulled up next to me and said, “You know I got screwed by Thomas Edison,” or something like that, his bike on ice was loud and I was cold.
“Huh, what, who.”
“Thomas Edison, you know the guy who invented lights.”
“Um, huh, hmm…”
“You know what I mean, hey are you the ESPN guy.”
“Yep, and what guy are you.”
And then he said something that floored me, “I’m the last known Iceman that’s still alive.”
“The what.”
“Iceman, you know I used to bring ice in a wagon for your ice box, I had a bunch of the Bronx as my route.”
I’am cold, I haven’t felt either big toe for the last hour, I smell like smelts and ice fishing shanties that are cleaned once a year, but I’m stopped dead in the snow, and I just smile.
“Ha, I know what you are thinking, you thinking the iceman just cometh your way huh.”
For The Record #7: Yep.
“I started when I was young, real young, used to work out of an ice house that got there ice from this here lake believe it or not, I’d pack it in sawdust, get a bag of feed for my horse, and start of on my rounds, I was a strong buck back then, had to be to climb all those tenement stairs, i’d get my ice tongs, slam them into the block, hoist it on my back, tell you the truth it felt damn good back there on a hot summer day, then climb on up all the flights, knock on the back door and then bring it in and put in in the top compartment of the families ice box, sure did yep.”
In almost 3 decades then of reporting I knew that sometimes the best questions asked are the ones you never speak. I just stood there shivering.
“But along come ol’ Tommy Edison and his electricity and by 42, maybe as late as 45…1945 so you know, all them ice boxes turned into “Refrigerators,” all plugged in and powered up making their own ice now, making their own ice…”
And then he just shook his head and hit the throttle of his old snowmobile but before he took off I shouted, “Here sir, here’s my card, call me at ESPN I’d love to sit down with you and do a story with you about this, how very cool, er you know, just an amazing story, you up for that.”
He looked at my card, looked back at me, put it in his snowmobile suit pocket and said, “You got time now I got some time.”
Time, “You got time now I got some time.”
But I didn’t, told him I had to get back to the mothership that is ESPN, “On deadline you know, got to go, but you have my card, call me and I’ll come back up here and sit down with you, I’d love to do the story with you.”
“Okay,” and with that he drove away, drove far enough away that the tiny dot he was on the ice, disappeared.
To be honest, there is never a “right time” to do something because the fact of the matter is, the only time you’ve got is what you are standing in.
The Last Iceman never called, I didn’t get his name or how to find him.
For a year or so whenever I had the chance to be around there I would ask about him, would show people the only photo I had of the ice shanty that was a dot in the snow and all I ever got was, “Uh huh, remember seeing it out there but who was ever in it pretty much kept to his self, in fact can’t recall ever seeing anyone come in or out of it.”
In time the ice shanty dot stopped showing up, in time I went to work with BASS and never got up to Lake Champlain when it was all frozed up.
It is simply a story I missed and one that will haunt me long after I’ve stopped writing stories.
If in fact you meet someone who tells you they are “The Last…” of whatever, take the time to listen, take the time to hang around, if you don’t, trust me, you’ll regret it.