As long as I can remember, we spent the summer in Madison. We rented a cottage on Canoe Harbor every year, on the land side of the street on the corner of the lane that went through the marsh up to Dr. Gilbert's house and I can remember the faint "Put-Put-Put" of his 2 stroke boat motor as he went out at first light to check his lobster pots. Summers in Madison were just heaven and it was tough every year at the end of Summer to move back to our house on Edwards Street in New Haven. I used to love walking to school in New Haven because every morning and afternoon I'd walk by Yale's nuclear reactor, which I thought was just the coolest thing in the world.

Pop, Tom Keyes, my grandfather passed and apparently left his daughter, my mother some money and they ended up buying a lot at 90 Neck Road, which was almost directly across the street from the entrance to Beach Avenue which turned into Canoe Harbor when it hit the beach so it was basically, from my perspective, perfect. They built a house and we moved in, the back yard had an apple tree and the back of the property butted up against Neck River. On the other side of Neck River was what we all called Neck Woods, the Dark Mysterious Forrest behind the house.

I'd walk down the path and at the river there was an old wooden bridge with stone and concrete abutments holding it up. The wood looked ancient to me, broad planks nailed down to three huge timbers under the deck and in my mind they were about a thousand years old. On the other side of the bridge was the 'deepest part' of Neck Woods, it was just woods down to the Post Road on the north and Neck River on the West and it was just about perfect for kids. A short walk on the other side of the bridge and a path led down along the river, I used to walk that path down to Todd Gould's house. If you went straight, there was a shorter path off to the left and straight ahead there was a "Marker Tree". Someone, rumored to be Indians, marked their trails by tying a sapling down when it was about 6 feet tall, bent over and the tree would grow straight up from the tie down. There were a few of those in Neck Woods and I doubt they were naturally occurring, someone had to shape them like that. Apparently at one time the bridge was used to carry granite blocks out of Neck Wood because scattered around there were old cut stone with the drill holes, half of the at least, still in the rock left behind. It was just about perfect for me and I couldn't have asked for a better place to spend that part of my life.

Years later after I got out of the Army I went back just to see some old friends in Madison and I ended up down on Neck Road in front of the house I'd lived in. I drove down Beach Ave. and saw the old cottage, turned around and headed back to West Haven. I stopped at the corner of Beach Ave. and Neck Road, between Tommy Peterson's and the Duques's house and decided to take a walk into the woods I'd played in years ago to see if I could find the Secret Skull my brother and I had hidden among some rocks. It was a fairly skull shaped quartz stone about half the size of a golf ball and to a little kid the overall shape looked like a Skull so we hid it as treasure and never went back. But that day I did. And doing so my childhood memories took a hit. I remembered the bridge over Neck River as a big, heavy duty bridge but when I walked down to it I was shocked. It was maybe 10 feet from side to side. I look at 'the pond' just down stream and that was no where near the size I remembered. I walked down the path to the Hidden Skull and just beyond where the side paths were, there used to be an arch of pricker bushes over the trail, as a kid we used to walk under it and we pretended it was our Magical Gate that we could run and hide behind if our enemies were on the hunt. Now, I had to crouch down and got stabbed several times passing underneath it but I did manage to pass. The bent Trail Marker tree that used to arc over our heads wasn't tall enough for me to walk under, I had to duck. I headed off the trail towards the secret spot and sure as hell, our Hidden Magical Skull Stone was right where we'd left it years ago. Yeah, it really didn't look much like a skull anymore, just a semi-round piece of quartz with some inclusions. Not vacant eye sockets at all. I spent some time there, just sitting and listening and it was nice to just soak in all the things that had created so many fantastic memories but it was getting late so I put the Secret Skull back in it's hiding place and left. I almost hit my head on the Trail Marker, picked up a few more scratches pass "The Gate" and as I walked back up the path to my car, crossing the bridge that now seems so small and I wondered... are we ourselves the Giants we all dream about as children?

 As promised.

Two totally unrelated events, complete opposites that involved the same people.

Preface:

Some people just did not enjoy military service. I was not one of them. Steve Burley was one of them and he, much like Klinger in M.A.S.H. was trying everything short of a dress, probably because he didn't have the legs for it. It was an absolutely beautiful spring day at Ft. Lewis, not a cloud in the sky, just a bright, brilliant Saturday. A friend of mine said "Hey I got some windowpane" and it went from there, just a really nice, mellow afternoon. I was up on the 3rd floor of the barracks and seeing as it was so nice and seeing as Steve had been so stressed lately I decided to go say hi and see if we could go to Chambers Lake. So I walk into his room and he's got his back to me so "Hey Steve wanna go to Chambers Lake?". He says no, turns around, pushes past me out into the hallway and hits the stairs. What sort of was the most egregious and totally undeserved breach of Buzz Tradition was that apparently as I entered Steve's room he had just done one of those fake suicide little bitch cuts on his wrist. It all worked out in the end but the rest of the afternoon was totally ruined for me. Anyhow, Burley did get out and went home to Walla Walla, home of Walt Whitman University and a few days after I ETS'd I went to visit him in Walla Walla. While there, our playful friends the Peyote Buttons arrived and, again on a Saturday, we head to Pioneer Park to chill. We get there, park over by the pond and  we both agree we had significantly "Underestimated the Yield" and we were just as happy as you could be. Fire truck arrives, I look over where it was parking up and there was a crowd of people and we went over to look and see what was up. Swarm of bees in a willow bush. Firemen are talking about blasting them with the hose and they're setting up to do just that and I asked "Why?". Fireman says "So they don't attack anybody, there's kids here!". Que the Smartass.... Go! "Those bees are in a swarm, they don't have a hive to protect, they won't attack anyone" which falls on deaf ears. Twice. So, tripping balls on a sunny day surrounded by hot chicks I walk up to the swarm and push my hand into it. Right up to my thumb, all the while in my best loud sarcastic trippin on Peyote voice "Yeah look, I'm being attacked!" and people are just doing a group WTF!!??. When I went to pull my hand out though I about lost it, all those bees and their little hook feet hanging on to my skin, it took a lot of effort to actually pull my hand out. Still had some bees on my hand so I looked at who I guess was the Captain and did a little 'karate chop' into my left arm and those bees just fell off. Not one sting. "Gosh, look, loook!! Hundreds of stings!". They left the bees alone and went back to the firehouse and I actually enjoyed the rest of the day.  Steve Smith from Madison lived up past Gould's Pond on I believe Mungertown road... yeah maybe but his father had bees and he told me all about them when I was up there from time to time with my brother and he told me they wouldn't sting in a swarm and I took his word for it and it worked out."