Strolling around the woods, contemplating my life as older people are inclined to do, hoping not to get lost in my own backyard, I asked myself, “Self, what talent would you have liked to have had which you are lacking?” It soon began to grow dark as the list grew longer and longer. I made my way home before Kim called the police but, you know something, I believe that the talent I lack most in my make-up is the ability to competently play a musical instrument. I’d also like to be much better at math, but music intrigues me more because I still naively think I have a chance at it: like golf.

Trust me, I’ve tried playing different instruments. For instance, when we were children, my parents had a baby-grand piano in their living room. I’m not sure why, since neither one of them played anything. Perhaps the piano was a symbol of hope, or maybe wealth. I hope that the four children might grow up with a sense of class, or an illusion that we were affluent and were modestly hiding the fact.

Anyway, we were given lessons by an old lady in an even older house in Ambler, PA. I remember that both the woman and the house smelled like camphor, as though moth balls had been stored inside of the piano or in her pockets. Although she tried her best, I could not be coerced into playing a single song or remembering a note. For me, it was all rote memory as I tried to do the notes in the correct sequence. I felt nothing.

That was how my mind worked and that is not music at all. “Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” I would say after almost immediately messing up a simple piano piece. She would get angry and say that she was “tired of waiting a minute. Go home and practice.”

Then she kicked me out of the smelly house, and I would sit on her brick stoop killing ants until my mother picked me up. The old lady had a recital one time in the parlor of her house. I remember it was stifling hot: August and no air conditioning. I played (or attempted to play) Big Chief Wahoo. This is a piece for simpletons and consists of three basic chords played in the manner of an Indian war drum, i.e. lots of pounding. It seemed to suit me but, upon sitting down, I immediately forgot everything and spent the next two minutes ad-libbing something much more complex. It was very embarrassing for all. I took a bow but my parents continued to sweat.

My younger brother, Eric, has that grand piano now. He doesn’t read or understand music, but he plays “by ear,” feeling the notes and making them come alive. It is truly beautiful, and many of his compositions come from somewhere inside of himself. I wish I were like that with a banjo.

Anyway, in high school, I went to the famous Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco during the rollicking hippie days. I came home with strings of love beads and traded them for a guitar from a stoned-out friend. I got a good deal but, alas, the instrument was not magical or blessed by groovy fairy dust as I had hoped. After weeks of practice, I only managed to play a few chords of Michael Row the Boat Ashore (a big hit back then). Hallelujah! I soon quit the guitar.

Prior to my excursion with Braeburn Siberians of Windsor, the only dog-sledding experience I had was when my brothers and I would hitch up our Collie to a plastic sled and attempt to entice him to ‘mush’ down the driveway. This ‘mushing’ would only occur if one of us ran in front of the dog with half a bologna sandwich. If the dog caught you, the sandwich was quickly gone and the ride was over. We always used our younger brother as a pseudo ‘lead dog’ since he was very fast and often wouldn’t be caught for a whole minute. When my wife, Kim, informed me that she had booked a two-hour sled trip for the family I thought, “I’m not really in that kind of shape anymore.” I called my brother. He refused to go, figuring that once more I was tricking him into becoming part of the sled team. Reluctantly, wishing to please the wife, with bologna sandwich tucked securely in my jacket, we headed out to the trailhead in Claremont where we were met by the owner, Alex MacLennan and his assistant, Emily.

Alex MacLennan (above) takes Ron Dull, his wife Kim, daughter
Katie, and grandson Darby on a dog-sled tour.

