Well, it seems I’ve lived long enough to earn the right to be an old curmudgeon. Over the course of my years, I’ve known a number of curmudgeons, and I consider it to be a real honor to have joined their ranks.

The fact that I have a public mouthpiece, with columns in several local newspapers, is certain to enhance my curmudgeonly development.

In order to be a proper curmudgeon, I will need to have something to complain about. Fortunately, there are still plenty of kids left in the world.

As a child, I was a curmudgeon’s best friend, as I was always up to no good, even when I wasn’t trying. Today’s kids really don’t provide us with much fodder. They certainly aren’t as visible as we once were, but I guess that’s because they now spend so much of their time inside.

What a dangerous waste of time.

Summer is a special time for kids, as they are free to escape the four walls of a classroom. In fact, they have the opportunity to escape “rooms” altogether by spending both day and night outdoors.

The curmudgeon in our family was our mother. She ruled the indoor space, and she simply wouldn’t put up with us hanging around the house. She regularly chased us outside with the business end of a broom, and for that reason, I’ll be forever grateful.

Once we were forced outside, it was time to devise a new series of hair-brained schemes that would be useful in pestering a few of the local curmudgeons.

Since there are very few children living in my current neighborhood, I’ve focused my curmudgeonly wrath on the creatures that are close to my territory. With a golf course in my side yard, and a brook trout stream in the backyard, my choice was an easy one.

Golfers dress funny and spend most of their time riding around in small carts. Occasionally, they will depart the cart to bash small balls with a long club. Mostly, they miss the ball and send large chunks of the earth flying off in all directions. They also seem to swear quite often, even after they have kicked the white ball in the hole when no one was watching.

Golfers continue to provide plenty of opportunities for me to exercise my curmudgeonly wrath. However, they carry big bags of wood and metal clubs, which has somewhat tempered my enthusiasm.

Instead of dealing with golfers, I prefer to spend my time on the stream, waving a long line at the end of a small fly rod in an effort to attach a trout to a hook.

I still attempt to exercise my curmudgeonly ways, but they are now focused mostly on the occasional mergansers that settle on the stream. Although I have not crossed paths with a golfer, I’ve been raising hell with the brookies.

—

Good times, sad times

I recently ran into an old friend, and we spent a long afternoon reminiscing about some of the adventures we had shared in our younger days.

We grew up down the street from each other in Elizabethtown, and spent a lot of time enjoying outdoor adventures, fishing, hiking, swimming, biking and generally exploring our surroundings. Over the course of time, we had climbed nearly all of the local peaks, paddled and fished the streams, rode our bikes, and later motorcycles, just about everywhere.

Swimming holes were a major topic of our conversation, since so many of the old-favorite holes are no longer accessible due to private ownership or to the drastic changes that have occurred as a result of historic flooding. There aren’t many of the swinging ropes left, and many of the deep, river-bend pools just aren’t so deep anymore.

After blowing off the swimming scheme, we hiked up to a lean-to that is located on the summit of a local hill. Sadly, the place was a mess. It appeared to have been ransacked, with trash thrown all about, a grove of birch saplings broken and graffiti carved into the stripped bark.

During our college years, we spent the summer camped in a private lean-to on another nearby hill. It was the 1970s and we enjoyed a few parties with bonfires and such, but we never trashed the place, and we left no evidence of graffiti.

I’m left to wonder if we are just getting old. Or does the current generation have no regard for the majesty of this place?

Later in the day as we retraced our (ancient?) footsteps farther downstream along the lower reaches of the Boquet River, I was again confronted with a scene beyond belief at Little Falls, a charming waterfall and deep chasm that’s located few miles downstream from the hamlet of Wadhams.

The falls and adjacent lands are owned by The Nature Conservancy, and they have been preserved so future generations of Adirondackers can enjoy the river’s cool waters on a hot day.

Yet, it appears the current generation not only uses the lands, it abuses them as well. There were dozens of toilet paper flowers in plan sight, mixed in with heaps of garbage, half-burned tires and green logs that were obviously chopped on site.

Little Falls was just one of many old party spots that we had once frequented. We usually had a fire and we likely drank a few beers. But we cleaned the place up and we had the good sense not to smash the bottles because we were almost always bare-footing it.

I have witnessed increasing evidence of this creeping abnormality all over the park. The visual vandalism has also increased, with the “tagging” of bridges, walls and trees with spray paint. Some of it is obviously the result of outsiders, but it is not solely their doing. I wonder if the pitiful vandals would be so cavalier in their disregard and disrespect for the environment if it occurred in their own backyard.

It annoys me whenever I find a field of toilet paper flowers just off the trail, and cringe when I see a pile of discarded monofilament fishing line hanging in a tree or a styrofoam worm container left on the shore. Such acts of stupidity and laziness are just plane stupid.

Fires with tires, broken glass and spray painting goes too far beyond my comprehension to deal with. Even a pig knows better than to soil its home; it’s obvious there are some folks who don’t have either the brains or the dignity of such animals.

It may be a time to put up some trail cameras at these popular party locations. If a shot of these pitiful souls becomes available, I would welcome an opportunity to run the photo, so the public can congratulate them.

—

When was the last time you …

Every season, I set about establishing a list of outdoor undertakings I hope to achieve. It doesn’t pay to get too far ahead in these plans. I find that it’s best to plug a few ideas in the back of a file, a notebook or a stack of “to do” notes. It really pays to keep them nearby, on a desk, in a folder or someplace that’s easily accessible.

I usually like to put them in terms of a question. As in, “When was the last time you caught a lake trout, or jumped off a bridge?”

Other times, I will spell it out more directly: “Go to Shoebox Falls on the next muggy day!”

While the technique does not always work, it has been efficient enough to keep my standards satisfied, with only a few weather-related lapses in my annual backcountry skiing plans. In recent years, the strange weather change has been responsible for expediting many adventures.

“Go fishing on the ponds, on opening day.” Check. April 1, 2016. Been there done that, and I never hope to do it again.

I’d also like to hike over Giant from the backside, to see the glowing fungi and be on the summit for sunrise.

There are more than three dozen “to do’s” on my list, and I intend to continue to add two for every one I scratch off.

There are only so many seasons to come, and the next NYS Free Fishing dates in the state are the weekend of June 25-26. Mark it down now, before you forget.