One-Eyed Jack

I have come to believe that historically cold and snowy places have a tendency to bake in a certain weirdness in the population. Take Maine for instance. This place is an icebox for five long months in the late fall and winter. Snow is everywhere, all the lakes freeze over, and after that the spring brings mud and lots of it. So what are a people to do when faced with this sort of dreariness? Well, for starters, they do stuff like this…

Meet One-Eyed Jack, an otherwise nondescript maple tree here at Fernwood Cottage. Someone—it would be presumptuous to assume its the owner of Fernwood—went to the trouble of adorning this tree a full twelve feet from the ground. The droopy eye, puckered lips and aristocratic nose suggest a level of sophistication. Did he/she start out with two eyes only to lose one during a particularly violent winter storm or was he born this way? It only adds to the mystery. It would be one thing if this was a one off. But in our years up here we have encountered these type of anomalies all over the Maine woods. There was one on a gravel path at Crawford Pond several years back who we fondly nicknamed Donald Trunk. You take enough hikes down random trails up here and you will meet all manner of decorated trees, weird stick men engaging in sword fights, the occasional display of gnomes decorated with outlandish beads and trinkets. It’s like a museum of oddities.

This guy here, One-Eyed Jack, is placed directly in the line of sight of whoever happens to be cooking dinner on the grill out on the back deck. At first it’s kinda cool, but after a while you start to think that he’s mocking you—“Look at this Virginian trying to cook steaks on the grill. He wouldn’t last ten minutes here in February. And how about that accent?! What a hick!” You can practically smell his attitude! 

But the snarky vibe that this guy gives off isn’t limited to dinner time. Yesterday I went for a kayak trip that was quite extensive…

 

It took over an hour and a half to paddle this 5.3 miles. As I was walking up the path to the cabin I passed One-Eyed Jack and could have sworn I heard him say…If you were a real Mainer you would have gone all the way around the lake. What a wuss!! It could have been my imagination, but honestly I wouldn’t put anything past him.