Now, we like dogs so imagine our delight when, after reaching the designated trailhead, we were greeted by the excited barking of ten purebred, blue-eyed, and energetic Siberian Huskies. These beautiful animals are historically bred to do this sort of thing versus Collies who, like Lassie, are more at home on a movie set and thus reluctant to work unless bribed. A Siberian lives to run and pull! It’s when they are happiest, and for a more thorough description of this magnificent dog you must visit their website (www.braeburnsiberians.com) and read the words of co-owner Kathy Bennett. “If you have any thoughts about it being ‘mean’ to ask them to work, let those reservations go. What would be ‘mean’ to a Siberian Husky is to keep it cooped up in the house with leash walks. This is what the running lines of Siberian Huskies are designed to do. This is not to say that they don’t enjoy couch time. They do! But not as a steady diet.”

Of course, this does not apply to Sunday football or whenever their favorite team – the University of Washington (Huskies) – are in the college playoffs. Then, they just lie around and eat hot dogs.

On the property in Windsor, there are 42 purebreds living together in pristine and obviously loving conditions. The owners began 15 years ago with a mere five but, like potato chips, apparently you can’t have just one. “We are humbled and inspired by the mutual  partnership and friendship we have with the dogs,” they say.

The sled is controlled by a professional driver. There are eight to ten dogs per sled with a 375-pound-weight limit on each sled. There are no reins or physical connections between the driver and the dogs. There are no bologna sandwiches either, but I kept my own close by just in case something happened, and I would have to take command. The team follows the leader. The leader listens to the musher and the musher watches the leader’s body language. It is all built on two-way communication and trust. There seems to be a lot that we as humans can all learn from this operation.

On the day we reserved the excursion the owners picked the best appropriate trail for weather and snow conditions. These trailheads could be anywhere from 15 to 60 minutes from the kennel in Windsor. Our own was chosen to be a portion of the rails-to-trails in Claremont, about 45 minutes from Quechee. After introduction to all of the very friendly dogs and plenty of squealing snuggles, we were quickly off onto a picturesque trail following along the frozen Sugar River.

These dogs love cold weather! The colder the better, but for their human cargo who are getting much less exercise than the running pups (unless smiling a lot counts) the 20-degree temperatures with sunshine, blue sky, and a fresh six inches of snow was simply perfect.

While one passenger sits in the front of the sled, cozy under warm blankets, another will stand on the runners behind the driver and can mush the team. Smaller children like our grandson, Darby, will sit with an adult in the main body of the sled covered by warm blankets and although the entire experience is exciting and unique it is totally safe with no roller coaster style plummets over sheer cliffs or harrowing turns. There are plenty of chances to switch roles, although I must admit I was an impatient rider and really preferred to yell “Mush!” while endeavoring not to fall off and being left to freeze to death in New Hampshire. There are plenty of stops for pictures, switching positions, snacks, and dog snuggles – everybody’s favorite part. By the way, the dogs don’t care if you yell “mush” or not. “Giddy-up” will work just as well.

So, do something different this winter! Check out the website for loads of information and book a trip for the whole family. It’s fun! And that is no bologna!

While it might be true that in the spring a young man’s fancy turns to love, for us older guys it turns to more practical things: like ice fishing. Or, is that just me? Contrary to what you might have heard it is ice fishing, and not polo, which is the true Sport of Kings and manly men.

My friend Doug Cheng told me “Roll down your window” as we crept his three-ton Toyota Tundra out onto the frozen surface of Lake Fairlee in Fairlee, Vermont. “Why?” I asked, having never done this before in my life. “Because if we break through the ice, you can swim out the window,” he explained. This made perfect sense and I couldn’t get it down fast enough as I felt the slick surface of the lake crunching under the wheels. Knowing exactly when to drive onto the ice is very important. There are no safety reports posted anywhere, and local knowledge is critical. Doug, who is an expert at these things, mainly because he has been dunked before, told me that “when other vehicles are out here it’s usually okay.” Usually? I look around trying desperately to find something larger than the massive truck. Nothing. Only Subarus, snowmobiles, and little jeeps. I roll the back window down also.

