Orinoco Monster Hunt

Craig and I cleaning piranhas for dinner. I ended up cutting my hand,
 which made the teenagers laugh at how inept I was with a knife.

"Hey Tone!" Steve yelled as he launched my shampoo bottle into the middle of the Orinoco River, closer to the Colombian side than the Venezuelan. Manuel, the native kid on our work crew immediately started across after it, and I was right behind him.

Now, there are some popular myths around piranhas that aren't exactly true. Every now and then, when the rainy season dries out, sections of the river get cut off from the main flow. Schools of piranha get trapped in these oxbows, and the lack of food turns them into the bloodthirsty monsters of lore. The vast majority of the time though, they are perfectly harmless, like a bluegill with dinosaur teeth. If you knew how many of them we ate with socialist rice and tobasco sauce, you'd see it was a one-sided affair.

Still though, doing a hundred meter freestyle to the middle of a river in the Amazon is a daunting task; maybe it was fifty..it was a long swim. Plus I had to beat the native kid, because even though I was just under a year out of the Army, I still felt like Uncle Sam was always judging me. Fear must have been propelling me forward, giving me the edge I needed to beat Manuel. I also might have grabbed his ankle just before the turn, that part's fuzzy.  I emerged victorious though, hoisting my shampoo bottle over my head like it was the Grail. I do whatever it takes to win, sue me.

Building schools and churches in Venezuela was hard work..hot, sweaty, spidery, rash in the, spend a day on the dirt floor of the latrine kind of work. Steve and I had spent the day digging a trench down a hillside. We laid PVC pipe in the trench and connected a rainwater cistern to the school teacher's house. The family was delighted with the dribble that finally emerged from the tiny hand valve, it was going to save them a half-mile slog to the community well with five-gallon buckets. We were proud of our work, and we'd finished with a couple hours of daylight left.

The school

Fishing was absolutely on my mind every time I saw the beautiful landscapes of the Amazon River system, but I was in Venezuela to work, not fish. Plus, the thirty-pound weight limit on the rickety prop plane prevented any extra equipment. I will never forget that landing on the dirt runway, the pilot in his tank top and bare feet, and my dad next to him with a headset; two pilots from different worlds. It was a great adventure. You have to understand this about me, I'll work my butt off for a chance to cast a line out in a new location, but I would have to suppress the urge, or so I thought.

Bob Holloway, the missionary who organized the project, was given a transportation stipend from the Church. He was supposed to buy a car, which isn't so useful in the Amazon. Instead, he bought a flat-bottom johnboat with twin Mercury outboard motors called La Provacadora, which needed no translation. Ed Anders, the retired builder who supervised us, had brought in rods and reels by boat with the construction equipment. They were practical philanthropists, I guess; if you're going to dedicate your life to improving living conditions in South America, you should at least have a fast boat and fishing tackle. They also both knew that I was a lunatic about fishing.

So with daylight fading, and these crazy low storm clouds rolling in, Bob decided to take us on a monster hunt.

In Michigan, a sudden rain squall usually sends people running for cover. In the Amazon, it's like a warm shower that you're always ready for, and badly in need of. Still though, when raindrops the size of your pinky nail are coming in sideways because you're full throttle down the middle of the Orinoco River, it stings quite a bit. I was keeping low, huddled over one of the tackle boxes. I was a couple thousand miles from home, fishing on a completely foreign River, with someone else's gear. A little more time to prepare and strategize would have been great. I had my eye on a seven-foot rod with one of those Penn spinning reels that looked like it came off a Detroit assembly line in the 70's. I gave a tug on the line,  and the well-oiled spool began to feed me line at just the right tension. Ed took care of his equipment...game on. I tied on a five-inch balsa wood minnow, black on top with gold sides. It would mimic a wounded baitfish anywhere on earth. Bob eased off the throttle as La rovacadora's flat belly slid to a stop on a gigantic smooth boulder in the middle of the river.

The Colombian military used these little things to patrol the river
La Provacadora .was bigger and faster, so they often "borrowed"
her to chase smugglers and guerillas.

We were on the largest of a series of boulders stretched from one side of the river. The water rushed between them, forming a series of rapids with plunge pools behind each boulder. Those pools were my target. I fired a cast upstream of the closest boulder, allowing the minnow to tumble through the rapids. As it reached the edge of a pool, I started my retrieve, each sweep of my rod tip sending the wooden minnow on a frantic surge towards the bottom.

