If you want the answers, you need a lot of questions

I think it is safe to say that kids, no matter where they are from, have a natural curiosity of the world around them.

With that said, I suppose you could call me and all my friends who grew up in Inlet a bunch of snoops.

We reveled in anything or anyone that was new to our community.

If there was a new guy driving the oil delivery truck we would tromp around the house where he was making a delivery and ask him who he was and what happened to the old guy.

If we saw a fellow wetting a line on the shore of one of our lakes we would think nothing of sauntering up to him to pepper him with questions.

What’s bitin’? What lure you got there? What sorta bait do you normally use? The questions just kept pouring out.

Sometimes I was by myself when I ran into someone new. It could be a gal poking around the ski trails with her dog, or a fella with a shot gun and hound dog walking down a trail on his snowshoes.

On one particularly warm March day in 1975 I met up with a very interesting sort of fellow. I had made my way up one side of the Limekiln Road on my cross country skis. I was maneuvering along on some thin and crusty brown snow that was diminishing daily under the spring sun.

My dog Mutt was ahead of me hopping back and forth over the snow banks, sniffing at all sorts of animal tracks.

When I made the turn into the Limekiln Campground I saw a small pickup truck parked on the side of the road. A set of skis was leaning on the tailgate and a man was sleeping in the cab.

I double-poled right up to the driver’s side window and peered in to see if he was dead or something.

The window was a bit frosty but I could see that he was breathing. I pulled off my mitten and tapped on the window.

I startled him a bit and his glasses jumped from his face.

When he opened the door I asked, ”What’s up? You going skiing?”

He said yes, that he was just taking a little nap after driving three hours.

“Ya ever ski here before?” I asked, leaning forward on my ski poles.

He looked a little bit shocked that a nine-year-old stranger would be asking so many questions.

“No, have you?” he answered.

The next thing I knew we were making our way through the campground with me taking on the role as inquisitor/tour guide.

As we traveled along I found out a lot about my new friend, Ronnie. He said he was a retired doctor from Rochester and that he just wanted a little alone time in the quiet woods.

“Hey, you can’t get much more away from folks then right here,” I said.

Nonetheless, I spent about two hours skiing and talking with him before returning back to his truck.

As I look back on that day, I wonder if I ruined his entire trip. Me asking a thousand questions and Mutt running across the backs of his skis certainly was a far cry from the solitude he was in search of.

Yet he seemed more patient than I would be today if I were faced with that type of situation. Yet, I guess I’m the same now as I was then. I’m still poking my head around to visit with any new face I come across.

Mitch Lee is an Adirondack illustrator & storyteller, living in his boyhood town of Inlet. ltmitch3rdny@aol.com