Angling from the quaint little shacks which you see on Dewey’s Pond, and throughout New England, reminds me a lot of sitting in a Port-A-Potti waiting for a fish to pop out of the hole. It’s really not my way of fishing. I like boats. Granted, some of the shanties have wonderful amenities such as heat and music and mini-bars, but all we had was a truck. I was glad for that at first, but as the wind continued to blow across the barren lake, I thought seriously of renting a structure from an occupant and tossing him out.

Now, I’m not bragging, but I have fished for Arctic Char in the raging waters of the Riverie Poleman in Nunavut where the Inuit guide anchors in the rocks of the torrent and you nearly drown as you throw colorful silver and gold spoons for the strong fish. I pulled two-hundred-pound halibut up three hundred feet from the bottom of Cook Inlet in Alaska, laboring until my arms felt they would burst. I almost died of hyperthermia in Wyoming and couldn’t even haul in a twenty-inch rainbow from the sleet covered Green River. I pulled in catfish the size of dogs while being eaten alive by nuclear-powered mosquitos in the swamps of Louisiana. But I have never been so miserable as ice fishing in Vermont for eight-inch perch. Never.

“Here’s our spot,” Doug declared as he pulled into a small cove. “Nobody’s here.” Now, in my logical mind, there might be a reason for this. The ice was populated with numerous VT/NH plated vehicles and burly men sporting wool hats, heavy beards, and wearing full camo clothing. If this is such a great spot, then why weren’t they here already? Maybe the ice is too thin here? Maybe that’s why all those mountain men are someplace else, like over there?

This whining didn’t seem to bother Doug, and once we parked on our spot, he instructed me to take the gas-powered auger and drill the holes in a straight line. “Why a straight line?” I ask. “If we need to have ten holes wouldn’t it be more efficient as a circle with us in the middle?” This made sense to me until Doug explained that if we weaken the circumference of a circle, then it would be like setting a trap for the next truck that drives through the area. Doug is an engineer. I did as I was told and drilled the ten holes in a straight line through two feet of ice all the while wondering if the last guys here were as smart as Doug. If not, then I would soon be witnessing his Toyota crashing through the ice. I must admit, the thought gave me a certain amount of satisfaction. I’m a Ford guy.

Once the holes were completed, we rigged a very small rod called a “tip-up” over the hole and set a spring so that when a fish bites a little red flag pops up. This would be the signal to put down our nice whiskey and run from the warm truck to pull in our massive trophy perch. This is only in theory. In reality, you must:

1. Constantly use a scoop to bail out the ten holes from ice since they are continually freezing over. There is no getting back into the truck.
2. You bait each hook with a lively shiner minnow which you cannot catch in the bait bucket without removing your gloves. The minnow does not want to be on the hook. He has heard bad things about it, and so he fights like a reluctant marlin.
3. Before you can toss Mister Minnow into the hole, you realize that the line, now resembling stiff copper wire, has frozen to the surface of the lake and must be pried free using your wet, ice-covered and naked hands.
4. Proceed to bait all ten rods. This is not possible because sometime before you are finished a little red flag pops up, and you go running, skidding, and sliding to a hole to pull in a frozen perch, which is only slightly bigger than the minnow it just ate. Note: the fish cannot be removed and the hook re-baited without taking your gloves off (again).
5. Attempt to repeat steps #1 through #4 as another stupid, annoying red flag pops up somewhere down the line.

Some might erroneously conclude, “Well, that sounds like some darn exciting fishing.” I guess, but only in a way similar to having electrodes attached to your body.

Hours later, covered in fish slime and ice, shaking and numb we thankfully crawled the truck onto the lovely firm dirt of the shoreline. We had filled a five-gallon bucket of perch, and I must admit once I thawed out a few days later they were delicious to eat. Doug asked me, “So, how did you like ice fishing?” I admitted to him that I’d rather spend the day surf casting for big Redfish or drowning in the sea. I rolled up the windows trying to get warm. Doug and I never went ice fishing again. Good.

See you on the lake!

Cap’n Ron