The legend of Full Moon Rising

      The Legend of Full Moon Rising     

    A man of white beard and brown hair crawled across a barren desert in desperation.  Dune after dune of endless sand lay before him for as far at the eye could see.  Making his last stand, the man committed himself to achieving the top of the next dune; beyond that he wasn’t sure he would be able to continue.  An hour later the man finally crested the top and peered over into the depression below. With the sun blazing in his eyes the man could hardly believe his good fortune; a small wooden structure revealed itself in the duned valley below. Not having eaten in the last four days he found himself clinging to this one bastion of hope.

      The man, with renewed purpose and waning energy set out to reach the structure which, as he got closer, looked more like a shack, or a stand of some fashion.  “Could it be a food stand?  he thought to himself.  He allowed himself this thought briefly and then scolded himself for raising his hopes too high.  There appeared to be signage on the front with colors and numbers and pictures of which he could not make out the details.

      Still unable to walk, the man crawled closer and to his delight, discovered that yes it was indeed a food stand, a farmers market  specializing in the sale of the humble onion. A large white wooden onion was attached high above the counter in cartoon caricature. Not believing his own eyes he rubbed them and re-focused affirming his discovery. 

      The man, reared in a small outpost of fertile lands on the other side of the world, had grown up on the onions of his region and had developed a deep seeded love for all variety of Allium cepo, the common bulb onion.

      “To what diete do I owe my good fortune?” he thought to himself “Not only have I discovered my only salvation of food for miles around in this forsaken desert, but they are serving my beloved onion, my best meal. Oh I can almost feel the crisp crunch on my teeth and the clear juice running down my chin. Oh happy day, Oh happy day!”

    He crawled forth a little faster now but at his current pace it would still be a good thirty minutes to the shack; His mind turned to all things onion. 

     He remembered that his grandfather who had lived to the ripe old age of 100 years old had been quoted in his village ledger, as attributing his long life to two distinct things: Hard daily physical work and eating lots and lots of onions.

    The hard physical labor bit had always made a lot of sense to the man.  The regular exercise, he knew increased circulation and  was good for his heart. But what was it about the onion? Was it the vitamins and minerals that manifested the fountain of youth in the onion or was it something more, something intangible or maybe mystical? He didn’t know for sure, he just knew that he loved to eat them and if it led to a longer life then it was a good thing. Deep down though, he knew that even if strong scientific evidence pointed the other way towards the onion leading to cancer or other illness, he would probably eat them anyway; he simply loved them.

      The man had a wonderful childhood growing up in a small agricultural town where his mother and father tended to a bountiful garden yielding everything from rowed corn to melons of water, and of course his beloved onions.  There were no hard times of famine in the man’s early life such as he was experiencing now. He had grown with a wide variety of wonderous foods that were available in season, or put up into jars for winter subsistence.  It was this variety of foods that shaped the diversity of the man’s pallet. There was no food the man did not enjoy as a young lad; sans one, the raisin.

      It is not clear the reasoning or logic behind the man’s aversion to the seemingly innocuous chewy brown fruit, but it could very well have been that heredity played a strong role because all three of the man’s children and his seven grandchildren, to this day, avoid the raisin like the black plague of old.

      Prolific since 1490 BC, the raisin at one time in early Roman times was so valuable that two jars of them was the equivalent of one slave in trade.  To the man though, two jars of them was to insult the jars themselves.

     Fumbling through the pockets of his torn knickers the man found what he searched for, his last gold coin.  And with the coin tucked in his clutches he managed to pull himself upright, although terribly difficult, to a standing position at the counter.   

     There was a lone person un-packing boxes from the back of the onion stand and was unaware entirely of the man’s presence. Unable to speak due to his emaciated state the man waited to be waited on with what patience he had left.  It was then that the man noticed the small cardboard sign propped up on the counter no more than an arms length away from him written in what looked like black pen:

  Sorry! N O   M O R E    O N I O N S.