I felt weight on the end of the line. It was not the pulse of something living, but the steady, unrelenting resistance that means you've snagged an obstruction. I was hopelessly hung up on the bottom, and I didn't have a lot of time to mess around, so I pulled out my knife To cut the line. A quick slap on my wrist let me know Manuel wasn't pleased with my decision. Back home,  a five dollar lure can be easily replaced, not quite so in the Amazon. So, for the second time in one day, Manuel jumped into the Orinoco to retrieve something of mine. He swam out into the current with his legs and one free arm, holding my line with the other hand to guide him to the snag. He disappeared beneath the surface until I felt the lure pop free.  After hoisting Manuel back onto the boulder, I handed him the pocket knife I'd carried since the Army. He'd obviously earned today's trophy...almost.

 I shot a cast upstream of the furthest boulder and snapped my wrist to send the minnow darting side to side like a wounded baitfish. Once...twice...WHAM! The swirling water let me know he'd struck just beneath the surface. I set the hook hard and felt the head shake before he made for the deep water of the main river channel, stripping line off the reel as he ran. After tiring from the run, he Turned to come straight back at me. I struggled to take in the slack and dropped the rod tip just in time for his first jump. He spent the next five minutes in a  series of runs and rushes, dives and aerial acrobatics. He was a worthy opponent, everything I expected from a place this wild and raw.

He finally ran out of steam, and I took a knee to land him as he rolled onto his silvery side and slid over the edge of the boulder. He looked to me like the love child of a salmon and a catfish, and he had the spirit of both. I reached down to grab him behind the gill plate, but Manuel slapped my wrist, shaking his head. He was standing over me with half of a broomstick...a club. I guess you don't catch and release in a place where food is scarce, I felt silly. He gave it a quick, sharp blow to the head, and it's mouth opened to reveal two giant two-inch fangs protruding from the lower jaw. Manuel had saved me that time, the day was his.....but not before I got the shot. I pulled out my digital camera and tossed it to my friend Craig. "Make sure it's a good one, please..."

8lb 2oz Payara, myself, and La Provacadora. Even in this grainy pic you can see those
teeth! Turns out this one was dinky, they get four times his size!

The Pied Piper

Nestled in the enchanted forests of Lower Saxony is the town of Hamelin. The town has kept a ledger, a log of events in the town, for centuries. If you go all the way back to the beginning of this record, you'll find an entry from 1384, as heartbreaking as it is enigmatic:

"It has been one hundred years since our children vanished."

So begins the true story of the Pied Piper. The historical record gives nothing more.

The Pied Piper Acrylic by Kate Lollio 

Like the plagues in the Holy Scriptures, the horde of rats fell upon Hamelin. This was no simple nuisance, it was a catastrophe. The food supply was threatened, and death and disease always seemed to follow the vermin horde.  Try as they may, the town's officials could not solve the problem, until a mysterious stranger appeared offering a solution...for a price.

One day, a colorfully clothed piper arrived in Hamelin and offered to rid the town of rats for a hefty sum of gold. Desperate, the officials agreed to pay. The piper played as he marched through the streets of the town. Entranced by his music, the horde of rats followed the piper out of town and into the countryside, to the river Weser where they were drowned.

Finally free of the rats, however, the town officials went back on their word, and refused to pay. Angry and bitter, the piper left Hamelin, vowing to return to have his revenge on the townspeople for their treachery.

Woe unto those who forsake the oaths to which they are foresworn.

"In the year 1284 on the feast day of St. John and St. Paul, the 26th of June, 130 children born in Hamelin were led away by a piper clothed in many colors, to their Calvary hill where they were lost." - Luneberg Manuscript, 1440

So, while the people of Hamelin feasted during the Saints day, the piper again marched through the town. This time, it was the children entranced by his melodies. The piper led 130 children through the streets, and out into the countryside, never to be seen again. Of all the children of Hamelin, only three remained. The first child, crippled, could not follow. The second child, deaf, could not hear the piper's music. The third child, blind, could not see where the rest were going.

The clock tower, one of many monuments in the city depicting the legend.

This is my version of the story, immortalized in western tradition, and told by the Brothers Grimm in their 19th-century collection of fairy tales. They were elaborating on an actual event that had occurred centuries earlier, already obscured by hundreds of years of oral tradition.

