As far as I can figure, there aren’t a lot of advantages to old age. Yeah sure, it’s better than dying young, but still not the Golden Years Paradise I was told to look forward to. I guess everything comes with a price, and achieving Old Fart-hood is no exception.

Take senior discounts. After dragging my sorry dupa through nearly eight bone-and-soul-crushing decades, my reward is a half-buck off Metamucil or Maalox?

Or how about those “Senior Specials” at restaurants, which feature easily-chewed and easily-digested bland, frozen swill, often spritzed with something brown and greasy they call gravy?

And then in city transport there are a few seats designated for wrinkled wretches only. Great deal, eh? Great deal, no! Instead, they’re an insult. Here’s the thing, according to li’l ole Dopey me: There shouldn’t be ANY seats designated for the nearly-departed. Instead, we should live in a society where young peeps were taught since early childhood to defer to their elders — at least as far as offering seats and maybe holding a door or two open for them. And as soon as we see that, we’ll also see a dollar gallon of gas and a ten cent cup o’ joe.

There is one great advantage of old age, which is lording it over young peeps about how easy they have it … and how hard WE did. They’ve been on cruise control their whole lives, something we never did or even imagined. They live in sultanic splendor and whine about how hard they have it. We, on the other hand, busted our humps, did without, never got either recognition or comfor t…and accepted our cruel lot with an equanimity that would’ve made Marcus Aurelius look like a candy ass.

What we’re doing is indulging in Virulent Nostalgia.

Never heard the term? That’s understandable, since I just made it up. But it’s a real — Alte Kockers thinking everyone and everything today is half the man their father was.

But is it true? Who knows? I think in most cases, it’s just sour vineyards on the old farts’ behalf. But still it happens all the time, even here, in My Home Town.

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The voice of experience

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Talk to any native Saranac Laker my age or older (provided you can find one) and he’ll be sure to run one game on you. It is “Winter in The Golden Age.”

Here’s how it goes. You (who moved here “recently”) run into him on a brisk February morn. The temp is minus ten and there’s a wind whistling down from Hudson Bay right through you.

You smack your gloved hands together, trying to get feeling back in your hands and say, “Damn, it’s cold!” And you just opened the floodgates.

“Cold?” he says. “You call this cold?”

He sneers and spits in a virtuoso display of contempt. Then he launches into when winter used to be WINTER! The wording may change, but the litany’s always the same: Brutal temperatures weeks on end. Snow up to the telephone wires. White outs. Dead cars. Broken down furnaces. Water freezing in the dog’s bowl. Etc. Yet still, he walked four miles to school, did his 95-customer paper route, shoveled driveways for hours on end for a nickel an hour. And more Etc.

“You moved here when?” he says. “Ninety-two? We haven’t had an authentic winter since ’79, I can tell ya. And that one was a REAL doozy.”

And on and on he goes, Old Man Frozen River.

Some of that had to be true; maybe all of it was. But now I’ll share something with you that few other old townies will: The winter we’re going through now is also a REAL winter. We might not have had as many sub-zero days as in the old winters, but we’ve had at least as many single-digit ones. We might not have had as much snow, but we’ve sure had our share. We’ve also had wind, frozen lakes, whiteouts, icy roads and sidewalks, and all the other winter “treats” of my Gilded Youth.

And you know what that means?

Just this: We are about to have the best Winter Carnival ever! And if it doesn’t meet up to your expectations, then I personally will refund all your misery and disappointment.

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The Iceberg Effect

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One thing I want to highlight is Carnival’s flagship — our Ice Palace.

The Ice Palace is like an iceberg — 90% of it is beneath the surface. In what ways, you ask? In ALL of them.

First, you may not realize that we have one of the only ice palaces in the world that is made up wholly of ice. Many of the other palaces (and there aren’t many anyway) are either a combination of ice blocks, and snow blocks that’ve been put in molds and sprayed with water, or they’re made up exclusively of snow blocks.

Second, at other winter carnivals, they charge admission to go in their ice palaces. Ours is — like ALL our sponsored Carnival events — free to all.

And finally, the amount of time and effort that goes into building the palace is astounding, and almost no one is aware of it. That is, of course, because we drive by the palace or walk around it while it’s being built, and we get only the briefest look at it. You see some folks in there moving to and fro, equipment moving this way and that … and that’s it.

Obviously, I can’t cover everything and everyone that goes into making the palace, but let me give you a brief overview.

For one thing, we’ve got the IPW (Ice Palace Workers) a fanciful, self-proclaimed union that is unique for having the worst working conditions, nonexistent pay, and the highest morale of any union in, well, the Union. Dean Baker was the Commanding Officer for a bunch of years, this year Joe Plumb has the duty. But while that role is supervisory, it’s not really commanding in any sense: That crew works side-by-side and in perfect unison — a well-oiled machine (with oil that never gets sluggish, let alone freezes). And no matter how lousy the weather is, not only don’t they complain, but they THRIVE on it. No workers, no palace, but there are a whole lot more peeps without whom we’d have either no palace or one not much bigger than a breadbox.

The ice blocks, of which there are about 3,000 in the finished palace, each weigh around 500 pounds. Now, the IPW guys and gals are a hardy bunch for sure, but even they can’t cut and then hustle those blocks into place without lots of help from machines and their operators.

So here’s a list of those folks and what they do:

¯ Taylor Rental — skid steer, man lift

¯ John Donnelly — personal tractor

¯ Paul Smith’s College — log loader

¯ John Pietras — personal tractor

¯ Luck Brothers — crane

¯ Bill Madden — personal tractor, 4 wheeler

¯ Equipment rental–telehandler

¯ Larry Sweeny — snow blower

¯ Hyde Fuel — diesel

¯ Mark Weller — snow blower

¯ Cliff Cochran — excavator

¯ Jeff Chambers — 4 wheeler

¯ Cliff Beairsto — 4 wheeler

And while diamonds may be forever, snow blowers aren’t, so when they go on the fritz, Tommy Dupree repairs them. And he, like all the peeps with the equipment, refuses to take any payment. Which is a darn good thing, because if we had to pay for the Ice Palace, the only way we could do it would be by winning the Powerball.

While Hyde’s supplies the diesel, there’s another bunch of folks who provide fuel for the workers. Here are the businesses and organizations who keep the calories coming:

¯ Women’s Civic Chamber

¯ Bitters and Bones

¯ Lakeview Catering

¯ Ray Brook Brewery

¯ Little Italy

¯ Downhill Grill

¯ The Moose Club

¯ River Trail BeerWorks

¯ Owl’s Nest Pizza

¯ Ryan Blanchard

¯ Blue Moon Cafe

¯ Early Dawn Confections

¯ Hyde Mobil

¯ The Pickled Pig

¯ Nutrition 365

¯ Freelance bakers like Barb Granish who dropped off yummies, on their own.

That may not be the whole lineup. I tried to include everyone, but may have left some peeps out, and for that I apologize in advance. But you can see how the palace isn’t a communal effort, but a COMMUNITY one.

Now that you’ve seen who and what goes into making our palace you might think, What can I do to show them my appreciation?

Well, since they don’t want either money or recognition, I think the only one way you can show your gratitude is by indulging in The Dope’s Carnival Trinity.

First, go to as many events as you can — either as a participant or a spectator.

Second, wear outrageous outfits. Remember, it’s Saranac Lake Winter Carnival: Weirdness is not only allowed — it’s mandatory!

And third, shake lots of hands, give lots of kisses, and laugh too much, too loud and too long.

Anything less would be, in my not-so-humble opinion, a half measure — at best.