     TODAYS SPECIAL:  RAISINS

   

      A gust of wind swept a tumbleweed up and over the nearest sand dune out of sight.  The creak of rusty hinges on the shack shutters were followed by the rhythmic knock of plywood repeated itself gently.  The breeze was no match for the late afternoon sun that beat down relentlessly soaking itself into whatever it could.  A lone scorpion appeared to observe in a motionless stance  from a nearby sand drift.

     The Raisin stand attendant, some fifteen minutes later, made her way up to the counter to wipe it clean.  There, not at all upright anymore, was the cardboard sign with a ball point pen jousted through the middle like the axel of some strange wheel.  Confused, she looked out to the desert beyond and with a stoic look of oblivion and genuine befuddlement witnessed a man crawling away with a white beard and brown hair. The man was slowly moving back up the sand dune hill adjascent to his own down-tracks; Not at all dead yet, and still of sound mind he made painstaking headway back into the heart of the desert from whence he came; his knickers were pulled down just far enough to expose his entire hairy and chapped posterior.

     

Onions and Raisins      

     As I ducked through the short trapper door, I was hit with the aroma of beans cooking on the stove.  As usual, the kitchen area was a clutter of unfinished business.  The beans were in a large oval-shaped cast iron pot simmering away on the propane cook-stove.  They had soaked overnight and began cooking early in the day.  Another section of counter had neatly chopped piles of caribou steak, moose bacon, garlic, celery, onions, green peppers, and jalapenos.  On the other side of the kitchen was the loosely organized wet bar that included martini makings with a jar of jalapeno stuffed green olives nestled in the middle. Various bourbons, a bottle of rum, a few cokes and a lone bottle of Alaskan Amber rounded out the selections.  Next to the bourbon was a small collection of raw veggies that hadn’t been cleaned up or cut yet.  A few of them were still neatly wrapped in paper towels with rubber bands around them, an old camping trick.  Several spices gathered near the beans.

     The cabin was warm and humid.  It was a sharp contrast to the ultra dry fifteen below zero outside. There was a steady hiss hovering in the cabin from all three lanterns and the cook stove firing.   Elton John was crooning us from the battery powered stereo.  I wondered if the extra batteries in the corner cabinets were still good.  For now there seemed to be plenty of juice left to fuel our evening ambiance.  Had Elton ever heard the hiss of propane lanterns?  I wasn’t sure.

     After I took off all of my wet outer clothes I found the last vacant hook over the woodstove.  There must have been a hundred pounds of wet winter gear drying on all of the hooks.   I walked past dad who was busily adding chopped onions to an already large pile on the old warped wooden cutting board.  I noticed a solo mouse turd out of the corner of my eye, hiding under the edge of a cloth potholder nearby.

     “Any luck?” dad asked as he reached for another round paper towel onion.  He snapped the rubber band off of the onion and added it to the others around his wrist.  Dad had been wrapping onions in paper towels on camping trips ever since I could remember.

     “Nah, but I saw some wolf tracks way up Indian though.”

     “Cool” 

     I reached behind dad to grab a coke and a glass.  “I bet we’ll get some tomorrow,” I speculated.  I could feel the heat from the kerosene heater come and go on my poly-pro covered leg as I headed to the table.  I took a deep breath and relaxed into my green plastic chair.                         

     Brent was upstairs, crashed after a late night crack at some coyotes with his predator call.  It had been a full moon and it was like a big round floodlight saturating the woods with visibility.  He would soon be up, most likely drinking his usual mix of Jim Beam and coke and calling everyone “boss.”  Pete was over in his new cabin cleaning the place up for the up-coming Iditarod weekend.  He just finished hooking up his woodstove and was hoping to spend the night there for the first time. 

