Pool_1

>> North Mountain <<

Even in this bright daylight he could visualize the shadow of Nino sitting there in the old restaurant. Hauling more ice cream than anyone had ever hauled in such a truck, he was nonetheless disconnected from his own potentiality of a melting reality to a more absorbing reality of the past that seemed to still be here. Time didn't flow at the foot of North Mountain. It puddled. Drawn to old places and memories, Marcus was lured on, up North Slope, on and up the long winding street which led to the reservoir just past the summit marked by the horns. A granite mountain with a sprawling lake at the top, it must have been beautiful to the Indians who once lived here hundreds of years ago. Abundant fish, birds in multitudes, numbers and kinds were once at home here. A virgin valley graced mother earth and beckoning the beholder. A sixty mile path to an unspoiled ocean, uncomplicated by steel ships, began here winding in natural shapes through the landscape and along rivers toward narrows which could be crossed on foot. There were no straight lines. Nature has none. Earth is curves, hills, crests, valleys, waves, jagged outcroppings, ragged heights and shifting depths but never straight lines. Even the birds trace in graceful arcs. Straight lines are the mark of man. Some men more than others. This place had seen its share of those men and most sadly modern industrial men whose straight lines connect anything of value to their own pockets. A pair of vertical pikes jabbed into the lazy sky, nearly making it bleed. The two massive projects stood alone, mocking God’s plan. They overlooked the reservoir, once a lake then, bird sanctuary and even reservation, yielding titles in succession. If that wasn't death enough for the eye, the projects and the reservation were both encircled in