Hot Dog Shacks and Covid 2019: Weathering the Storm

When I was two years old, my parents moved from Cortland, NY, to Stony Creek, a tiny little town that literally dead ended into the Adirondack Mountains . This was a homecoming of sorts: Done with college and a brief career as a USAF officer, my dad was moving his little family back to the east coast, to the sprawling but tiny hamlet in upstate New York where his family had spent vacations when he was a teenager growing up in New Jersey. 

My parents arrived in Stony Creek with few possessions; they were mostly packed into an old,  green Ford van. Actually, my boys would probably nickname any van like it the “pedo van”, meaning it probably looked like a van someone would use if they were kidnapping kids. I don’t really remember when or where we got the van or how long we had it. 

I also don’t remember how we came to live in a hot dog stand. Maybe this is the time to say that we didn’t truly live in a hot dog stand, but we did convert one into a little one room home. Here’s what happened: Stony Creek had just hosted its annual “Mountain Days” festival. Mountain Days was a nod to my hometown’s beginnings; Stony Creek was founded in the 1800’s as a logging community. Every summer there was a festival at the town park. Vendors would bring their food and cheap toys, and there were lumberjack contests like ax throwing, sawing, and so on. 

Somehow my parents made two purchases within a short amount of time: A four acre parcel of land on Lanfear Road, and the hot dog stand. The stand was hauled to our new property, and voila! We moved in.

This wasn’t your typical move. There was no U-Haul. There were no neighbors. (If you’ve never lived in the middle of a forest, it’s hard to understand). There was no home inspection, and no loan documents.  Instead, our house was placed on a few cinder blocks. I imagine we spent our first night looking through the hole in the wall where windows would later be and thinking, “Wow, the stars sure look bright tonight.” Or, maybe we put on our bug hats to fend off the mosquitoes as we fell asleep listening to crickets. (Bug hats are a real thing. We used them often during the summer. I hated the inconvenience, but Adirondack mosquitoes are very hungry. And the deer flies? Their bites left welts.) We couldn’t turn on the electricity to read a bedtime story, and there was no air conditioning to mediate the sixty percent humidity. There was no plumbing, either, and certainly no furniture. Furthermore, even though we were in a home, the land we were on was in the same condition as our building: It wasn’t exactly prepped and move-in ready. There were no power lines. There was no well. There wasn’t even a driveway leading to our property, just a bumpy old access road. You pretty much needed a WWII- era Willys Jeep to get to our house, except during mud season, when a tank would have been better. In spite of all the things we were missing,  there were lots of brambles and bushes, mosquitoes, wild berries, bears, deer, and everything else you’d expect to see in a true forest. 

You could say we were off grid. We really weren’t even glamping. We were camping, sleeping on a plywood floor, using kerosene lanterns and hauling water from the local mountain spring and going to the laundromat and the grocery store when needed. We didn’t have a stove at first. I remember sitting around a campfire outside, burning marshmallows and even my hair, and tromping off into the woods when we needed to use the facilities. It was novel, and fun, and what three year-old wouldn’t love to do that every night?! We were living our own real life episode of Survivor. 

Well, time went on. We lived in our hot dog stand for about two years. My parents dug trenches for power lines, and Niagara Mohawk came and installed electricity, so we were able to have a refrigerator and lights. We had a gas cook stove and a wood stove, and we got an outhouse. I still remember hopping down in the hole my dad was digging for it and watching a ton of little frogs jump around. We insulated our little hot dog stand and added windows and front steps. We continued to go to the “spring” for our water supply, driving about a mile and a half to a spot on Roaring Branch Road where there was an old metal pipe stuck in the hillside. We’d put our plastic jugs under the pipe and listen as they filled up with the coldest, wettest, most delicious water on earth. During the winter, we’d have to break the ice around the pipe or even wait for a warmer day when the water was flowing.  I remember riding in a plastic sled, holding onto the water jugs as my parents pulled their cargo up the bumpy driveway when the snow was a couple feet deep and walking was easier than getting our pickup stuck. Somehow, we never got giardia, and we always had hot water for baths. 

Bathing was something else.  We had a galvanized metal tub, but I was the only person who really used it. My parents figured out ways to shower without the tub.  We were always clean in spite of the inconvenience of bathing in our circumstances. 

We didn’t have many possessions during this time, but we had all of the critical intangibles:  A beautiful place to live. Focused, unhurried time together. We played games, went on walks, and used the library. My mom wrote a lot. My dad had a job. (My mom had me, and I’m sure I was the equivalent of a couple full time jobs. ‘Nuff said.)  We were all healthy. We spent a lot of time outside, doing everyday work like splitting firewood and clearing more land for our yard. 

We had supportive families. I remember visits and being visited. Uncle Craig always brought a car load of cousins, and Uncle Drew read me “Peter Goes to School” a thousand times. 

My parents had grit, determination, and all of the characteristics of successful people. They were responsible, worked hard, didn't blame others for their situation, and they certainly didn’t go crying to their parents or siblings when things were hard.  Our living arrangement was temporary, but their ability to dig deep and be resourceful has been permanent. It’s that resourcefulness and self sufficiency that is on my mind now, more than forty three years later. (Forty three years!  Wow.)  As we deal with Covid 19, I find myself thinking, “I’ve lived  through this. I’m a Droddy. I lived in a hot dog stand. I hauled water. I can make bread. I don’t mind hard work. We always plant a garden, anyway, so  I know how to survive when things aren’t ideal. We can find the good and stop whining and buckle down and get this done.” 

I think those things, but here’s the cold, hard truth: I’m a little too soft. I spend my days in a climate controlled building trying  to love and help kids.I teach them things that may or may not have meaning for them and their family right now, as they navigate these new waters. While I’ve made bread, ground wheat, tried to extract brown rice syrup (that didn’t go so well), landscaped a yard, traveled a bunch, earned a degree, and driven a lot of people crazy in my lifetime, I don’t do very many of those things on a daily basis. (Except for driving people crazy. I even drive myself crazy.) 

So, here’s the question I’ve been asking myself:  Can I??  

Can I still go without? If I had to make chicken fried steak tomorrow using my stored oatmeal, would I be excited about the challenge or would I resent my circumstances? (By the way, I did that once. And it wasn’t too bad.)  If the grocery stores continue to run low on produce, will I enjoy the challenge of growing and storing more of my own, and will I rise to the challenge? If I have to share my stored food with my older friends, will I be glad to do so, or will I be selfish?

I hope I can be true to my roots by choosing the best options in all of these scenarios.  My parents had pioneer spirit and determination. I have faith and hope and a willing heart.  Will it be enough? I’d like to think so. As my dad’s Uncle Howard says, “There’s something you can be sure of. Things will either get worse or they will get better.”  I want to be part of making things better. Heaven help me--and all of us-- as we rise to the challenge.