     “Where’s Rach?” I asked.  Despite the fact that we sometimes worry about mom trekking around alone, she does find some neat stuff on her wanderings. She dances to the tune of her own music and will wander and putz around for hours sometimes until dark. Often she returns with her small treasures; an old lure found on the river bank or an interesting rock or beaver stick.  Her path is usually littered with a trail of small branches and twigs that she leaves in the wake of her trusty sandvik that she waves around like a magic wand.

      “I think she went towards Jim’s place,” Dad guessed.  With a steady swipe of his hand, he dropped all of the onions off of the cutting board onto the skillet held below the level of the counter.  A generous pour of olive oil and a glob of minced garlic were already mingling in the pan.  The oil was hot and making a pleasant sizzle, sending off a familiar aroma mixing with that of the beans.  A couple of wrist motions with the pan and wooden spoon made the whole mess of onions dance on the stove.  “If she’s not back soon I’m sending out an APB,” dad joked as he took a sip of his drink. The slush shifted in his clear glass which revealed a flash of green near the top.

     “Whatcha drinkin there dad?”  I wasn’t sure if it was a martini, cubra libre, or a gin and tonic.  From what I’ve gathered from Indian Creek folklore, gin and tonics are generally consumed in the warm summer days due to their refreshing tartness, whereas martinis and cubra libres have no such seasonal restrictions. 

     “martooni” he said letting out a satisfied Ahh sound before setting down his drink.

      Just then mom came pouring through the door engulfed in a cloud of steam like a cold weather batman.  She quickly shut the door behind her and began to take off her hat and neck warmer which revealed her rosy red cheeks for all to see.

     “Wow, nice apples Rach!”

     “Thanks,” she replied in her optimistic cheery way.  “There are some ravens way up in a birch tree past Jim‘s place, I think they were watching me.”

     “Cool” replied dad without missing a beat on his growing hill of onions.

     “Have you seen Pete?” I asked.

     “Yeah, he’s got his woodstove roaring over there.  His cabin is already warm”.

     Brent had given Pete a large woodstove that he’d salvaged from one of his families rentals that fall. The stove was an earth stove, able to heat a 2000 square foot house in a single bound. Pete’s 100 square feet would probably heat up with just  the match.   I was curious how it would work.  I suggested that if nothing else we could use it for a sauna house or oven.

     Dad was calmly alternating between stirring, mixing, and chopping some veggies for a salad. Occasionally he would take a sip of his martooni followed by another Ahh.  There was no hurry today.

    Pete and Brent joined us and settled into the living room near the heat source.  True to form, Brent started in on a super-sized beam and coke with a snow chunk floating around the big plastic tumbler.  Pete followed suit with Wild Turkey instead.

     “What’s for dinner?” Pete asked.

         “Ants on a log,” I said referring to the childhood snack of celery sticks filled with peanut butter cradling a trail of raisins on top.  Pete chuckled.

     “What are ants on a log?” Brent asked.

     “Are you kidding me?” Pete’s look turned serious.  “You’ve never had ants on a log?”

    “I don’t know, maybe I have.  What are they?”

    Pete went on to chastise Brent about his ignorance in this matter eventually describing the recipe.  I paid attention to Dad’s expression when Pete got to the part about the raisins.  His face turned into a sour scowl as if smelling a potent fart.  Dad, never having developed much of a taste for the raisin, once referred to raisins as a “waste of a good grape”. 

    Calling Pete’s attention to dad’s face sent us into a fit of laughter, including a near accident with my drink almost coming out my nose.

     I turned my gaze towards dad and noticed that things seem to be coming to a head in the kitchen. There was a rich mix of smells swirling around giving my stomach a grumble. Mom had set the table with paper plates and plastic forks.

     Dad brought the pot of beans over to the table with a large serving spoon and a brand new bottle of Tobasco still in the cardboard box.

     Finally, dinner was done and we all sat down to a robust meal that filled our bellies.  The next day we decided we would bait up a few more boxes and set a few more traps along the ridge.  The martin trapping had been slow but nobody seemed to mind.

safe for now.