I walked the streets of Hamelin during my time living in Germany. It was amazing to stand in a fairy tale town, but what really fascinated me was that the story of the Pied Piper had an actual root in reality, a place and time in history you could put your finger on. The details of the event, however, are almost nonexistent. What remains is a skeleton, the framework of a story which the mind rushes to fill with detail. I needed to know more, and there was no more to be found, so my imagination spun with possibilities. I realized that this was the process that created myths and legends.

A tragedy befell the town of Hamelin, an event so traumatizing that it still grips our collective consciousness almost a thousand years later, this we know for certain. In a world filled with massacres and genocide, this story is intimate, one town and it's calamity. The story taps one of our most primal fears, the loss of our kids. It endures, ironically, as a fairy tale we tell our children when we tuck them in safely at night.

The importance of myths and legends to a culture can't be underestimated, a true storyteller understands this. The human mind longs to find meaning in even the most random event, and this process helps in the formation of our philosophies and worldview. Has the modern digital age replaced oral tradition, and if so, can we still find meaning in the events unfolding around us? With these questions in mind, perhaps the simple bedtime story becomes far more important than we ever imagined.

A story without an allegory is a waste of breath.

I Need Someone To Tell Her

Photo by Kate Lollio

4/4 G      C      G

I just need someone to tell her that I love her.

G      C      G

I'm not sure if she wants to hear it from me now.

C      D

Michigan chills me to the core.

G      C

All these sunsets are cold copper ore.

Am

Anymore I can't find my true north,

C      D

and I'd tell her if I knew how.

C   Bm  Am

I'd search the world and never discover

C   Bm  Am

a feeling that touches the essence of her.

C   Bm  Am

I could fill this notebook cover to cover,

C     D    G

but I need someone to tell her that I love her.

I just need someone to tell her that I want her.

Every night I lay my head down on a stone.

Reach out and hold her once for me,

I guess my arms ain't what they used to be,

and I would be the one to tell her,

if she'd pick up the telephone.

Does the ghost of what might have been still taunt her?

Does the host standing in the way still daunt her?

Am I close to resembling the memories that still haunt her?

I just need someone to tell her that I want her.

No Man's Land

Vespers, the evening prayer, Chalk by Kate Lollio

 "Deus, in adiutorium meum intende. Domine, ad adiuvandum me festina." Father Toby's voice boomed the first line of Vespers into the cold air, each syllable an explosion of frost. It was a trick the Reverend O'Flaherty had taught him, a way of focusing on something you knew in a time of crisis. "You truly do have an exquisite singing voice, Tobias," he had said, waving a trembling finger back and forth as though conducting some sort of nightmarish orchestra. "Just try to stay with the beat."

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

"Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto." The whole thing had seemed absurd at the time, but now, in his own time of crisis, he clinged to it desperately. He loved singing in Latin, and he had done it incessantly. Even as a boy, the liturgical language had fascinated him. His parents had known early on that he was bound for the clergy.  It was as though the soaring verses transcended time and space, and took one to a place where angels sang, bathed in colored light. The suffering could never reach that place, and God's presence was always near. Now there was only this profound sense of abandonment.

 He had asked the Reverend which one of the liturgies to sing. The man had simply smiled and answered, "Oh, any one will do." Father Toby wiped the dirt from the face of his watch. Evening was upon them.

Thump, thump, thump, thump.

"Sicut erat in principio, et nunc et semper, et in saecula saeculorum." He sang louder now, as if each word were a plea, even a challenge to God. If he could only sing loud enough, perhaps God would hear him over all the madness, and really return the ones he'd lost. Every part of him longed to see the lame actually walk, and the blind actually see. He needed it now, as though his very sanity hinged on the possibility of the miraculous.

 Thump, thump.

What happens when those miracles never come? What happens when all around you are the lame, the blind, and the dying? When they are reaching out to you, but you have nothing left to give? What do you do when the grief and the loss take root, and your soul cries out for rescue? Why then the loneliness, and the silence? The questions were relentless, and robbed Father Toby of what little rest there was to find here. Every time he closed his eyes, the grain fields of Iowa turned to churned up mud. Every time he thought of the Mass, the beautiful faces of his parishioners melted away, replaced by the faces of boys with hollow eyes.

thump, thump.

His hands trembled like Reverend O'Flaherty's, and he remembered the old man's answer. "Whatever else is there to do, Tobias? You sing. Sing angry, sing bitter, but never stop singing. Sing about God's goodness when your world's gone bad. Sing about love and life in the midst of hatred and death. Sing of God's peace even as chaos erupts. Pray every day as though the Almighty could arrive just then, and should he not, for heaven's sake man, get out there and do his work until he comes!"

"Amen." Thump.

So Father Toby sang out from no man's land. As he sang, his soul cried out from the wilderness.

"Alleluia." Thump, THUMP!

The shells pounded their rhythm; the final shot fell close. He felt the great heave, as though his chest would turn inside out, and his eardrums would burst. He drew his knees to his chest, tightly gathering as much of himself as possible beneath the meager protection of his helmet, and waited for the inevitable shower of earth and wood, metal and gore. The Hunn artillerymen were making the most of their last barrage of the afternoon, and he certainly didn't envy the boys of C Company, currently being raked by cannon fire a couple of hundred yards away.

The ringing in his ears had only just begun to clear when he saw a figure emerge from the smoke, and stumble out alone into no man's land. He had no rifle or helmet, and he was completely covered in mud. Father Toby watched in horror as the man vanished into a shell crater, only to reemerge from the other edge and continue towards the middle of the killing field. Father Toby had been pinned down there all day, and he began waving a timid hand, trying to get the man's attention, while hoping to avoid drawing fire himself. The overturned carriage he sat against was really no cover at all. A well-placed volley of rifle fire could have torn it to bits at any moment.

He cringed at a rifle shot, followed by another, dull pops in the wake of the ear-splitting salvo. A small plume of dirt erupted at the man's feet as he continued aimlessly, oblivious to his surroundings. "Run!" Father Toby shouted, "Run, man, go back!" The man stopped suddenly and looked in Father Toby's directions who was now waving frantically. "Run! Run, man, or get d...."

A rifle shot rang out. The man suddenly jerked, as though punched by some invisible hand, and collapsed into a motionless heap in the mud. Father Toby gasped, exhaling another explosion of frost as he dropped back against the carriage. He again drew his knees to his chest, and buried his face between them. One boy too many, and the last strings began to unravel. Father Toby rocked himself softly, as his tears mixed with French mud.

Movement caught his attention; the heap in the mud was beginning to stir. The man slowly rolled himself over, and reached out a hand above him, grasping at something only he could see. Father Toby's heart began to pound, but he never hesitated. There, in the midst of his own crisis, as the world crumbled around him, he fell back on what he knew best, his calling....God's work. Out there a man lay wounded, perhaps dying. Out there in the open, a man's soul stood at the precipice of eternity, and he was all alone.

Father Toby clenched his rosary tightly as he crawled out into no man's land, its crucifix hanging from his dirty fist, inches from his face as he crept forward on his elbows. The distance seemed overwhelming, but every time he raised his head to check his bearings, there was Jesus, suffering on the Cross. It was then that he remembered that all of the suffering, the pain and loss, were not separating him from God, they were drawing him closer.

Thump, thump, thump, thump

Every scrape and cut became a privilege as he dragged himself across the ground. Each drop of blood a rose for the Blessed Mother, and his broken heart an offering at the foot of the Cross. It was Christ at the edge of every shell hole. It was Christ in front of every wire obstacle. It was Christ guiding him forward. Father Toby prayed as he crawled, and the loneliness vanished as he felt God join him the mud.

"Alleluia." Thump, THUMP!

1916 U.S. Army issued Rosary

"O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia."- From Vespers, the evening prayer.

- From May of 1917 - November 1918, 2,300 American clergymen served as Chaplains in the American Expeditionary Force during World War 1. Father Tobias is my work of fiction, the Reverend O'Flaherty is not. Colman O'Flaherty was an Irish born American, ordained by the Roman Catholic Church in Sioux Falls, Iowa in 1909. He was killed while ministering to the wounded and dying in an artillery barrage on October 3, 1918, one month before the war's end. He didn't carry a rifle, only a sword of the Spirit, still he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions in combat.

This story is dedicated to the Payne family.

Ex

The Boondoxology

Cold Sky by my good friend, Bowen Kline

3/4 C D G

To the man who is able to put in twelve hours, 

and the family that's growing like weeds and like flowers,

and he turns to the fool, when he turns over towers.

C D C

His world can seem cold like the snow,

and there's nowhere but forward to go.

So he turns his chin, to the December wind.

It's the only thing he's ever known.

C D C

Then the snow melts down, into Michigan ground,
C D C -(G)

and he reaps a bit more than he sows.

She studies all night, and she works every day,

and she hopes to be home while the baby's awake.

She prays for a light in the dark where she lays.

God's shoulder seems cold like the snow,

but every Sunday she's in the back row.

The tears on her chin, are her prayers and her hymns.

It's the only thing she's ever known.

Then those tears seep down, into Michigan ground,

in her garden where the lavender grows.

Wolverine

D

Every piece of gravel on this road

A

that I travel's telling me my load

Em

is too heavy, so I'm told

G

that I should cast my burdens down.

The spirits of my family 

are whispering through the maple trees.

I just need to set my mind at ease,

so I'll walk to my hometown. 

Em                                 D

I'm hoping that she'll open up her arms to me.

Wolverine, Wolverine, 

Sturgeon River keep on running cold and clean.

I just need for your September breeze  

to take a hold of me

and wash away all the bitterness I've seen. 

Wash away all the bitterness that I see.

This world has not been kind to me.

I guess I was too blind to see.

that all the things I ran away from,

only brought me back around. 

I've been around a time or two.

I've seen some tricks and learned a few.

I've earned some dollars and burned a few.

Now I'll walk to my hometown.

I'm hoping that she'll open up her arms to me.

Wolverine, Wolverine,

Sturgeon River keep on running cold and clean.

I just need for your September breeze  

to take a hold of me,

and wash away all the bitterness I've seen. 

Wash away all the bitterness that I see.

Great Grandpa built his house by hand. 

I hope that I'm his type of man.

I won't build my house upon the sand

and then watch the rains come down.

But the firmest piece of ground I know 

is just up the road a mile or so.

I've just a while to go,

so I'll walk to my hometown. 

I'm hoping that she'll open up her arms to me.

The Christmas Tree Ship

The Christmas Tree Schooner by Charles Vickery

The three-masted schooner Rouse Simmons set sail from Manistique in November of 1912, with a cargo of 5,500 Christmas trees bound for Chicago.

In the early 1900's, American naturalists became alarmed by the annual harvest of millions of young conifers. After all, it takes seven years to grow an average six-foot Christmas tree. The math was working against American pine forests, and in true Christmas spirit, capitalism and environmentalism would come together to provide the solution.

By 1920, Christmas tree farming had become a year-round occupation, an industry that supplied virtually all of America. Today, Michigan is the fourth largest supplier of farmed Christmas trees, an industry that employs 100,000 people nationally. For every tree harvested in the U.S, three seedlings are planted. At any given time in America, there are 350 million Christmas trees in the process of growing.

In 1912, however, the future was as difficult to predict as a November storm on Lake Michigan.

Herman Schuenemann, captain of the Simmons, was affectionately known as "Captain Santa," for his habit of giving away trees to families who couldn't afford them. He was, above all else though, a businessman. He knew a business opportunity when it appeared, and the 1912 holiday season presented Schuenemann with the opportunity of a lifetime.

By selling his Christmas trees right from the ship at the dock, Schuenemann was able to cut the wholesalers out, offering his trees at the lowest price while maximizing his profits. November snow had fallen heavy on the region, burying the tree farms and hampering Schuenemann's overland competitors. The resulting Christmas tree shortage in Chicago meant a windfall of profits, depending on how many trees Herman Schuenemann could deliver to the dock.

With all this in mind, Captain Santa and his Christmas tree ship sailed headlong, and grossly overloaded, into the jaws of one of Lake Michigan's notoriously deadly November gales. The Rouse Simmons was last seen afloat on November 23rd, 1912. She was low in the water, covered in ice, and flying flags of distress. By early December, Christmas trees were still washing ashore near Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

The Christmas tree ship disappeared that night with all seventeen hands. For decades, Lake Michigan sailors would report spotting a mysterious tall ship, which appeared out of nowhere with an evergreen lashed to her mast.

The wreck of the Rouse Simmons 

In 1971, the Rouse Simmons was discovered in 165 feet of water. She lies upright, with her holds still full of cargo. Among the artifacts recovered were two Christmas trees, which were decorated and displayed nearly sixty years after the ship failed to arrive at her destination.

Americans purchase 30 million real Christmas trees every year, grown on the 350,000 acres of tree farms spread throughout the country. Today's modern Christmas tree ships are giant freighters inbound from China, where eighty percent of our artificial trees are manufactured...a lament for another time.

Each year in early December however, the Coast Guard cutter Mackinaw makes a special voyage in honor of Herman Schuenemann. She sails from northern Michigan to Chicago, with a load of Christmas trees for underprivileged families.

I'm sure Captain Santa would approve.